Well, no, because that is, in my experience, true. Most woman aren’t’ interested in mechanical things. However, it might be a good thing to add “but those women who are should be taken just as seriously as men interested in mechanical things” rather than, as was done to me in my youth, discouraged from pursuing such things as “unladylike”.
See, there’s a subtle difference there. You started out saying “most women aren’t interested in mechanical things”, which implies something about the typical woman, but leaves space for the atypical women who are, in fact, interested in such things. The statement allows both sorts of women to be women.
The second statement - “women aren’t interested in such things” implies that hte rule applies to ALL women, with a possible implication that a woman who IS interested in mechanical things somehow isn’t a true woman.
I have no problem with a someone saying “That’s an unusual interest for a woman” when, in fact, it IS an unusual interest for a woman statistically speaking. Even among pilots I was an outlier - in the US the ratio of men to women who are pilots is somewhere between 12:1 and 20:1, depending on specific area of aviation, but I started in ultralights when the male:female ratio was closer to 200:1. Yes, I was an anomaly even among female pilots. I didn’t and still don’t have a problem with saying that, or having others say it. What does irk me is someone saying my interest in aviation is un-lady-like or unfeminine because that implies that somehow I am not a “real” woman. It is possible to have an unusual interest and still be fully female, just as it is possible for a man to be, say, a nurse and still be a heterosexual, fully manly male.
I think with flying the glass gender ceiling is fading fast. It’s not entirely gone, but women have unequivocally shown we CAN do it, women hold some impressive aviation records (for example - the pilot with the greatest total hours, and the greatest total commercial hours, is Evelyn Johnson of Morristown, Tennessee. At 60,000+ hours she has double what the average retiring airline pilot does, and all the more impressive because she didn’t start flying until age 35 or so if I recall). Women not only fly everything that men do, to the exact same standards, but we also have a lower accident rate. It’s kind of hard to argue we’re incompetent at this point.
However, women aren’t going into aviation at the same rate men are. This is due to several factors. There is still social pressure in some areas against such a thing. This can range from people thinking the only job a woman should aspire to his motherhood and housewife, to thinking it’s a “man’s job”. There is also, however, a biological factor. Women can undergo significant physical changes due to pregnancy and childbirth, and those can make holding onto a pilot’s physical clearance more difficult for her than for her male collegues. Most women pilots I know put off childbearing to later than average, and it’s nothing unusual for them to be childless (I happen to be without offspring myself. Come to think of it, Evelyn Johnson never had children either. Or Amelia Earhart. Or a lot of other female pilots of note). Pilots need to be able to visualize in three dimensions - a talent more common among men than women, though obviously quite a few women do have that ability. And so on.
So, there are some biological and cultural factors at work that likely mean there will always be more men than women who are pilots.
Anyhow - yes, it WAS a problem in my youth that people would discourage my interest in mechanical or masculine pursuits. I was the first girl in my school district to take woodshop, for example, and apparently that was so controversial in the 1970’s that it went to the board of the school district as to whether or not I’d be permitted to take that class. Ditto for drafting - and the drafting teacher threatened to quit rather than have a girl in his class. Yes, that WAS discouraging. Looking back, I probably would have been happier in many ways learning a traditional “trade” like carpentry or plumbing or the like. Instead, I was actively discouraged and sent to charm school to make me more “lady-like”. TWICE! I was sent to freakin’ charm school TWICE! (Obviously, it didn’t take very well…)
It’s not as much as issue these days. Yes, prejudice still exists, but it’s not as intense as when I was a child. We’ve become accustomed, at least somewhat, to women in traditionally “men’s jobs” and pursuing traditionally male interests. It’s not as shocking as it used to be.
