Former Flight Attendant Mitsuko Tottori is named as next president of JAL.

[Quickstatus]

culture

I don't think the culture is better with one sex or another TBH.

she is not a man.

Don't forget Nut rage...

Both women and men can do same jobs in an airline. A person is/should be promoted based not on biological sex but on their skills/experience that they can bring to the job

 

[Chicken]

I don't think the culture is better with one sex or another TBH.
Don't forget Nut rage...

Both women and men can do same jobs in an airline. A person is/should be promoted based not on biological sex but on their skills/experience that they can bring to the job,

What you said is true and correct on surface; but this is exactly where the problem is.

People are more likely to hire people who are like them. That's human nature. Back during stone age, if someone were to come up to you, but they didn't look like from your tribe, they may spear you. Hence, you would want to stay away from them.

The reason when you look at board level in organizations, and they are all men, but not only all men, but all men with the same characteristics, is exactly that. Have you ever seen a timid shy man but competent, ever appointed to a board? Never. Because loud month confident who would pat each other on the back would never hire a low voice speaking person.

How does that affect an airline (because we are on AFF)? All men, all Korean, all needed to respect birth age, all needed to respect men > women, all needed to respect seniority (captain > officers). Result was Asiana crashing and killing everyone onboard. All preventable.

This is why inserting women is the first step of inserting diversity, it's about brining in people who are different, people who would have faced a much tougher path to climb the aviation ladder, people who have seen more, so they could tell the people who have had it easy about the problems they may not have seen.

Hence, what you said is true on the surface, but it is also the surface which is covering a much bigger problem, because people do not get hired based on just technical competencies. People are hired because of culture.

 

[elanshin]

Both women and men can do same jobs in an airline. A person is/should be promoted based not on biological sex but on their skills/experience that they can bring to the job

Context is important in this situation. She would've started work for JAL decades ago when I'd imagine the concept of a female CEO was unthinkable.

Japanese corporate management has improved but it is still extremely lopsided as the expectation even today is that women are a sort of temporary work force until they marry and have kids. It's slowly shifting with each new graduating class but the overall prevailing sentiment can be felt and is still reflected in graduate salaries too. (Men start lower but have more progression opportunities).

 

[Quickstatus]

People are hired because of culture.

Sure but beware of replacing one culture with another "culture". As I said one is not necessarily better than the other.

 

[Chicken]

Sure but beware of replacing one culture with another "culture". As I said one is not necessarily better than the other.

Exactly the point. This is exactly why diversity is needed in a group setting, so that that is a variety of views, to ensure all gaps are closed, not just any one single 'group think'.

 

[Quickstatus]

diversity is needed in a group setting, so that that is a variety of views

Diversity of views and female representation may bring a different viewpoint. Prima Facie, one should assume there would be a difference, but whether that diversity is ultimately beneficial or whether it is all that different is not clear

 

[Chicken]

but whether that diversity is ultimately beneficial or whether it is all that different is not clear

Diversity wins: How inclusion matters
Our latest report shows not only that the business case remains robust but also that the relationship between diversity on executive teams and the likelihood of financial outperformance has strengthened over time. These findings emerge from our largest data set so far, encompassing 15 countries and more than 1,000 large companies.

Why Diverse Teams Are Smarter
A 2015 McKinsey report on 366 public companies found that those in the top quartile for ethnic and racial diversity in management were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry mean, and those in the top quartile for gender diversity were 15% more likely to have returns above the industry mean.
In a global analysis of 2,400 companies conducted by Credit Suisse, organizations with at least one female board member yielded higher return on equity and higher net income growth than those that did not have any women on the board.
And more specific on aviation:

During the 2023 Global Aviation Gender Summit, ICAO estimated that if women’s participation in aviation continued at its current pace of increase, it would take 450 years to achieve gender parity. We clearly do not have this amount of time to waste.
The industry is suffering labour shortages, which projections show will get worse.

Right, so we are supposed to be hiring people based on competencies, but women are 450 years behind men. Surely women are not 450 years more dumb than men?!

A review of the latest Civil Airmen Statistics indicates that a little over 4% of Airline Transport Certificate holders – the required certification to fly for a major carrier – are women.

So 24x of more men are capable of flying a plane? No one can explain this by just pointing at biological factors. There is a social factor to it, clearly. Not trying to downplay the jobs pilots and officers do, but maybe airlines won't have to pay a lot of money and pinch pilots from each other, if there were more pilots? And from a free market point of view, it would help you, the passenger, with your fare.

only 6% of commercial pilots, 26% air traffic controllers, 18% flight dispatchers and 9% of aerospace engineers are women
Um, what does that remind me of? Shortage of air traffic controllers leading to flight delays with no end in sight

And this is why diversity is good for the airlines, good for safety, good for on time running, good for fare (sorry pilots).

 

[Quickstatus]

so we are supposed to be hiring people based on competencies

Yes

Should we hire people who are exceptional but have childcare responsibilities - definitely, but that is not because they are of a certain gender , but because they have something to offer that any flexibility in the workplace is far outweighed by that person's appointment.

So 24x of more men are capable of flying a plane

There are a lot of professions which have skewed gender representation
Maybe men are more drawn to flying than women?
My daughter's Veterinary Science class has 4% male 96% female. the 4% were 2 blokes
Nursing these days remain predominantly female as is Early Childhood Education and teaching
Why is our equestrian club and every other equestrian club female dominated, whereas the model car club up the road from the horses are all boys.

I was deeply involved in amateur competitive snowsports as a parent
In any competition that I attended , the boys had almost double the starting number in any competition from junior >> senior >> national >> international

Bricklayers are predominantly male. Wierdly, no one is saying we should equalise that

Im pointing at strong biological factors which in some way and to some extent determine personal interest.
Thats not to say it should stay that way but is a reflection of many factors - personal interest is a major determinant. Nothing wrong with that.

Now the problem about diversity for diversity's sake is this:

If you want to engineer a social condition that pilots will be 50:50 M/F representation.
Lets say the intake you want is 500
There are 900 men and 100 women applicants..
Lets also say that each gender are equally represented in the ability you are looking for and the spread of ability is a Bell curve - half are above the mean and half below. That is to say men are no better at flying airplanes than women.
And so you pick on merit and you say you will only pick the ones above the mean
So approximately you will pick 450 men and 50 women.

Or do you say because of diversity requirements you pick all 75 of the women? If you did that you are now saying you are happy to reduce entry requirements for women just to tickbox "diversity". I would say then you are negatively affecting the overall ability of the pilot cohort.

I hope there is never going to be Diversity of ability

That the JL CEO is female is to be celebrated. Im assuming she got there by her own hard work and ability. Lets not increase diversity by reducing the meritocracy.

 

[drron]

When flying JAL I often ask what they think of their new President. The women quite naturally do say she is good I benefit because they are surprised I knew that. We have had 9 JAL flights since she became President. The most interesting was yesterday when there was an older male FA. He was delighted with her as it was the first time a President of JAL has spoken to him and asked if he had any concerns.

So to me it looks like they picked the right candidate.

 

[Chicken]

This is AFF, so I'm going to stick with aviation and points related to aviation.

There are a lot of professions which have skewed gender representation

Yes, correct, including in aviation.

Maybe men are more drawn to flying than women?

My daughter's Veterinary Science class has 4% male 96% female. the 4% were 2 blokes

Nursing these days remain predominantly female as is Early Childhood Education and teaching
Why is our equestrian club and every other equestrian club female dominated, whereas the model car club up the road from the horses are all boys.

Social conditioning.

When a child is a baby, most parents automatically give a baby boy cars and robots and He-Man, and they buy dolls and Barbie if the baby was a girl.

Then when a child goes to school, we tell the boys to go and play with things, break things, while we tell girls to be loving and look good. This is how boys end up doing engineering and science, while women end up in teaching nursing, etc. Hence, aviation is full of men.

I was deeply involved in amateur competitive snowsports as a parent
In any competition that I attended , the boys had almost double the starting number in any competition from junior >> senior >> national >> international

You may want to read up on why, as it is a problem with obesity: Millions of girls fall out of love with sports by teens

Bricklayers are predominantly male. Wierdly, no one is saying we should equalise that

There is : Encouraging more women to become tradies (NSW govt) . Once we get women into trade, it would be much easier to encourage to move into things like maintenance, and not just aircraft, but also ground infrastructure maintenance.

Im pointing at strong biological factors which in some way and to some extent determine personal interest.

The research interviews with secondary school students (mostly females) and educators revealed that the “blokey” image of the trades continues to put off girls: “They are for the boys who don’t do academic,” was a common message.
Gender segregation of the trades is attributed to:
- Gender essentialist views that women are innately better nurturers and service workers and men are adept at physical and problem-solving skills. These views have been perpetuated through popular culture (particularly toys, TV and books) and reinforced by parents, peers, teachers and employers; and
- Past protection by employers and unionists, through industrial law, of the manual trades and higher pay for men.

Aviation is not just flying planes. There are various business functions, in the air, ground support, there is so much to do, and excluding half the population is only making the system more fragile, and not using resources which are valuable.

 

[Quickstatus]

Social conditioning.

Hardly, it's significantly an innate biological expression even with social conditioning

Then when a child goes to school, we tell the boys to go and play with things, break things, while we tell girls to be loving and look good. This is how boys end up doing engineering and science, while women end up in teaching nursing, etc. Hence, aviation is full of men.

This is rubbish. Having raised boys and girls and educating them in coed schools and single sex schools...
No, gender expression is more or less binary. Boys will tend to do boys things and girls will tend to do girls things - with obviously significant overlap whatever the early childhood influence.

You may want to read up on why

The difference in participation was significant even in the primary school groups. The simplest explanation again according to Miss QS who reached World Cup skiing for Aus is that many girls are just not interested.

Once we get women into trade

Yes encourage them to get into a trade. There is nothing wrong with that. However, I suspect many professions/trades will be gender skewed one way or another in spite of that. Trying to get to 50:50 representation will be impossible. Blaming the lack of women in the trades on the the blokey culture is short sighted - the nature of the work is such that it will not be attractive to girls.

excluding half the population

No one is excluding anyone in my view.
Cabin crew and Airport customer facing and cabin crew predominantly female
LAME, Baggage handlers predominantly male.
Why aren't men equally represented in cabin crew and airport customer facing jobs - isn't that excluding half the population?. No, because It's not their interest.

Coming back to the CEO... the previous CEO was I think a LAME and prior to him a pilot. So it is excellent that one comes from the Cabin crew sector and with no "university" degree to boot. As we know the JL cabin crew are excellent in the routine and also whenhappens (JL516). Still, a long way to go for "Japan Inc" to increase female participation in the senior manager and executive levels.

 

[RSD]

This is backed by various research, especially companies often hire a woman CEO after the men had screwed up and created a scandal.

Oh you mean like Qantas for example?

 

[Chicken]

Oh you mean like Qantas for example?

Yeah, but nah