Ex-FAA Official: Piloting Airplanes Is "Pretty Much A Male Game"

Must be a slow news day for Fox. The outlet is currently flipping its shit over some inclusionary language recommendations made by the world’s largest commercial pilot union… three years ago.

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And yeah, maybe it’s a slow news day here too (we’re all off for Juneteenth) but it’s a good excuse to make fun of the absolute chicken brains over at Fox. Here’s the “story,” please ready your pearls for clutching:

Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l, represents over 70,000 pilots worldwide and states that it collaborates with a United Nations agency on its policies. According to a diversity, equity and inclusion language guide released in 2021, the ALPA lists numerous terms and phrases to avoid — especially “masculine generalizations” — that it deemed to be non-inclusive.

“Inclusive language in communications is essential to our union’s solidarity and collective strength and is an important factor in maintaining flight safety,” the guide states. “The purpose of this language guide is to offer examples of terms and phrases that promote inclusion and equity.”

ALPA, for example, suggested replacing the word “cockpit” with “flight deck.” The purportedly offensive term “has been and may be used in a derogatory way to exclude women in the piloting profession,” the guide states.

“Many women have heard a variation of ‘It is called a cockpit for a reason’ by a male pilot, suggesting that women do not belong in the piloting profession,” the guide said.

But Wall Street Journal columnist and linguist Ben Zimmer wrote that the term “cockpit” originated from cockfighting in 16th century England.

This explanation of the origins of “cockpit” seems like a non sequitur to me. Fox, doesn’t seem to get that the original reason a term has no bearing on how it is now used now. Also, why is it better to refer to the area where professionals are safely operating an aircraft full of people as the site of an outdated blood sport? I just have so many questions.

The ALPA also recommends against using “guys” to refer to a group of people and to avoid using phrases that could alienate different family structures, like reverting to “mother/father” as the default when speaking to family groups. Clearly this is a sign of the decline of Western society and a desire for no one to have mothers or fathers ever again. Fox experts went on to explain how they are unable to comprehend doing two things at once:

“Diversity really has nothing to do with safe travel,” a former Federal Aviation Administration safety team representative, Kyle Bailey, told Fox News Digital about the trend of DEI in the airline industry. “It’s basically all a matter of flight time, your credentials, your background, how much flight experience you have and also your training.”

“Regardless of what proposed hiring practices are put into place, the bottom line is … piloting is basically a male occupation. You don’t find little girls when they’re 10 years old saying, ‘Hey, I want to be an airline pilot’ or playing with little model airplanes or flying model airplanes. It’s pretty much a male game, like it or not,” Bailey said.

When I was in middle school, we had Career Day. I was the only girl who signed up to hear the pilot speak (this was common for me. I was also the only girl interested in the firefighter and the mortician) and it was a formative moment for me when a woman pilot walked into the room. For the next 45 minutes, it was like she was speaking only to me. I never became a pilot, but I did end up in a male-dominated field, and all I can say to Kyle Bailey is, fuck you. You’re the reason we need DEI language in the first goddamn place.

Diversity doesn’t have anything to do with safe air travel…except for the example cited by Fox itself about qualified women pilots being discouraged away from the “cockpit” via outdate language. As for making travel more comfortable for, you know, the travelers, by using inclusive language, no one was saying doing that would make air travel safer—just more pleasant for people use to unpleasant treatment.

Wouldn’t be nice to have so few problems you have to make some up?