Aviation’s Blind Spot: Implicit Gender Bias

As the aviation industry promotes aviation careers to women and girls and advocates for gender equality, we need to reevaluate established procedures and consider how these impact everyone.

The processes for hiring and promoting must provide opportunity if we want to support women entering the industry, and allow for the necessary career progression to retain the current female workforce.

When we have an idea of what an ideal candidate should look like, it’s more complex than we may realise to see past these preconceptions. A bias is an inclination or prejudice towards a person or group of people. Biases are not just formed from our opinions but by our background, past experiences, societal stereotypes and cultural context.

‘Implicit bias’ is the negative prejudices and attitudes we unconsciously hold about people or groups of people. Implicit bias can cause us to act against our conscious value system and personal morals without realising. Often times this discrimination is subtle, making it difficult to make a case under anti-discrimination law.

The Effects on Women: 

Minorities are disproportionately affected by biases; this can negatively impact a person's professional opportunities particularly in hiring and promotions. In aviation the majority of careers are male dominated making women a minority. 

‘Affinity bias’ is a sub-conscious preference for people who share the same qualities as you. We often connect with the same gender more easily and we can relate to their emotional and physical experiences. 

In recruiting, unconscious bias often expresses a preference for one candidate or another because of “culture fit.” Men will be more adjusted to working a job in a male-dominated industry and companies may presume it will be easier to accommodate them.

Pregnancy bias doesn't just affect women who are currently pregnant. The preconception that women will require more time off work in the future for either maternity leave or childcare reasons can impact career progression whether they plan on having children or not.

Academic Studies:

A 2012 study by Princeton University asked faculty members of top research institutions in America to recruit for a laboratory manager position in a majority male industry. Despite the candidates having identical resumes, the female candidates were scored significantly lower on competency and hireability, they were offered a lower starting salary and less career mentoring opportunities. Despite expressing encouragement toward emerging female scientists, faculty members of both genders were affected by enduring cultural stereotypes about women’s lack of competence that translated into biases in student evaluation and mentoring.

Embry Riddle Aeronautical University investigated bias towards commercial airline pilots and flight students in the United States. Participants were shown photographs of different pilots and then rated their opinions on the quality of the pilot (e.g. professionalism, flight safety, smoothness of flight, and their confidence in the pilot). Participants favoured White male pilots in all conditions. These findings suggest that deep-rooted biases are present towards pilots with implications demonstrating that biases influence the hiring processes for female and minority pilots.

Combatting Personal Biases:

The first and most important step is awareness and acknowledgement of personal biases. Reflecting on how individual upbringing, experiences and external influences from society may impact judgement. Implicit bias is an unconscious process; by taking time to analyse and understand our decisions we can make more well-rounded and informed choices.

Be educated on other groups, cultures and lifestyles. Speak to people who’ve had different experiences to you. Many prejudices are taught from parents, friends and society; it takes time and effort to unlearn these.

Companies and organisations should structure the interview process, set clear criteria before the interview that focuses on assessing candidates' skills. Educate your interviewing panel on implicit bias and its effects. After interviews, have evaluation procedures in place to analyse decision-making processes. Open a dialogue on potential biases, by creating an open culture where individuals can acknowledge their biases and respond to others’ biases.

Everyone has biases, although it’s not possible to eradicate bias, it's valuable to be aware of how it may impact decision-making to make more conscious and inclusive decisions.

1) A., C., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J., & Handelsman, J. (2012). Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(41), 16474-16479. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109

2) Ragbir, N. K., Rice, S., Winter, S. R., Baugh, B. S., Milner, M. N., Gupta, M. B., Valecha, D. O., Candelaria-Oquendo, K., Capps, J., & Neal, J. G. (2021). An examination of consumer bias against female and minority commercial pilots. Technology in Society, 64, 101492. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2020.101492