How Female-Focused is the Aviation Industry?

...are women really choosing not to enter the industry or are women being designed out before the choice is even there?

When delving into the topic of a lack of female representation in traditionally male-dominated aviation fields, we tend to turn our attention to the women themselves. Do women really want to become pilots or engineers? Are women equipped with the correct skills and attributes for the job? Is there a reason women are not choosing these careers? On the contrary, how often do we look at the industry itself? The infrastructure, the design, and the processes, all have most likely been designed by men, for men. Therefore, are women really choosing not to enter the industry or are women being designedout before the choice is even there?

Military Aviation

Each aircraft is designed with a specific set of specifications in mind to accommodate a target population of people. This enables the correct seating position, visibility outside of the aircraft, and the ability to comfortably reach all controls for the safety of operation. Traditionally, these design parameters have been determined by the average height and anthropological measurements of a male pilot.

To emphasise the significance this has, only 9% of women in the US Airforce currently meet the sizing criteria for the F-15, and the new EX variant is not set to see an improvement in this percentage. Whilst the US Airforce and UK RAF have both removed their minimum height requirements, there is still an anthropometric screening process to ensure pilots can safely fly. However, without a modification in aircraft design, a disproportionate number of women are still excluded due to their proportions. For some, erasure of the minimum height requirement would seem to provide that all important in, nevertheless those that do seemingly ‘fit’ are often faced with disappointment further down the line.

Those women who do pass the anthropometric screening to fly aircraft with a wider height and weight range, often still can’t qualify, as the training aircraft used for fighter pilot training have a small accommodation envelope for women. The T-38, a common training aircraft, can accommodate only 41% of women. Designing aircraft with the general population in mind, rather than the male population is the key, however, when new designs are submitted, systems are still designed around the existing pool of pilots. The process of designing future systems needs to change otherwise the cycle will never cease to break.

Commercial Aviation

For commercial aviation the requirements are similar, a person needs to be able to comfortably reach the controls. The heights corresponding to ease of access to controls for two popular commercial aircraft, the A320, and the B737 are 1.58m - 1.91m, and 1.57m – 1.91m respectively.

The average height of a healthy male is 1.76m, which when compared to the height ranges for the two above popular aircraft, is close to the mean. A woman’s average height however is 1.63m, much closer to the lower end of our range.

This means a higher percentage of women will fall outside the comfortable reach of controls and therefore the height requirements many airlines impose. Manufacturers are designing with male pilots in mind, which can make replicating the design body position for controllability and the correct visual picture for female pilots more challenging.

Aerospace and Engineering

Gender bias design where men are considered the default, goes further than just the design of aircraft. The aerospace industry saw disapproval when NASA cancelled its all-female spacewalk due to the lack of availability of medium-sized spacesuits to fit their female astronauts. Small-sized suits were cancelled in the 1990s with only medium, large, and extra-large now available. This was thought to disqualify a third of women.

Female engineers have reported ill-fitting workwear that gets caught in machinery, bigger boots that mean trips and falls, and eye protection designed for wider faces. Personal protective equipment may simply not fit resulting in either a degradation of safety or a loss of opportunity due to inadequate protection from the equipment available. Whilst there are alternatives, workplaces often do not invest due to the expense and accounts of ill-fitting due to them still being designed as copies of the male versions.

It can be easy to assume women are no longer restricted when it comes to aviation careers and think no more about gender within the workplace. However, when women want to work within the industry, and the technology and equipment aren’t designed to let them thrive, we must look through a gendered lens. The industry has been designed by men, and women have been expected to ‘fit’ in. With limited research in gender-related aviation design, more must be done to ensure there is no physical bias against women. Let’s start designing women in and approach the target population for new designs with men and women in mind.