/ 让女性留在空军
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In my experience, women join the military aviation community for the same reasons as men. These reasons have to some extent become clichés, but they are nevertheless true. 我们加入是为了成为比我们更伟大的事业的一部分, 为了保卫国家, 以及在领导力和个人成长方面的机会. 有趣的问题是，是什么造就了人 保持 军事飞行员. This ongoing retention problem for the Air Force has resulted in a shortage of roughly 1500名飞行员. As more pilots transition to commercial airlines or other civilian jobs, 短缺将继续增加. When the Department of Defense conducts exit surveys with pilots at the end of their service commitments, many cite being overworked as the reason for transitioning out of the Air Force. The problem is that they are doing too many side jobs within the unit that detract from their main roles 和 missions. Others say that they dislike the requirement of completing milestones, 他们认为哪些是不相关的, 为了职业发展机会.
For women, the issues that lead to military separation are more complex. We too suffer from overwork 和 the tedium of completing potentially meaningless milestones. 然而，在某种程度上，我们也有一个局外人的地位. 以这种方式, aviation has much in common with STEM: many of its pioneers were women, whose contributions are under credited at best 和 forgotten at worst. 尽管历史上有很多女性创新者, STEM和航空领域的男性比例都不成比例.
纵观航空史，女飞行员一直是开拓者. 最著名的女飞行员， 爱蜜莉亚埃尔哈特, was the first person to complete many long 距离 solo flights 和 was a fierce advocate for fellow women aviators. 女飞行员 雷蒙·德·拉罗彻 和 海琳Dutrieu, 谁是1910年的第一批飞行员, 在有限的工程中创造记录和勇敢的飞机, 和男人承担同样的风险(完成同样的事情). 贝西科尔曼, who in 1920 faced impassable resistance in the US to attend flight school because she was black, moved to France (from her family’s sharecrop in Texas) so she could earn her wings. 她后来创造了许多杂技和飞行记录. 杰基科克伦她出生于1906年，是她那一代最优秀的赛车飞行员之一. 在她死的时候, 没有其他飞行员的速度比他快, 距离, 或者航空史上的高度记录. She also was the driving force 和 director of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), an organization of women who flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft during WWII.
因为航空史的选择性记忆, flying became 和 保持s perceived as a male dominated pursuit where pilots like 罗宾岁 被称赞却很少有人记得. 一年中的两个月, 飞行员长胡子, 向罗宾·奥尔兹致敬, 是谁留了那出了名的不合规定的小胡子 “反抗的姿态” 对他的上级和在越南战争期间的中队士气. 留胡子的传统一直延续至今, 这是一项只有男人才能做的工作, 结果就是, women physically cannot participate 和 are entirely excluded from such camaraderie. Women may wear fake mustaches during unofficial events or judge mustache competitions, but both of these options highlight the othering of women: unable to enter the competition themselves or to share a common experience with their fellow aviators. 这种选择性的传统, 还有其他类似的, 这将进一步巩固男性主导的飞行员观念. 飞行员可以, 原则上, choose any number of historical pilots to honor 和 commemorate; they choose to continue a tradition in which women are excluded from the commemoration.
如今空军中的女性必须更加努力才能被纳入其中, whether it is fighting to fit into the existing culture or fighting to change it. 几十年来，女人喜欢 珍妮·莱维特将军 激励妇女和女孩追求航空. Many men in leadership roles are also trying to level the playing field. In my experience, however, the problem lies within the ranks of young lieutenants. 我曾有过这样的怀疑, 判断, 还有我年轻的男性同伴, 我知道其他女性也有类似的经历. This raises the question of why aviation officers wait until they are in leadership roles to support women. 领导女性谈论如何, 他们刚加入中队的时候, 他们会“合得来”,” hoping to change things when they were in comm和 several years later. The “bro” culture for which the military aviation community is known is perpetuated mostly by the newly indoctrinated, 一个善意的指挥官也很难改变这一点. The men of the flying squadrons enjoy the prestige of being a pilot, 他们把自己的男子气概包装成自我价值感, 这让他们更难将航空和男子气概分离开来. This means that it is all the harder for women to be recognized as an equally capable pilot; we lack the masculine component. Camaraderie 和 family-like relationships should exist in such a dangerous 和 exhilarating field, but the community bond should not be built on the shared masculinity that the majority (for now) enjoys.
The sense of outsider status is one reason why today’s pilots are so rarely women. Sometimes people say that women simply are not interested, but that is flatly false. 飞行是非常有趣和具有挑战性的, engaging both the mind 和 the body to respond to multiple external stimuli. It involves constantly reviewing existing parameters 和 making split-second decisions based on an influx of new information. Aviation does not, however, contain any aspects that are inherently masculine or feminine. Being attracted by a career that includes risk, reward, 和 skill is gender-neutral. The chilling effect that prevents women from joining or staying in the Air Force comes from somewhere else. 一开始，妇女就对航空感兴趣超过25,000名wasp申请了约1,000个名额, after the general public knew of the danger involved—和 the interest 保持s undimmed today. But the role of women in aviation puts us in a lose-lose situation: if we try to fit in, we must at least tacitly endorse the pernicious bro-culture; if we try to change the culture from the inside, 我们把自己置于疏远和报复的危险之中. Indeed, even attaching one’s name to an essay like this is dangerous.
女性有兴趣也有能力成为飞行员, 但我们必须更加努力地证明我们的能力. The culture should continue to be tight-knit because of the danger 和 sacrifices required, 但它可以来自作为飞行员的共同经历, not the men-only fraternity feel that plagues many of today’s Air Force aviation squadrons. Without this change in culture, women will continue to be the minority for decades to come.
戴安娜·普林斯在航空业工作, 和 has been working to change women’s experiences in the Air Force since World War II.
图片来源:“黄蜂飞行员弗朗西斯·格林, 玛格丽特·基什内尔, 安瓦尔德内尔, 和 Blanche Osborne at the four-engine school at Lockbourne Army Airfiled, 俄亥俄州, 大约在1944年, U.S. 空军，”通过Shutterstock, 2017年6月30日.
