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“Inclusion is Not About Special Treatment it is About Different Design”

By Kathryn B. Creedy

Those are the words of Katherine Moloney, CEO, Ellevate (her) Aviation as she was speaking to Shaesta Waiz on her powerful Aviate Podcast. The discussion was a game changer for me because it raised so many issues being discussed on LinkedIn and in the halls of the recent Women in Aviation International conference. The podcast link is below is here: Aviate with Shaesta and Katherine Moloney

While Ellevate (her) is European focused, it is expanding into Africa and just opened a Middle East office, spreading the support for women in aviation far afield from its British roots.

The discussion was about aviation design of uniforms and of aircraft, something I learned about during Jessica Rutterber’s presentation at WAI. While I’ve long complained about uniforms along with pilots and aviation maintenance technicians, I never thought of aircraft design, unless I was hitting the head on a commercial aircraft. Yeah, you know what I mean.

“Research we’ve done indicates 40% of flight schools do not provide a woman’s uniform, constituting another barrier for women,” Moloney told Waiz in the interview. “In addition, 16% of flight or engineering companies do not have women’s facilities. Those may not seem to be big things in the grand scheme of things, but they say you don’t belong here. When you look at manuals, books and exams they all refer to a pilot as ‘he’ and that contributes to the culture as well. That says you don’t belong. That is your baseline that shows you won’t be equal.”