Home

Have Women Leaders Been Used to Maintain the Patriarchy?

Chisom Udeze makes the case that despite the progress women have made in the past 50 years, it is an illusion because it is designed to uphold the patriarchy. She argues that when we try to force cultural change, we are no longer tolerated and retribution is swift.

By Kathryn B. Creedy

I was at once validated and challenged as I listened to Chisom Udeze’s podcast Gender Equality is Designed for Some White Women, a correct and uncomfortable look at our efforts at equality.

I’ve long noted the corporate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts inside aviation and aerospace companies seems to stop at women – and I realized Udeze is right – it stops at white women. This is not to say women, including women of color, haven’t broken the glass ceiling but it is to say their power for change is questionable. Thankfully, there are hundreds of others working to connect with underrepresented communities to bring them the opportunities our careers represent.

“Big companies benefit because with more women in leadership it is better PR,” Udeze stated. “But the extraction doesn’t change. Think about the men in this new ‘equality’. What we have seen to date does not to address their dominance. White women are given access to power but no accountability for how they use it. If representation doesn’t come with structural change, it’s performance. If access doesn’t come with accountability its BS, quite frankly.”

The uncomfortable bit here is whether or not our aviation/aerospace womens’ organizations are doing the same thing. I’m frankly not sure, I just know what I observe.

I do know the culture women face is the same destructive culture affecting people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, the disabled, the neurodiverse – both male and female. I also know that every underrepresented group has their own organization to represent the different constituencies and their needs. Finally, I know we haven’t come together as one voice to force cultural change.