That’s not isolated to aviation. You see this across all sorts of technical trades, and the knee jerk reaction is to assume that women are somehow being held back from these roles, when the answer may be simpler than you think.
11.5 of site trades are women, and only 3% are electricians.
In my own trade of IT, the vast majority are men, and for the research unit I work for the psychologists could probably explain that. In their trade, where we get new PhD students every year, by a significant margin women are more numerous than men.
Some roles attract more men, some attract more women. Incentives are unlikely to change that.
I was actually kind of curious, so I went back through all the user accounts I set up this year to date, 60 of them were women, and 18 were men. I’m not sure what my colleagues did though, but that’s the kind of split I see every year in Neuroscience.
It’s probably fair to say that aviation, and IT, share some common elements like problem solving, and analytical thinking, and studies have shown than men tend to score higher on those kinds of tests.
It’s a rare breed that bucks that trend, but these psychological differences between the sexes are probably a large driver behind the uptake in certain jobs.
I have to say that I disagree with the OP, particularly what they had said in the above quote. You are boxing women into certain roles, as if though they should all be interested in midwifery or churning out babies.
There is absolutely nothing stopping women enjoying this game as it is. Like men, perhaps they want to fly a 747 or an A380 ferrying passengers across the world, or perhaps they would like to fly as a fighter pilot.
True. But I think we have different opinions about the reason for that. You say there are biological/psychological reasons. I’d argue that it’s caused by the way our society functions.
I think the majority of people tend to choose a path for themselves that gives them the most acceptance, love and appreciation. It’s hard to choose a way where you have to overcome a lot of opposition. The technical fields that we talk about (Aviation, IT) have traditionally been hugely male-dominated. It’s a lot harder for girls to pursue such a career. Maybe think about what you’d feel like if you’re a boy who wants to do ballet. It takes a lot of courage to even start, and a huge amount of resilience to stay in it, despite the negativity, mean comments and so on that you would certainly get.
And then there’s the whole issue about the level of experience you start out with.
A girl who’s starting out in a technical trade, was she given Lego to play with as a child, or a baby doll? Was she given technology-themed books to read about airplanes and spaceships? Or were the books about unicorns and princesses? And maybe she was even given Lego or cars or toy planes by their familiy, but she maybe wasn’t interested because all her friends had dolls to play with. Kids don’t want to be special or different, they want to fit in!
All these are examples of how our society shapes our brains and what skills we develop. There are tons of such examples in all areas of life.
And ironically, I think it’s even more difficult for girls to enter flight simulation than real aviation. I’ve seen many time that as soon as a female simmer was online on Vatsim or IVAO, people started making a fuzz about it. I can fully understand that it scares people off. It’s even more apparent in some other online games I play. Whenever there’s a girl on the channel, male gamers start acting like ■■■■■■ flooding her with messages, usually starting with something like “Are you really a girl?”. No wonder most female gamers prefer to pose as males so they don’t have to put up with those people who act like they are on a dating platform,
So, the best thing anybody can do to attract more women is to ACT NORMAL when there’s a girl online. Just ignore the fact that she’s a girl and behave like you would with any other male simmer. Even that would be a huge step forward.
Nature, or nurture is a part of it, yes. A girl growing up with a parent who is a pilot is more likely to have an interest in aviation than if their parent was a teacher, for example.
From your paragraph above you can understand why MS/Asobo want to avoid a built-in VoIP client. MSFS isn’t CoD, or FIFA, so won’t attract quite the same audience, but the possibility is there. Their mantra of “a pilot is a pilot”, and being rated for all audiences does by necessity let in those who are the most immature.
Instead of telling us to educate ourselves, why don’t you explain your reasoning? I have done a fair bit of paying attention to the diversity and inclusion buzz words being thrown around, and so far the only reason for wanting more women (or any group) in certain positions is to have more women in those positions. I’ve yet to see any real argument where having more women is inherently better. Think about it, are there not also men that come from very diverse backgrounds, with their own experiences of which can contribute to workplace culture? Discrimination and harassment is something to try removing, but the current social climate is trending towards discrimination and harassment is ok as long as you are doing it to the right people (men), and not towards actually removing it.
In the workplace and the sim, all this talk about tailoring the experience to attract women specifically just sounds more like objectifying them rather than being a welcoming community. We don’t see this in the reverse. We don’t see a push to attract more men onto playing games traditionally played by women. We just understand that men typically are simply not interested in those types of games.
Then again, you might get somewhere if you had a cutesy veterinarian game that added a hack and slash component. Maybe the pets you couldn’t save come back as zombie animals and you have to balance your working hours between trying to save animals and trying to save the town. Lol
The better option would be advertisements highlighting all the cool stuff about the sim, with a tag line that highlights everyone being welcome. Those could easily be published in women focused areas, then let the chips fall where they may.
I’ve tried to get my Mrs interested in aviation and flight simming. She just said, “I’d rather be on the real thing, heading off for some sun.” She just doesn’t get why anyone would sit in front of a screen trying to fly a virtual plane. When she’s watching me fly, she’s like:
“Well where’s all the people in the airport?”
“Why does our house look like a church?”
“What do you do when you get to where you’re going?”
Now, I try to explain everything as best I can, but you can just see her eyes glaze over with boredem lol.
You can’t win everything, but then why do you need to. She’s quite happy doing her own thing.
Now, my Mum on the other hand is a bit more open minded, but she has no internet so that’s a problem straight away.
I like the thought you put into this and all of the fun ideas presented to increase mission variety. However I disagree that it should be done just to attract more women into the sim…it will attract EVERYONE! I’d love to fly most of those missions myself.
In my real life flying and skydiving, I have seen no discrimination between men and women. But it was sport, hobby and not professional career.
On a personal level, my wife has never been interested in aviation, neither my brothers. In fact, except a friend that I’ve made when we learned flying gliders, nobody in my circle is interested in aviation…
Do I think women should be hired just to ensure a 50/50 split. No.
Do I think the workplace/ sim should be tailored specifically to women. No.
People should be able to work in industry based purely on merit.
It may well be that only 7% of women want to be pilots and that’s absolutely fine but until we remove any barriers & discrimination then we will never know how much of that is a true figure/ representation.
Going back to the OP post “Attracting more women to MSFS 2024”
ANYTHING that attempts to attract people of different race/ gender/ age group can surely only be considered a positive?
While I can see that the OP put a lot of thought into this, putting in any specific type of missions aimed at increasing some demographic is bound to fail if they have no interest to begin with. Say these missions DID appeal to a demographic. They would still have to do all the training missions and certifications to get to the type of mission they were interested in, and thus you would probably lose them in the process if THAT was the only reason they were trying FS2024.
Also, even if missions of that type were put in to appeal to a demographic, you then have to somehow advertise to make the general population know about it. The thing then is, if that is the SOLE thing focused on in this advertising, you are potentially turning off other demographics.
Other hobbies are men-driven as well (like hunting and woodworking for example) and they’ve endured through generations. Instead of directing efforts toward women in particular, I think they should be directed towards children and young adults. Look at the NFL for example - they have games on Nickelodeon because they’re looking at kids as their future. The same should apply here, regardless of sex.
As a young women, your post doesn’t encourage me into MSFS community. Your post is sexist and is stereotyping us women. Caregiving, family, kids and pregnancy are societal perceptions of roles women should be expected to do not men. In 2024, it’s painful that these conversations are still happening.
In aviation, I look up to people such as Amelia Earhart, Sunita Williams, and other women who have shown time and time again that women are capable at anything. We are calm and resilient under pressure and able to take on the most dangerous mission without issue. Women actually perform better than men on average.
Women don’t need women minded societal perceptions role games. Women like myself want to be treated equally and allowed to be who we want to be.
Not quite related, but I did make sure to pick a commercial that if flight related. This statement made me think of Women First Insurance. Its a South African car insurance company that only insures women.
