Everyone knows being a female in todays society is hard enough, now picture the 1920's in which women were just beginning to be allowed to work the same jobs as men. Female aircraft mechanics, like myself, are stuck in that time. Women in this aviation field are seen by a great deal of their male counterparts as the weakest link. I myself have encountered discrimination and resistance from my male peers when I have tried to complete a task "only men should do". Last May I made a decision to defy all odds and try my hand at the aviation maintenance field. I was met with both open arms and disdain.
On a particularly windy day, myself and another male classmate volunteered to be hoisted up beside the Gulfstream II aircraft that was donated to us to work on. This aircraft was equipped with two Rolls Royce Spey 511-8 dual spool, low bypass, 17 stage compressor turbojet. The skin panels that cover the engines' components are called cowlings. Part of the task myself and my classmate had to accomplish was the removal of the cowlings in order to find each engines' data plate that states its part number and serial number. Although I was hoisted up very close to the engine I was incapable of holding up the cowling in order to read the engine's information. However, I found a way to hold it up enough for my partner to get underneath with a flashlight. I was completely aware when I volunteered for this venture that my short stature would be an issue at some point or another but i never figured my peers would give me slack for it. The entirety of the process my peers were making ridiculous remarks from below the hoist that made me feel inferior to them. Some would say "get her down from there, she's not doing anything useful" or "watch your nails, you don't want to break one".
This is only one of my many encounters with discrimination in the field, not to mention the countless other instances that my fellow female aircraft mechanics are faced with every time they touch an aircraft. Even though things like this should deter me and force me to choose another career field, it doesn't. In fact, it gives me motivation to disprove everyone thats doubted me. If everyone walked away from their passion when they were doubted, we would never have Beethoven's marvelous symphonies, we wouldn't have Einsteins algorithms, we wouldn't have a lot of things we have today. I could never walk away from something that breathes life into me. I could listen to someone tell me about a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 or a General Electric GE90 all day and never get bored. Airplanes are my passion and I'ld never walk away from that regardless of how many people are against me. At the end of the day I'll be able to say I was part of the wave of female mechanics that changed the industry.
"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that airplanes take off against the wind, not with it" -Henry Ford.
