On the PAL flight back from Manila the other day, “This is your captain speaking…..” was a woman’s voice. I took notice because I couldn’t remember having a woman flight captain before.
Of course, that’s probably because I rarely fly, or only when really necessary, and for the reason that we’re urged, in this environmentally-critical time, to avoid air travel’s excessively-high carbon footprint. (Some well-known seriously-committed environmentalists have given up flying altogether.)
But to get back to Captain Martinez, for that was her name, I tried to hang back when passengers were disembarking, to see if I could briefly talk to her. But perhaps technical tasks kept her in the flight deck and I finally had to go.
Looking up the subject, it seems that PAL’s first female captain started flying in 1993, and that since then, their women pilots number 54. However, it remains a male-dominated profession with women comprising only 2 percent of pilots across all airlines in 2016.
The Manila meeting of the Philippine Commission on Women precisely discussed the situations and issues of women across different sectors. One group I had not encountered before was Pinay Tradeswomen: Women in Construction. These are women welders, masons, electricians, and painters mostly in Luzon, and who have organized to try to improve their employment opportunities and the terms and conditions of their work. They don’t have an easy time of it as gender bias is still the norm.
Then I was suddenly reminded that long ago when I planned to rent a run-down bungalow in Quezon City, a friend referred me to her architect sister. She brought a small team of women to do the renovation work, and they did a terrific job! A pioneering group of women 25 years ago, but today Pinay Tradeswomen is struggling.
It’s known that economies strongly benefit when women are significantly involved in different sectors of the economy.
Of course, there are many women in the liberal professions, most from families that could afford higher education. But rural women do very poorly, women in the informal sector generally just survive, and women’s under- and unemployment rates remain high.
When “livelihood” programs for women are implemented, they often tend to be small scale, artisanal production of food products, handicrafts, souvenir items or the like, and do not achieve significant scale to really make a difference.
What would be needed is economic planning for women, employment policies, scholarships and training for women on a preferential basis, and services for child-minding.
Yes, that means putting resources where they’re needed. But instead, government continues to pursue and promote labor migration, with all its attendant risks and problems for women OFWs and their families, in order to defuse the pressures of unemployment, and to allow it to muddle along with lax and ineffective economic development and job creation.
A shameful policy that we don’t hear political leaders talk of ending.
Basically, government promotes the export of labor to secure the benefits of remittances.
More and better work for women, in all fields including those usually thought of as being men’s domain, that’s what government should apply a gender lens to plan.
Had I managed to meet PAL Captain Martinez that day, I would have liked to tell her that I particularly enjoyed the flight knowing she was in command!
________________________________
Author’s email: h.cecilia7@gmail.com
