Perception of female commercial pilots about the challenges, motivation, and support in their professional life
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Date
2016
Authors
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Publisher
University of Management and Technology Lahore
Abstract
This study provides a qualitative analysis of the perceptions derived from the experiences of the Pakistani female pilots, and gender related behavioral issues in the field. This research pursues the question, how do female pilots experience working in commercial aviation, and what gendered behavior do they face while working in this field in Pakistani cultural context? The objectives of this study were to explore the subjective experience of female pilots, perception of being a woman pilot in our culture, gender related issues, level of acceptance from maledominated society and male members’ attitude towards female pilots. With these questions, thisstudy brings to light the subjective experience of a woman as a commercial pilot. This study usedsemi-structured interview method on a small sample of five female pilots (aged 35-50) working as commercial pilots. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) technique Collaizi’s stepsof phenomenological analysis technique were used for data analysis. Participants reported that commercial aviation is a unique field in which despite of much gender discrimination, male resistance and discriminating behaviours of the co-pilots by various means and certain other challenges, still they perceive it as a charming and satisfying field, and as a very means to increase one’s self-esteem, they never felt regret against joining commercial aviation and got over all the emotional hindrances that were drawn from society. Intrinsic motivation,instructors’ support and appreciation, family support, charming uniform, job satisfaction andflying of plane itself were the encouraging factors that suppressed their fears of giving up while facing barriers from society and the field, and fear of being failed or crashing planes and other relative failures. The study suggests the need of more empirical qualitative work to explore social hindrances or emotional exploitations those force many of the girls who wish of becoming female pilots not to join commercial aviation.
Description
Supervised by: Azher Hameed Qamar
Keywords
Pakistani female pilots, woman pilot in our culture, MS Thesis