Planes don't fly on masculinity: Why society views women in transportation as an anomaly

By Langalihle Mhlanga The plane had barely left the ground before everything started going wrong. Air traffic controllers were left stunned when a loud explosion and the emergence of a thick cloud of black smoke replaced the airspace Air Algerie Flight 6289 had been mere moments before. In one of my all-time favorite shows, Mayday Air Disaster, Season 26 (the most recent season), Episode 7, entitled “Divided in Crisis” and released on February 16, 2025, investigators revisit the harrowing tragedy of Air Algerie Flight 6289, a Boeing 737-200 that crashed shortly after takeoff from Tamanrasset Airport in southern Algeria at the end of a runway on March 6, 2003. What began as a routine flight in perfect weather conditions quickly spiraled into catastrophe after an engine failure during takeoff forced the crew into several split-second decisions that ultimately led to the loss of the flight. There were two pilots in the cockpit that day: the woman pilot, who was supposed to be in charge of flight controls, and the supervising pilot, who was an older man. Watching this particular episode unsettled me, but not for the obvious reasons. It’s quite terrifying how quickly everyday decisions and mundane moments can turn into irreversible tragedies. That particular episode forced me to delve into why society as a whole views women in transportation as an anomaly. Stereotypes about African women in transportation I’m a 23-year-old African woman, and I have spent most of my life noticing how competence is still quietly treated as a masculine trait. Not in the loud, obvious ways people imagine sexism looks today. Modern sexism is often quieter than that. It hides in reactions, assumptions, body language, jokes, hesitation, and the strange surprises people still have whenever women occupy positions associated with control. Especially behind a steering wheel, especially inside a cockpit. Even now, there are people who become visibly uncomfortable when they realize their Uber driver is a woman. Some quietly cancel rides. Others spend the trip hyper-aware of every turn, every brake, every lane change, every little maneuver, as if awaiting proof that women are naturally worse drivers than men. I notice this dynamic everywhere. In many African countries, transportation spaces still feel heavily gendered. Taxi ranks, omnibuses, buses, trucking routes, and aviation spaces are still overwhelmingly associated with men. A woman driving an omnibus still catches people off guard in ways a man never would. A female pilot’s voice over an intercom still surprises some passengers. Some people will instinctively trust a male driver before they trust a woman with the exact same qualifications. What fascinates me is how normalized these reactions are. People laugh about women drivers so casually that they rarely stop to ask themselves what exactly they are implying. Because what does society actually believe? Maybe that planes are somehow kept in the air through masculinity? Maybe buses become softer because female hands are operating them? I guess it comes from the belief that leadership, technical precision, and calmness under pressure are biologically male characteristics. It sounds absurd when said out loud. Skill has never belonged to one gender Transportation systems do not operate on gender. They operate on training, communication, discipline, regulations, teamwork, and skill. A Boeing 737 does not respond differently because a woman is in the cockpit, nor does a bus or truck. And yet women in transportation are still treated like phenomena instead of professionals. What frustrates me the most about this topic is that society has already proven it can evolve beyond those stereotypes when it wants to. For years, men working as cashiers in retail stores were viewed strangely because customer service and cashier work were considered “women’s jobs.” A man standing behind a register would have looked quite unusual to people a few years ago. Over time, society adapted, though. Today, most people barely think twice about male cashiers. So, clearly, these gendered ideas are not fixed. Yet when it comes to women in transportation, society still feels emotionally stuck in the past. Women are still expected to prove themselves before they are trusted. Men, meanwhile, are often trusted first and evaluated later. And the pressure this creates is exhausting. Double standards against women As women, especially African women, we grow up understanding that mistakes are rarely viewed as individual. One woman struggling in a male-dominated space somehow becomes evidence against women as a whole. Meanwhile, men are allowed the luxury of being seen as individuals. A bad male driver is just a bad driver. A bad driver somehow becomes a conversation about women. That double standard follows women everywhere. You see it in the workplace, in classrooms, in leadership spaces, in conversations about engineering, technology, politics, and science. Confidence in men is interpreted as authority, while confidence in women is often interpreted as attitude. Men are allowed to be assertive. Women are expected to remain agreeable while simultaneously proving they are competent enough to belong. It is exhausting to constantly perform with excellence only to be viewed as adequate. And maybe that is why this conversation matters beyond aeroplanes and omnibuses. Transportation is simply one of the clearest reflections of a bigger social issue; society is still uncomfortable with women occupying spaces associated with authority, technical skill, and control — even in 2026, even among people who call themselves progressive. What makes that irony painful is that African women have always carried enormous responsibility. Society trusts women to raise children, support households, hold families together emotionally, survive economic hardship, and carry entire communities through crisis. Put a woman behind the controls of a plane, and suddenly, people become nervous. That contradiction says everything. The world has already changed, whether society is emotionally prepared for it or not. Women are flying planes, driving omnibuses, operating public transport systems, navigating cities, and moving economies forward every single day. Young girls are growing up seeing women in positions that previous generations were often told were beyond their reach. However, real progress begins when women in these roles stop feeling symbolic. When hearing a female pilot’s voice over the intercom feels completely ordinary. When competence stops being treated as a male trait. And when society finally grows up enough to understand that skill has never belonged to one gender in the first place.