I know this veers off the usual idea behind my blog, but please forgive me for this quick rant.

I read an article today about an airline passenger, most certainly male, who left a note behind after his flight that pretty much told the female captain that she should be at home raising kids. This supposedly had nothing to do with the quality of the flight, it was just an ignorant sexist commentary.

As a male, I took offense that this knuckle-dragging moron was representing my gender. Or humankind at all, for that matter. As somebody that has had grandmothers, a mother, sisters, a wife, a daughter, and countless female friends and business associates, I just can’t understand the idea behind this sexist position. I want the best pilot in control of my flight. Man or woman, I don’t care which, just the best. Why would we relegate women to only child rearing just because they happen to have a uterus? Does this caveman think that men can’t handle child rearing? Haven’t we been enlightened enough yet to know that these stereotypes are antiquated?

Even though I was born in the era of the Mad Men-type mentality, I’d thought it was now past tense. I had difficulty believing that this type of thinking would still be openly expressed. I’m not surprised that it still is present in the heads of some people, but I’d expect most of them to be in their twilight years and not worrying about setting back the clock by at least a few decades. I guess I was wrong.

I really hope that this whole thing was a hoax. I’d be less irritated by that. And my biggest hope is that my pre-teen daughter grows up in a world that sees this kind of thinking as abhorrent as I do.