Ladies & gentlemen, this is your captain speaking
It's many years now since the first time I heard a feminine voice coming over the airplane PA system, announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking..." I can't say I had much of a reaction at that point other than noting another milestone in women's progress in the US. Also, it also marked the moment that I started to lose interest in following the stories then current of continuing searches for Amelia Earhart...
The experience, however, gave me an idea for addressing stereotypes at an almost unconscious level. I collected tape recordings of a variety of voices and accents saying these same words, just, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking...", and asked participants to rate their first impressions of their confidence in the reliability of the pilot. Reactions were abundant and different. Alas, I didn't make a formal research project out if it, but that could probably still be done.
posted by gfsimons @ 7:34 AM
1 Comments:
Funnily enough I still remember the first time I encountered a female pilot. It was on a domestic Air Inter flight in the early 1980's. The culturally correct female flight attendant said something like this over the PA of the Caravelle aircraft: " Captain Anne Dupond and her crew welcome you on board..." and caused an immediate silence in the cabin... My neighbour seemed a little worried, but forced himself to laugh and make intelligent comments such as "I hope she has her licence". But who am I to criticise, it struck me as well and I still remember after all these years!
And today one can chose male/female for his car GPS voice. Male Germans reportedly cannot stand being given instructions by a woman...
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