Breaking the attitude barrier
It requires strength, determination and a lot of sacrifices for a woman to be in a male-dominated industry. One such industry is aviation, where women are seen as the minority. Lavanya Lindan speaks to four of them
SOFIA SANI, 26, joined Firefly as its first female pilot four years ago, and since then, has proven that women are just as capable.
Knowing that there were just a handful of female pilots in the industry, Sofia had always envisioned herself of being an exception, but her parents were not too keen for her to join the industry.
So, she opted for a diploma in Mass Communications instead.
Halfway through her studies, her father asked if she wanted to enrol at a flying school, an opportunity she would have never imagined turning down.
“However, I had to convince myself that I could go against the odds and prove that I was fit to survive in a man’s world.
“It was not easy at first, especially during the arduous training as I always had to make sure that I was on par with male trainees,” she said, adding that she got mixed reactions from those she worked with.
“Sometimes, you get comments that you wouldn’t want to hear but if you are positive and strong, you will get through it and at the end of the day, you may end up being their best of friends.”
She said she used to get doubtful looks and comments like “this is the first time I am working with a female pilot”.
“I would just smile and say I am proud to be your first.”
Her advice on how to survive in a man’s world?
“If you are strong, everything is possible. If you follow your dreams, one day you will be there.”
Sofia’s colleague, ERNI HERUNA MASUT, 31, has been juggling the past seven months between her career and her newborn.
Erni, a business graduate, was working as a marketing manager when she spotted an advertisement for women pilots in a newspaper.
Erni, from Kampung Subang, Selangor, said she grew up seeing airplanes taking off and landing and had always wanted to be a pilot.
“The advertisement was like a call for me to achieve my dream and I decided to give it a shot.
“My friends were very discouraging because they thought a woman could not be a pilot and secondly, because they thought I was crazy to leave a stable job and take the risk in an unfamiliar industry.”
“But my parents were very encouraging though, and my father even refinanced his house to help me obtain my commercial pilot licence.”
Erni, she was the only female in her flying school, added that all her loan applications were rejected because none was convinced that a woman could be a pilot.
“It was difficult to adapt at first but eventually, I got used to it.
“It was difficult to adapt at first but eventually, I got used to it.
“There were instances where young pilots tended to underestimate me because I am a woman.
“So, I had to prove to them that there should be no gender discrimination in the cockpit.”
Passion and determination, she said, had always been the way for her to progress in the career dominated by men.
SEE HUI PING, 29, is a quantity surveyor by qualification but decided to take up a five-year trainee aircraft maintenance engineering (TAME) programme with Malaysia Airlines.
Upon completion of the programme, she joined Firefly as a licensed engineer in avionics last year.
“When I decided to join the apprenticeship programme, my family was against it while my friends said I was crazy but I stood my ground and went for it.”
The journey was not easy, she said.
“My male colleagues always doubted my capability in doing certain tasks but I proved to them that I am not weak just because I am a woman.
“It was tough initially when I started questioning my capability but soon, I realised that I could not change the others.
“I had to change myself in order to survive.”
With the support of her female colleagues, she went all out to prove that she had the potential to excel in the industry.
ROSLINA MOHD SOBRI, 27, dropped out of her engineering degree in a local university to join the TAME programme.
She had wanted to be in the aviation industry since she was 14 years old.
“My friends went for a school trip to a Royal Malaysian Air Force base when we were in Form Two and when they came back, they told me about their experiences.
“From then on, I set my sights on working for the airlines.
“Since that day, whenever they asked me about my ambition, I would say that I wanted to repair airplanes.”
Her friends used to laugh and ridicule her, going around saying Roslina nak buat kerja jantan (Roslina wanted to do a man’s job), but it never stopped her from pursuing her ambition.
Even when she was in the university, no one took her seriously until she quit her studies to join the programme.
She failed the apprentice examination a few times but persevered and is now a quality assurance engineer in Firefly.
Like See, Roslina, too, faces challenges in convincing her male colleagues that women are no less than them at work.
She believes that perseverance and focus are essential traits for women to remain strong and achieve what they want.
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