DEI attacks can thicken glass ceilings
We should call these figures what they are: a failure of the aviation industry. If it's routine for a person to step on an airplane and fly anywhere in the world, it shouldn't be atypical for a woman to step on that same airplane and fly it. There are several reasons for the lack of progress. Money is a major barrier. It can cost up to $100,000 to obtain all the hours, licenses and ratings to fly for an airline. Traditional financial aid and federal funding are not available for aviation schools because many of them are not degree-granting institutions. The lifestyle can also be a hurdle. Commercial pilots who fly for the airlines or cargo companies often travel for days at a time, and their schedules can be unpredictable. For women who are primary caregivers, it's a career path that may not be feasible or sustainable.
Going into aviation often requires mentorship and pipelines that can lower these barriers to entry — a marker of DEI initiatives. And for those who think DEI is synonymous with unqualified, consider that all commercial pilots must obtain at least 1,500 hours of 'pilot in command' time, which is logged training when you're in control of the airplane. The extensive flight training means that all pilots who obtain their hours are qualified. There is no skipping the line — 1,500 hours is 1,500 hours. While women have made stellar accomplishments in aerospace — the names of famed pilots such as Amelia Earhart, Jacqueline Cochran and Bessie Coleman circulate every Women's History Month — sustained progress remains elusive. The sad truth is that for a majority of the last century, America has been a dominant force in every facet of air and space, yet women in this country are still being left behind — stuck in a period of firsts and onlies as if they've just begun.
This is a pattern in many other industries that remain imbalanced. Men still dominate computer science, engineering, finance, construction, clergy, and film and TV production to name a few. Yet careers that are dominated by women — teachers, dental hygienists, administrative assistants, hairstylists and childcare workers — are also grossly underpaid. It will take institutional investment, and in a politically hostile environment, courage, to change these statistics. Next year, America will celebrate its 250th birthday. In a true democracy, and a land in which everyone is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, no industry should be dominated by one race, sex or class. Representation matters for several reasons, but at the top of the list is this: It provides diverse perspectives that help to keep society evolving. Women have proven this for generations by leading movements that have improved the lives of all.
What is space exploration without the work of Eileen Collins and Katherine Johnson? What is the airline industry without the work of June Morris and Bonnie Tiburzi? What is military achievement without the Women's Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs)? What is the abolitionist movement without Harriet Tubman or Lydia Maria Child? What was the suffrage movement without Ida B. Wells or Sojourner Truth? What is the Civil Rights Movement without Rosa Parks or Diane Nash? What is the disabilities movement without Judy Heumann or Alice Wong? When the first man landed on the moon, it was because space was a national priority. The increase of women in any field, but particularly marginalised fields, must remain a top priority for this nation. The work is not done. Not even close. Celebrating Women's History Month is more than honoring achievements or declaring 'mission accomplished,' it's a challenge and a charge to keep going.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Gulf Today
28-06-2025
- Gulf Today
Sharjah Civil Defence honours Asian national for bravery
Brigadier Youssef Obaid Al Shamsi, Director General of the Sharjah Civil Defence Authority (SCDA), honoured an Asian national for his courageous and voluntary efforts in helping extinguish a vehicle fire in one of the emirate's industrial areas. The incident occurred when a waste transport company vehicle caught fire and upon seeing the flames, the Asian promptly used his own crane to assist the civil defence teams, significantly reducing the risk of the fire spreading and enabling firefighters to control it in record time, with no injuries reported. The resident's swift and selfless action played a crucial role in minimising damage and supporting the emergency response team. The recognition ceremony was held as part of the authority's commitment to fostering community partnerships and appreciating individual initiatives which demonstrate responsibility and cooperation with official entities. Brigadier Al Shamsi praised the resident's bravery and quick thinking, emphasising that his actions reflect a high level of community awareness and support for civil defence efforts, ultimately helping to reduce losses and enhance public safety.
Gulf Today
20-06-2025
- Gulf Today
Bangladeshi workers risk lives in shipbreaking yards
Antoine Guy, Agence France-Presse Mizan Hossain fell 10 metres from the top of a ship he was cutting up on Chittagong beach in Bangladesh — where the majority of the world's maritime giants meet their end — when the vibrations shook him from the upper deck. He survived, but his back was crushed. 'I can't get up in the morning," said the 31-year-old who has a wife, three children and his parents to support. "We eat one meal in two, and I see no way out of my situation," said Hossain, his hands swollen below a deep scar on his right arm. The shipbreaking site where Hossain worked without a harness did not comply with international safety and environmental standards. Hossain has been cutting up ships on the sand without proper protection or insurance since he was a child, like many men in his village a few kilometres inland from the giant beached ships. One of his neighbours had his toes crushed in another yard shortly before AFP visited Chittagong in February. Shipbreaking yards employ 20,000 to 30,000 people directly or indirectly in the sprawling port on the Bay of Bengal. But the human and environmental cost of the industry is also immense, experts say. The Hong Kong Convention on the Recycling of Ships, which is meant to regulate one of the world's most dangerous industries, is set to come into effect on June 26. But many question whether its rules on handling toxic waste and protecting workers are sufficient or if they will ever be properly implemented. Only seven out of Chittagong's 30 yards meet the new rules about equipping workers with helmets, harnesses and other protection as well as protocols for decontaminating ships of asbestos and other pollutants and storing hazardous waste. Chittagong was the final destination of nearly a third of the 409 ships dismantled globally last year, according to the NGO coalition Shipbreaking Platform. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan, or Turkey. But Bangladesh — close to the Asian nerve centre of global maritime commerce — offers the best price for buying end-of-life ships due to its extremely low labour costs, with a minimum monthly wage of around $133 (115 euros). Chittagong's 25-kilometre stretch of beach is the world's biggest ship graveyard. Giant hulks of oil tankers or gas carriers lie in the mud under the scorching sun, an army of workers slowly dismembering them with oxyacetylene torches. "When I started (in the 2000s) it was extremely dangerous," said Mohammad Ali, a thickset union leader who long worked without protection dismantling ships on the sand. "Accidents were frequent, and there were regular deaths and injuries." He was left incapacitated for months after being hit on the head by a piece of metal. "When there's an accident, you're either dead or disabled," the 48-year-old said. At least 470 workers have been killed and 512 seriously injured in the shipbreaking yards of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan since 2009, according to the Shipbreaking Platform NGO. No official death toll is kept in Chittagong. But between 10 and 22 workers a year died in its yards between 2018 and 2022, according to a count kept by Mohamed Ali Sahin, founder of a workers' support centre. There have been improvements in recent years, he said, especially after Dhaka ratified the Hong Kong Convention in 2023, Sahin said. But seven workers still died last year and major progress is needed, he said. The industry is further accused of causing major environmental damage, particularly to mangroves, with oil and heavy metals escaping into the sea from the beach. Asbestos -- which is not illegal in Bangladesh -- is also dumped in open-air landfills. Shipbreaking is also to blame for abnormally high levels of arsenic and other metalloids in the region's soil, rice and vegetables, according to a 2024 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. PHP, the most modern yard in the region, is one of few in Chittagong that meets the new standards. Criticism of pollution and working conditions in Bangladesh yards annoys its managing director Mohammed Zahirul Islam. "Just because we're South Asian, with dark skin, are we not capable of excelling in a field?" he told AFP. "Ships are built in developed countries... then used by Europeans and Westerners for 20 or 30 years, and we get them (at the end) for four months. "But everything is our fault," he said as workers in helmets, their faces shielded by plastic visors to protect them from metal shards, dismantled a Japanese gas carrier on a concrete platform near the shore. "There should be a shared responsibility for everyone involved in this whole cycle," he added. His yard has modern cranes and even flower beds, but workers are not masked as they are in Europe to protect them from inhaling metal dust and fumes. But modernising yards to meet the new standards is costly, with PHP spending $10 million to up its game. With the sector in crisis, with half as many ships sent for scrap since the pandemic — and Bangladesh hit by instability after the tumultuous ousting of premier Sheikh Hasina in August — investors are reluctant, said John Alonso of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Chittagong still has no facility to treat or store hazardous materials taken from ships. PHP encases the asbestos it extracts in cement and stores it on-site in a dedicated room. "I think we have about six to seven years of storage capacity," said its expert Liton Mamudzer. But NGOs like Shipbreaking Platform and Robin des Bois are sceptical about how feasible this is, with some ships containing scores of tonnes of asbestos. And Walton Pantland, of the global union federation IndustriALL, questioned whether the Hong Kong standards will be maintained once yards get their certification, with inspections left to local officials. Indeed six workers were killed in September in an explosion at SN Corporation's Chittagong yard, which was compliant with the convention. Shipbreaking Platform said it was symptomatic of a lack of adequate "regulation, supervision and worker protections" in Bangladesh, even with the Hong Kong rules. The NGO's director Ingvild Jenssen said shipowners were using the Hong Kong Convention to bypass the Basel Convention, which bans OECD countries from exporting toxic waste to developing nations. She accused them of using it to offload toxic ships cheaply at South Asian yards without fear of prosecution, using a flag of convenience or intermediaries. In contrast, European shipowners are required to dismantle ships based on the continent, or flying a European flag, under the much stricter Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR). At the Belgian shipbreaking yard Galloo near the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, demolition chief Peter Wyntin told AFP how ships are broken down into "50 different kinds of materials" to be recycled. Everything is mechanised, with only five or six workers wearing helmets, visors and masks to filter the air, doing the actual breaking amid mountains of scrap metal. A wind turbine supplies electricity, and a net collects anything that falls in the canal. Galloo also sank 10 million euros into water treatment, using activated carbon and bacterial filters. But Wyntin said it is a struggle to survive with several European yards forced to shut as Turkish ones with EU certification take much of the business. While shipbreakers in the EU have "25,000 pages of legislation to comply with", he argued, those in Aliaga on the western coast of Turkey have only 25 pages of rules to respect to be "third-country compliant under SRR". Wyntin is deeply worried the Hong Kong Convention will further undermine standards and European yards with them. "You can certify yards in Turkey or Asia, but it still involves beaching," where ships are dismantled directly on the shore. "And beaching is a process we would never accept in Europe," he insisted.
Gulf Today
14-06-2025
- Gulf Today
Farm raising fish raises questions about water use
Storks scatter, white against blue water, as Dan Mohring's pickup truck rumbles down the dirt road. He's towing a trailer full of ground-up beef, chicken, fish and nutrient bits behind him, ready to be shot out of a cannon into the ponds below. It's time to feed the fish. Mohring fires up the machine and the food flies out in a rainbow arc. Then the water comes alive. Hundreds of thrashing, gobbling barramundi wiggle their way to the surface, all fighting for a piece. Until, in a few months, they will become food themselves. In the desert of landlocked Arizona, where the Colorado River crisis has put water use under a microscope, Mainstream Aquaculture has a fish farm where it's growing the tropical species barramundi, also known as Asian sea bass, for American restaurants. Mainstream sees it as a sustainable alternative to ocean-caught seafood. They say chefs and conscious consumers like that the food has a shorter distance to travel, eliminating some of the pollution that comes from massive ships that move products around the world. And they and some aquaculture experts argue it's efficient to use the water twice, since the nutrient-rich leftovers can irrigate crops like Bermuda grass sold for livestock feed. 'We're in the business of water,' said Matt Mangan, head of Australia-based Mainstream's American business. 'We want to be here in 20 years', 30 years' time.' But some experts question whether growing fish on a large scale in an arid region can work without high environmental costs. That question comes down to what people collectively decide is a good use of water. In Arizona, some places manage water more aggressively than others. But the whole state is dealing with the impacts of climate change, which is making the region drier and water only more precious. The farm uses groundwater, not Colorado River water. It's a nonrenewable resource, and like mining, different people and industries have different philosophies about whether it should be extracted. 'As long as groundwater is treated as an open resource in these rural parts of Arizona, they're susceptible to new industries coming in and using the groundwater for that industry,' said Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University's Morrison Institute. Some scientists believe aquaculture can play a role in protecting wild ocean ecosystems from overfishing. And it might play at least a small role in smoothing any supply problems that result from the Trump administration's tariffs on imports from dozens of countries, including those that send the US about 80% of its seafood, per the United States Department of Agriculture. In the greenhouses at University of Arizona professor Kevin Fitzsimmons' lab in Tucson, tilapia circle idly in tanks that filter down into tubs full of mussels and floating patches of collard greens and lettuce. Fitzsimmons mentored the student who started the tilapia farm eventually bought by Mainstream about three years ago where they now raise barramundi. 'I don't think desert agriculture is going away,' he said. 'Obviously, we want to do it as water-efficient as possible.' But not everyone agrees it's possible. 'Artificial ponds in the desert are stupid,' said Jay Famiglietti, a professor at ASU and director of science for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative. He worried about heavy water losses to evaporation. Mangan says that evaporation hasn't been an issue so much as the loss of heat in the wintertime. That has required pumping more water since its warmth when it arrives at the surface helps keep the barramundi cozy. But Mangan says they've been improving pond design to retain heat better and have found, after the last year of research and development, that they can cut their water requirement by about half as a result. Plus, he argues, the water coming out of the fish ponds is 'essentially liquid fertilizer,' and though it's slightly salty, they use it for crops that can tolerate it, like Bermuda grass dairy cows can eat. But that's supporting the cattle industry, which contributes more than its share of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, Famiglietti said. 'Doing two suboptimal things doesn't make it better,' he said. Purple flowers sprout alongside paddle wheels. Fish bones crunch underfoot. The faint odor of brackish water and ammonia catches in the breeze. Without groundwater, none of it would be possible. Some farmers in Arizona rely on water from the Colorado River, but many others use well water to irrigate crops like alfalfa for the dairy industry or the lettuce, cucumbers and melons shipped nationwide year-round. Arizona has seven areas around the state where groundwater is rigorously managed. Dateland doesn't fall into one of those, so the only rule that really governs it is a law saying if you land own there, you can pump a 'reasonable' amount of groundwater, said Rhett Larson, who teaches water law at ASU. What might be considered 'reasonable' depends from crop to crop, and there's really no precedent for aquaculture, an industry that hasn't yet spread commercially statewide. Using numbers provided by Mainstream, Porter calculated that the fish farm would demand a 'very large amount' of water, on par with a big ranch or potentially even more than some suburbs of Phoenix. And she noted that although the water use is being maximized by using it twice, it's still depleting the aquifer. When the company scoped out Arizona to expand, Mangan said they didn't see nearly the same kinds of regulations as back in Australia. As part of its growth strategy, Mainstream is also hoping to work with other farmers in the area so more can use nutrient-rich fish pond wastewater to produce hay. They say a few have expressed interest. The seafood industry needs to reduce its reliance on catching small wild fish to feed bigger farmed ones that humans eat, said Pallab Sarker, an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who studies sustainability in the aquaculture industry. He said seabirds and mammals rely on small species like anchovies and mackerel commonly used in fish meal. 'We should not rely on ocean fish to grow fish for aquaculture to meet the demand for humans,' Sarker said. Mainstream gets its fish feed from two suppliers, Skretting and Star Milling, but Mangan and Mohring said they didn't know for certain where those suppliers got their base ingredients from. Fitzsimmons, of the University of Arizona, also pointed out that between pollution, overfishing and oceanfront development for recreation, the commercial fishing industry had already been facing problems. He doesn't think that Trump's moves this spring to open up marine protected areas for commercial fishing will improve that situation the way aquaculture could. 'We can't keep hunting and gathering from the ocean,' Fitzsimmons said.
