Mechanic on duty

Part of a sub plot for that episode was how jurors and others viewed women in general so I guess they were just trying to reinforce the point.

He saw the pilot was a woman so he subconsciously assumed she was the co-pilot even though their was evidence to the contrary. It was that subtle gender bias they needed to address in the jurors and why they pointed out that women hold those same biases.

When people are handed a piece of paper with a comment, and some simple words like "an," "a," "the" were missing, but they were able to read it and some people didn't notice that words were missing. The brain filled in the blanks for them.

This was an opposite reaction. The mechanic may have seen the pilot stripes, but his brain was so attuned to his gender bias, that he saw "copilot." This was actually a good point to really accentuate how subtle and pervasive gender bias actually is. We all make assumptions about people all the time based on their gender, color, fat or thin and so on, without realizing it.

I decided to try to make an honest attempt to recognize my bias against someone, but not give in to it. I met a woman who had "crazy lady hair." Don't ask me what that is, but I realized I dreaded talking to her, because I expected her responses to be aggressive. They were not. She was an incredibly sweet woman who had travelled widely and was open, honest and knowledgeable about different people and cultures. I learned a lot from her about other people, and shamefully about myself.

It's an experiment I have to really think about to engage in, but it's worth it.