The plane had barely left the ground before everything started to go wrong.
Air traffic controllers were shocked when a loud explosion and a thick cloud of black smoke erupted moments before Air Algeria Flight 6289 took off.
In one of my favorite shows of all time, Mayday Air DisasterIn season 26 (the most recent season), episode 7, titled “Crisis Divided” and released on February 16, 2025, investigators revisit the horrific tragedy of Air Algeria Flight 6289, a Boeing 737-200 that crashed shortly after takeoff from the southern airport of Terrasse Airport on March 6, On 2003.
What began as a routine flight in perfect weather quickly turned into disaster after an engine failure during takeoff forced the crew to make a few split-second decisions that ultimately resulted in the loss of the flight. There were two pilots in the cockpit that day: the female pilot, who was believed to be in charge of flight controls, and the supervising pilot, who was an older man.
Watching this particular episode made me uneasy, but not for obvious reasons. It’s terrifying how quickly everyday decisions and mundane moments can turn into irreversible tragedy. That particular episode made me delve deeper into why society as a whole sees women as an anomaly in transportation.
Stereotypes about African women in transport
I’m a 23-year-old African woman, and I’ve spent most of my life focusing on how efficiency is still quietly considered a masculinity trait. Not out loud, but in the obvious way people imagine sex today. Modern sexuality is often quieter than that. It hides in the reactions, assumptions, body language, jokes, hesitations and odd surprises whenever women occupy positions associated with control. Especially behind the steering wheel, especially inside the cockpit.
Even now, there are people who are visibly uncomfortable when they realize their Uber driver is a woman. Some quietly cancel the ride. Others spend the trip hyper-aware of every turn, every brake, every lane change, every small maneuver, as if waiting for proof that women are naturally worse drivers than men.
I notice this dynamic everywhere. In many African countries, transport spaces still feel heavily gendered. Taxi ranks, public buses, buses, trucking routes and aviation spaces are still overwhelmingly associated with men. A woman driving a public bus is still guarding people in a way a man never will. A female pilot’s voice over the intercom still surprises some passengers. Some people will instinctively trust a male driver before they trust a female with the exact same qualifications.
What fascinates me is how natural these reactions are. People laugh so casually at women drivers that they rarely stop to ask themselves what exactly they mean. Because what does society really believe? Maybe those planes are somehow kept in the air by masculinity? Maybe buses have become softer because women’s hands are driving them? I guess it comes from the belief that leadership, technical precision and calm under pressure are biologically male traits.
It sounds absurd when said out loud.
Skills never belong to one gender
Transportation systems do not operate on gender. They work on training, communication, discipline, regulation, teamwork and efficiency. A Boeing 737 does not respond differently because a woman is in the cockpit, nor does a bus or truck.
And yet transport women are treated as incidentals rather than professionals. What frustrates me the most is that society has already proven that it can overcome those stereotypes when it wants to.
For years, men working as cashiers in retail stores were viewed as odd because customer service and cashier work were considered “women’s work.” A person standing behind a register would have seemed quite unusual to people a few years ago. Over time, society has adapted, though. Today, most people don’t think twice about male cashiers.
So, obviously, these gendered concepts are not fixed. Yet when it comes to women in transportation, society remains emotionally stuck in the past.
Women are still expected to prove themselves before being trusted. Men, meanwhile, are often trusted first and evaluated later.
And the stress it creates is exhausting.
Double policy against women
As women, especially African women, we have come to realize that mistakes are rarely seen as individuals. A woman fighting in a male-dominated space somehow becomes proof against women as a whole. Meanwhile, men are allowed the luxury of being seen as individuals. A bad male driver is just a bad driver. A bad driver somehow becomes a conversation about women.
This double standard follows women everywhere. You see it in the workplace, in classrooms, in leadership positions, in conversations about engineering, technology, politics, and science. Trust in men is interpreted as authority, while trust in women is often interpreted as attitude. Men are allowed to be assertive. Women are expected to agree while simultaneously proving that they are worthy enough to belong.
It’s exhausting to constantly perform with excellence only to be seen as adequate. And perhaps that’s why this conversation matters beyond airplanes and omnibuses. Transportation is simply one of the clearest reflections of a larger social problem; Society is still uncomfortable with women occupying positions associated with authority, technical expertise and control – even in 2026, even among those who claim to be progressive.
What makes the irony painful is that African women have always borne enormous responsibility. Society trusts women to raise children, support the family, hold the family together emotionally, save from economic hardship, and lead the entire community through crises. Put a woman behind the controls of an airplane, and suddenly, people get nervous. That conflict says it all.
The world has already changed, whether society is mentally prepared for it or not. Women are piloting planes, driving omnibuses, managing public transport systems, navigating cities and driving the economy every day. Younger girls are growing up seeing women in positions that previous generations often said were beyond their reach.
However, real progress begins when women in these roles stop feeling symbolic. Hearing a female pilot’s voice over the intercom sounds completely normal. When merit ceases to be considered a male attribute. And when society finally grows up enough to realize that skill never belonged to one gender in the first place.
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This post was Previously published at globalvoices.org under a Creative Commons License.
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