Trailblazer flew above the sexism
Air Canada’s first female pilot looks back on a career in a male-dominated industry
TORONTO — It was one of Judy Cameron’s first media interviews as an Air Canada pilot, and the TV reporter — also a woman — lobbed the 24-yearold a couple of softballs before getting to the crucial question: “How do you manage to fly despite the ravages of pre-menstrual tension?”
Flummoxed, Cameron began babbling about how men are known to face fluctuating moods, too — or something like that; she can’t recall precisely. But 37 years later she still wishes she’d given a different answer.
“If I’d been on the ball, I would have said (to the reporter), ‘Well, probably about the same way you manage to do your job,’” she laughs.
On April 10, 1978, Cameron became Air Canada’s first female pilot and the second woman in history to fly for a Canadian commercial airline. (The first, Rosella Bjornson, was hired by Winnipeg’s Transair in 1973.) At a time when cockpits were still seen as the preserve of intrepid red-blooded male pilots and the women were for serving drinks and wearing skirts, the media attention was intense.
The resulting coverage was skeptical, breathless — and hopelessly sexist.
“I’m proud of her,” a stewardess told The Canadian Press. “But I hope I feel safe the first time I fly with her.”
The Globe and Mail’s Joanne Kates served up a full physical description of Cameron. And for those readers who were worried about the “emotional stability” of female pilots, there was reassuring news: Air Canada’s medical staff had pored over NASA studies of female astronauts and American Airlines’ studies of female pilots.
“They found out that emotional stability, which to them means calmness, logic and a disciplined approach, has nothing to do with a person’s gender,” Kates reported. “After reading those comforting American studies, they decided to take a chance on Judy Cameron.”
Cameron stumbled into the profession by chance. She had just finished her first year of an arts degree at the University of British Columbia and got a summer job through Transport Canada conducting surveys among light-aircraft pilots about the airports in the Vancouver region.
“Of course, because we were young university students and these were predominantly male pilots, they were very friendly with us and invited us to go flying,” she says. So she took one of them up on the offer.
Cameron had only been in an airplane a few times in her life and had never flown in a light aircraft. She found the experience terrifying and exhilarating, and she was hooked.
Cameron discovered there was an aviation technology program at Selkirk College in the tiny town of Castlegar, B.C., so she hopped on her motorcycle and drove eight hours east.
Cameron says most people thought her new-found interest in flying “was really cute.” But she persisted, and in September of 1973 found herself sitting in a classroom with 30 guys. She became the first woman to graduate from the program in 1975.
The airline industry was in a downturn at the time and jobs were hard to come by — far more so for a woman. But Cameron got lucky, and a year later a company called Bayview Air Services in Slave Lake, Alta., hired her as a co-pilot on a DC-3. From there, she followed a career path typical of many young pilots, working grunt jobs at smaller airlines and spending some time in the North until her big break at Air Canada.
Despite the hand- wringing about pre-menstrual tension and moodiness, Cameron, who now lives in the Toronto suburb of Oakville, quickly proved herself an adept pilot. She became a captain in 1997 and, in 2010, the first female captain in Canada to helm the massive Boeing 777.
Cameron retired in May and was recognized earlier this month with an Elsie MacGill Northern Lights Award. The award is named for the Vancouver-born MacGill, the world’s first female aircraft engineer, and honours women’s contributions to aviation and aerospace.
It wasn’t always easy, but Cameron likes to laugh about the casual sexism that was common in the early days of her career.
“One of the funniest lines I ever heard was from some guy who looked in the flight deck when I was a first officer and went, ‘Huh, a woman pilot. Well, at least it keeps them off the roads!’” she says.
The work environment for female pilots has changed dramatically since then, but the profession still struggles mightily to attract women to its ranks. Today, women still account for less than five per cent of commercial airline pilots worldwide.
When asked what she would say to a young woman considering a career in aviation, Cameron doesn’t hesitate: “Don’t let anyone dissuade you.
“When I first told people that I wanted to be a pilot, everyone thought it was cute and they laughed at me,” she says. “Just do it. Pursue your dreams.”