Captain

"Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen. This is an American flight ### service to Columbus. I am Captain blah blah...."

This is the message that we hear from the captain as we wait for the airplane to depart.  I heard it again, as usual, on my flights from LA to Columbus as I was flying back from my spring break. I am very used to this announcement because I'm used to flying, but today, this familiar message from the captain didn't just pass through my ears. A new thought came into my head: Why haven't I ever heard from a female captain?

Every flight I've been on, the captain has been a man. I've seen plenty of female and a good number of male flight attendants. But never a female voice make the captain's announcement.

Then I started to ask myself some questions: Is this job not preferred by females? Is it because this job requires a lot of time away from home and women don't want to leave home, away from their family and kids? But there are many female flight attendants in the same position who probably leave home for days at a time. Why?

It might have a very simple answer to it, and I might have been over thinking it.  But I spent the whole time the captain was making this announcement thinking about it--why aren't there any female captains? A very random thought, but also pretty interesting to think about...