The Pink Helmet

I get a lot of compliments on my helmet. My partner, Russ, got it for me for my birthday and it is a beautiful thing: an Icaro Paragliding Helmet with a tinted grey visor and, best of all, it is in pink.

I've told the story of why I have a pink helmet a lot. It goes like this:

One day, I was in line for one of my paragliding training flights at our local mountain. As I gathered up my mushroomed wing and moved towards the launch area, a man and his son – part of a group of non-pilots who had just come up to watch – were heading towards the port-a-potty. As we passed each other, the father urged his son to hurry up by gesturing at me and saying: "Let's go quick; that boy is going to fly soon."

When I tell this story to my fellow pilots, the men are sympathetic. One said what most of them are probably thinking: "I guess I wouldn't like being mistaken for a girl." But the insult implied by calling a man "girl" is very different than calling me a boy. Though the clothing and equipment used by paragliding pilots does render the body sort of genderless, the choice to say "boy" instead of "person" means that we were all assumed to be male, as if no woman would be flying.

It isn't just the non-flying public that makes that kind of mistake, either. I went to a dinner with a bunch of other paragliders to discuss the upcoming season. It had been a "pilots only" invitation – so we don't bore the grounded ones with constant flying talk – but one of them mentioned that if he'd known I was coming, he would have brought his (non-flying) spouse. Luckily, someone besides me reminded him that I was a pilot too.

It is undeniable that there are more men than women in the sport. It was hard to find numbers, but one international paragliding and hanggliding forum concluded that around 10% of paragliding pilots are women (the percentage is probably even lower for hanggliding). I was the only woman doing the P2 training my first year with iParaglide, though there were other women doing hill training and the Discovery Solo program. There doesn't appear to be a lot of female pilots on the launches either; I can only think of six other female pilots I see regularly at my home mountain.

Generally, I don't mind hanging out with the guys. Most paragliders of both genders are friendly, easy-going, and fun. The problem with the lack of women, in my opinion, is that it makes it harder for other women to imagine they can be a part of this wonderful sport. There are probably a number of complex, interconnected reasons as to why there are fewer women than men, but the lack of visible female pilots probably doesn't help. There's one particularly prominant female pilot in our area. She's a tandem pilot and flies in national and international competititions. She's nice to everyone, but I've noticed that she's especially welcoming to other women and always makes an effort to greet me. Similarly, there's a woman in California who runs occasional women-only flying courses and there's a website dedicated to women in paragliding.

We may be few, but we are pretty supportive, and we all seem to know that the way to get more women into paragliding is to be visibly women already in paragliding. That's why I'll volunteer at iParaglide's booth at The Outdoor Adventure Show again this year, that's why I always talk to the new female students, that's why I talk to kids on the kiting field and make sure they see that I'm a girl, and that's why I wear a pink helmet.