It's time women's equality didn't need to be pointed out

The all-female space-walk was front page news for several days until it was replaced by a story about a female squadron commander at Fairchild Air Force Base.

The reality of capable women shouldn’t be a news splash. The attributes for becoming an astronaut or a military commander have nothing to do with gender. I look forward to the day when everyone realizes that.

Our country seems to be lagging behind the rest of the world in accepting women in the role of national leaders. Maybe we just need the right individual to break the ice. We haven’t had a presidential hopeful with the strength of Margret Thatcher or the determination of Angela Merkel. We tend to treat female candidates with kid gloves and dismiss them.

President Trump, for all his faults, has gone a long way in changing that. He didn’t hesitate to nickname his last opponent “crooked Hilary,” nor did he shy away from calling Elizabeth Warren “Pocahontas” after she claimed to be descended from Native Americans. He unwittingly gave them equal status with their male counterparts. It’s about time.

I was raised by strong women. My four-foot 10-inch grandmother was one of the strongest humans I have ever known. I was barely old enough to help Grandma milk our dairy herd while Grandpa went off to work in the fields.

Just as we began to bring the cows in to the milking area, she stepped on a knife. It went through the bottom of her shoe and came out the top of her foot. She pulled the knife out and went on with the milking. When we were done and the equipment put away, she drove herself to the doctor.

A few years later, I supplemented our income by hauling hay for neighbors. The names of my crew were Frances, Helen and Ethel. I was raised around women who worked alongside, and were sometimes stronger than, men.

I was fortunate to be in the right place when the Air Force began putting women in “nontraditional” jobs. The first females in missile maintenance worked for me. Missile sites are usually located in the middle of nowhere with no facilities above ground except an eight-foot chain-link fence.

My bosses’ concerns centered on how females could relieve themselves without a private restroom. The lady mechanics ignored the issue and went behind the truck the same as the men did.

Our only problem was physical strength. We routinely lowered 60-pound electronic components down a four-foot hole. Normal procedure was for the largest crew member to straddle the hole and lower the equipment with a rope. Most women, and some men, were unable to do that. I was trying to determine how I could make up teams that included at least one big guy when one resourceful mechanic showed me a hoist she had designed to eliminate the need for muscles. It worked, and I had no more problems.

During one of my later assignments, I was in charge of managing air support for a high-profile exercise. I was briefing our four-star general at the end of the day and reported that only one sortie missed its takeoff time and we had covered it with the spare.

My two-star boss announced that the pilot flying the plane was a female. The four-star asked why I had chosen that crew and I explained that I didn’t check the gender of the aviators. The three-star spoke up and asked why the airplane aborted. I explained it had a generator malfunction. Then the three-star asked if the generator failed because the pilot was female. There was a significant period of silence, and we went on with the rest of the briefing. I will never forget the three-star’s message.

It is time to quit concentrating on gender and focus on why the generator failed.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 19 years.