So true!
I remember back when Archie Bunker was confronted with his first “lady doctor”, as they were called at the time. Men regularly expressed doubt that they were as capable as male doctors, more out of their ideas of women’s limitations than due to affirmative-action promoting the less capable.
Much of that has passed, of course, but in those areas where it hasn’t (e.g., airliner piloting) IMO it would have, had AA not entered into it. There would be fewer women with such positions, but those who had them would be perceived as having got there on merit. The same general dynamic would apply racially on a much greater level, had equal bars for qualification been applied throughout.
I think my brother’s problem was just the sex issue, nothing to do with competence. He was used to male doctors, and didn’t want to be seen by a female.
I must be a dinosaur, because I’ve generally preferred male doctors. I guess a lot of it is what you grew up with and are used to.
In the early 1980s the company I worked for had a "lady engineer."