Main question is...no female pilots??? 30 years ago, of course. Females need positive action politics in the Rebel Fleet !!!
The rebels are sexist pigs unlike the glorious empire who's imperial navy welcomes female pilots.
It actually makes more sense for the Rebels to have more females in frontline military ops than the Empire if we are comparing them to Earthican humans.
I was wondering about this topic a while ago, and like all controversial topics there are almost no unbiased sources. (And true unbiased sources may not be believed.)
After much reading and looking I found a source that seemed as unbiased as it could get: a female USMC officer on women in the infantry. Source - https://www.mca-marines.org/gazette/2014/09/why-women-do-not-belong-us-infantry
The title leaves little up to the imagination. Her main points were actually not physical, (while human biology favors males for combat, a few females can close the gap with hard work) but instead focused on the ability for squads to focus on combat operations as effectively in mixed-gender units. Read the article if you want to argue against her points, and she makes some pretty good ones.
I'm not sure if the same holds true in the other branches, but it looks like when you have as many volunteers as you have in the U.S. (or the Empire) and can pick and choose who gets to be in frontline units, it makes sense pick the combination with the best combat-effectiveness that is to say: all-male humans (humans are plentiful), supplemented by combat droids (who no-one will approve of since the clone wars), and aliens who are A. physically-superior and/or B. don't have as strong of an attraction to mates 24/7 (whom the Empire will not approve of because of their Humans-First stance on recruits).
Now the Empire does have a characteristic that mitigates the drop in effectiveness for gender-mixing to some extent: The Armor.
< All chicks.
If you keep them in separate barracks; in the field no-one would be able to tell the gender of the trooper next to them. Voice-changers and Plasteel plate mask all of the differences. No sexual tension, no distractions, brotherhood/sisterhood social construct intact: combat effectiveness mostly unaltered.
Otherwise I'd figure that most of the Empire's female military personnel would be A. Disproportionately better than the rest of their comrades so as to negate the squad-effects, (Ysanne Isard) or B. As in the U.S. and most other leading militaries regulated to support positions and command/ops positions that while less "glamorous" than the frontlines would be less disruptive to the missions. (The support ranks do get their moments though. Ruthlessness Elite card anyone?)
So a female soldier actually thinks that females in combat roles are a bad idea because among other reasons she assumes other soldiers will give a **** about the gender of the people beside them in a firefight? Yeah we aren't at a point yet where it is necessary for the US's survival requires women in infantry but wouldn't it be smarter to create a mix gender infantry force before it becomes necessary rather then have to scramble to do so during a crisis?
I once read a book on military strategy, several actually, and while I don't remember which one this came from it mentions that a key part of good military planning is preparing for the worst . So how would transitioning to a mix gender infantry force now when we have time to wrk out the issues worse then waiting until we have no choice and have to rush it?
Edited by RogueCorona