Originally Posted by
rickair7777
Vision: If you can see OK with glasses/contacts, I would recomend NOT getting the vision surgery. Vision surgery can actually reduce your best visual acuity. The FAA requires you to see 20/20, but it's ok to wear your glasses for the eye test. Surgery could lower your best vision with or without glasses to 20/25 which is a no-go.
Rickair is correct. I would advise against vision surgery if you have good corrected vision using lenses. If you do go for it, read up about the particular technique and the long term consequences (night vision, need for reading glasses, etc).
Unfortunately I've seen people treat women and minorities pretty badly in aviation - there is a little bit of a "bro" culture in flight schools and I could see how it would be difficult for outsiders or perceived outsiders. A few are blatant - one of my DPE's would sit there and tell racist and anti-women jokes while setting up and roar with laughter; it was pretty sad, and apparently he was known for that sort of stuff. Not sure how to advise you on that, but don't let it get to you (obviously easier said than done). Fortunately it is only a small subset of people with these kind of hangups and the rest of us welcome all aviators.
Good luck with your endeavors.