a non-white/non-male junior regional ca or senior regional fo with a college degree and 5000 hours is not at any sort of disadvantage whatsoever, even though he have may climbed out of a pretty deep hole to get where he is. At the point where you are even remotely competitive for a major, the disadvantage is all behind you.

at that point it's just a very cynical effort on the part of the majors to put numbers on the board and have faces they can put on posters.

With women it's even worse... There's only a "shortage" in aviation because most young girls are not interested in airplanes, and many that are might not be interested in the lifestyle (most of the ones i started out with dropped out over the years to be home for their kids, either left completely or delayed career progression to retain seniority in seat). If there really is some sort of shortage crisis of women (maybe just because they need every new pilot they can get), they need to do outreach in jh, hs, and college. As it is now it's just all the bigs scrambling to scoop up the limited number available. Even a legit early outreach program may be pounding a square peg into a round hole, but i'll leave that choice up to the pegs in question.