Impacts of the
Flight Attendants
"It is an equal playing field today."
-Frances Wilson, current flight attendant
"The flight attendant profession is heavily unionized and it was through our unions that we felt empowered to make changes. And yes, I believe our successful challenges to the sexist regulations of the early airline industry acted as an example of what could be achieved." |
After flight attendants united as a strong union,
redefined what it means to be a working woman, and exchanged their objectification for empowerment, these women left a legacy of equality between men and women in the workforce. |
"The whole imagery of the virile pilot and his submissive, geisha girl stewardesses is already a relic of the past." |
"Nowadays women have a choice. If they do get married, their marriages will be better because they want to get married. I think change has a long way to go but I could be a pilot now. I could be a pilot and young men have the chance to be in the cabin. I could be a doctor instead of a nurse, be a pilot instead of a flight attendant, be the senator instead of the secretary."
-Barbara "Dusty" Roads
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"The 'soft and fluffy' young stewardesses joining airlines these days don't put up with the same kinds of abuse that we did five years ago. The male stewards, now making up as much as twenty percent of the enrollment at flight attendant schools, put up with even less. These young people are determined to make a dignified, professional career out of flying, and the older stewardesses, with experience and seniority, have decided not to be forced out by the airlines' end runs around age discrimination. The airlines are fighting a losing battle, because of anti-discrimination laws that are now firmly established, and because sexual roles are undergoing a general metamorphosis in our culture." |
From sky girls to Flight Attendants
Before feminism came to the skies, flight attendants were known as "sky girls" or "stewardesses" and were viewed as sex objects. However, those titles faded as their recognition as competent workers gained legitimacy. Today, flight attendants are respected safety professionals.
"Sexist labeling, from the original sky girls to stewardesses and hostesses, undoubtedly helped to maintain the sexist employment policies of the air carriers."
- Valerie K. Oppenheimer, author of The Female Labor Force in the United States
Stewardesses in uniforms before they became recognized as competent professionals. (Michael L. Grace, 1960)
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"...the literature in flight attendants leaves disconnected their seemingly disparate roles as icons of femininity, both exploited and privileged, and as ambitious activists who alternately ignored and protested the constrictions of feminine ideals." |
Flight attendants working today for Delta Airlines in uniform. (J. Nick, 2015)
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The Flight Goes On
"I believe we will measure our future progress in days."
-Kelly Rueck, vice president of the Stewards and Stewardesses Division
"I saw [sexism] at a company recently. The secretaries were so beautiful. That does not ever go away. It is a man-ruled society to this day." |
Gloria Steinem in “Address to the Women of America” at the National Women’s Political Caucus (Mullett, 2011)
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"You just don't realize how prevalent this is for women -- your father is nice to you but he's paternalistic and that is how the airline world is -- be nice but don't be smart. Be daddy's little girl." |
Flight attendants in many countries today still face a fight ahead for respect and equality in the workplace.
A 2001 Cathay Pacific advertisement. (Gwen Sharp, 2011)
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"So many women are amazed at what we went through. But the thing that amazes me is why have we accepted this for so long? Why did we think it was okay? And so many women did. Why did we accept being second-hand citizens? I'll never know." "In what must be a bitter irony for flight attendants, airlines like American, United, and Delta have defended their weight policies in recent years as necessary to ensure a 'professional' look. American's flight attendant manual stated in 1991, 'A firm, trim, silhouette, free of bulges, rolls, or paunches, is necessary for an alert, efficient image.' As Anna Quindlen quipped in 1993 in a column for the New York Times, 'In other words, svelte equals professional. So much for telling girls ... that it is performance and not appearance that counts.'" |