Exchanging Empowerment
"...veteran stewardess activists who had risen to the top ranks of union leadership were a feminist vanguard of sorts. They spoke out against airlines' sexual exploitation of stewardesses and forged alliances with other womens rights activists, even before there was much of a feminist movement."
-Kathleen M. Barry
TWA stewardesses protesting the age ceiling and demanding better wages and shorter hours. (Bettman/Corbis, 1965)
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Through their encounters with blatant sexism in all aspects of their lives and careers, flight attendants began an uphill battle against a misogynistic society. However, through their bravery in challenging social norms, flight attendants exchanged their objectification for empowerment, inspiring women all over the world to follow suit.
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"'Women's Lib' was not just a fad. It did not fade away. People began to realize that behind the bizarre elements played up by the media lay a serious reform movement." |
"Their encounters with the world gave them the freedom and confidence to stand up for women. ...They were out in the world doing things themselves. They were in places that only men used to be -- in hotels, figuring out how to get to and from the airport and in hotels where only business men were. They had the empowerment to fight." |
"I think we set an example that you do not have to accept the status quo on any field; that women could work in any field they choose." |
Using the media
Because of their status as "the perfect woman", when flight attendants campaigned against demeaning slogans such as the "Fly Me" campaign, they exchanged the idea that the "perfect woman" is one who will fight for her rights.
"[The airline stewardess] goes to work 5,000 feet above the earth, rushing through space at a rate of three miles a minute. She has been eulogized, glorified, publicized, and fictionalized during her comparatively short existence. She has become the envy of stenographers in New York and farmers’ daughters in Iowa. She seems to be on the way to becoming to American girlhood what policemen, pilots, and cowboys are to American boyhood."
-Toledo Sunday Times, 1933
A song by Ruth Batchlor, a folk singer and songwriter, describing the stewardesses' fight (SWFR)
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"Stewardesses' glamorization helped make cultural sense of women's movement into paid work..." "By the 1970s, when skimpy uniforms, airline slogans like 'I'm Cheryl- Fly Me,' and pulp fiction novels like 'The Fly Girls' lent stewardesses a more provocative aura, flight attendants emerged as among the most outspoken and successful workplace feminists." Women protesting the 1971 National Airlines "Fly Me" campaign, grabbing the media's attention and establishing flight attendants as active feminists.
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Newspaper headlines showing the stewardesses' activisms' power in the media (SWFR)
(Life Magazine, 1958)
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Flight attendants were very popular in the media, allowing them to reach a broader audience than conventional feminists at the time, leading to a more profound exchange of previous female stereotypes for the idea of a working woman who is not dependent on a man.
Inside Opinions: Moments from our interviews
"Q: Do you believe that these professional women [flight attendants] had a positive impact beyond your country to spread feminism and the idea that women can have careers around the world? "The nature that they were in the public eye, by being on flights, allowed their actions to be seen by a wide group of people, which allowed them to garner lots of support. They certainly were a major movement in fueling the second wave and provided a way of organizing that spanned all over the country." |
"Do I believe flight attendants helped with the acceptance of women career professionals? Absolutely." "Q: Were you aware of the feminist movement and what they were doing? |