Timeline:
Turning points in the fight for equality
"Mid-1930s
[United Airlines] instituted the first formal policy of refusing to employ married women for cabin service. Single-women-only hiring and termination upon marriage became industry-wide policies. ... November 1953 American Airlines instituted the first age restriction on stewardesses’ continuing employment. The policy called for stewardesses to retire from passenger service upon reaching their 32nd birthday. ... April 17, 1963 Eight ALSSA stewardesses held a press conference to indict American Airlines’ policy of retiring them at age 32. ... July 2, 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII of the Act barred private employers of twenty-five or more workers from discriminating against job applicants and employees on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. ... July 2, 1965 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) began its work of interpreting and implementing Title VII. Stewardesses were among the very first working women to file charges of sex discrimination with the Commission... Late September 1965 The EEOC issued general guidelines on sex discrimination, including the finding that firing female employees for marriage when the policy was not applied to male co-workers was discriminatory. March 23, 1966 The NYSCHR issued a blanket finding against airline age rules, denying that age represented a “bona fide occupation qualification” for the flight attendant occupation. ... November 9, 1966 The EEOC issued the general ruling requested by Northwest and the ATA, declaring categorically that sex is not a bona fide occupational qualification for the flight attendant occupation. ... February 24, 1968 The EEOC released a new blanket ruling denying sex as a bona fide occupational qualification for the flight attendant occupation. The ruling went unchallenged by the airline industry. ... June 20, 1968 ...the EEOC declared age and marital restrictions on stewardesses’ employment to be illegal sex discrimination under Title VII... August 1968 ...American’s all-female flight attendants finally won the right to marry without forfeiting their jobs. November 1968 United and the Steward & Stewardess Division of the Air Line Pilots Association signed a new contract that granted stewardesses the right to marry and remain employed. ... April 6, 1972 ... The appellate court read the BFOQ clause to require a strict business necessity test. To be legal, ... sex discrimination had to be necessary to the essential business of an employer. ... After 1978... Flight attendants continued efforts to end strict weight policies. ..." -Kathleen M. Barry |