Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff Mom never told you. From how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Kristen and I'm Caroline. And today you're getting initiated into
Speaker 1: the mile High Club of awful. Yeah. Yeah, the mile
Speaker 1: high Club of sexism and sexual harassment and beauty norms
Speaker 1: and expectations. Uh, we're talking about flight attendants. Come fly
Speaker 1: the sexist skies. Yeah. And I have to say I
Speaker 1: I did a little interview with my mother UM about
Speaker 1: this topic. She's been a Delta flight attendant for forty
Speaker 1: eight years. She basically hates people. Now, I'm sorry to
Speaker 1: say she's a great person. She's really fun and silly,
Speaker 1: but her her love of manity has definitely faded because
Speaker 1: of nearly fifty years of putting up with passengers and pilots.
Speaker 1: Why does she still do it? Well? Ay, I think
Speaker 1: she doesn't want to give up working. I think she's
Speaker 1: loves to work. She loves to have a purpose and
Speaker 1: go to a job. Um. But I also think she
Speaker 1: has so much fun with her friends. My mother UM
Speaker 1: flies to Germany every month. So if you've ever flown
Speaker 1: to stat or Munich, she's probably been one of your
Speaker 1: flight attendants. Look for the little tag that says Sally
Speaker 1: that's her. There was actually, Um, I think I mentioned
Speaker 1: this on social media and I may have mentioned it
Speaker 1: on the podcast before, but there was a sminty listener
Speaker 1: and her husband, I think, coming back from their honeymoon
Speaker 1: in Europe and they heard my mother talking to another
Speaker 1: passenger about what you and I do and they were like, wait,
Speaker 1: you're Sally. Sally's famous, Sally's famous. Um yeah, I think she.
Speaker 1: I think she loves what she does. I think she
Speaker 1: loves to be able to fly into Germany. Uh, go
Speaker 1: downstairs and get her dinner and her glass of wine,
Speaker 1: hang out at the bar. Like the whole hotel staff
Speaker 1: knows all of these Delta women. Um, she's even this
Speaker 1: trip that she's leaving for today, the day that we're recording. Um, yes,
Speaker 1: it's a regular trip. But they're also going to be
Speaker 1: celebrating the Delta flight attendants are going to be celebrating
Speaker 1: this guy Tommy who lives in Munich or stood guards sorry,
Speaker 1: he lives in Germany and he is the guy who
Speaker 1: was in charge of catering the the airplanes, the Delta
Speaker 1: airplanes in Germany and he's retiring or or they're replacing
Speaker 1: him or something after how long, Oh, I don't know, years, years, years, years,
Speaker 1: But all of these Delta flight attendants are getting together
Speaker 1: and going to his party, and I just love that.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's family. And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: my mother described it when I was asking her about
Speaker 1: why Delta still has not accepted a union for flight attendants.
Speaker 1: The Delta pilots are part of Delta, which is the
Speaker 1: Delta Airline Pilots Association, and the flight attendants have never unionized,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that Delta has gobbled up multiple airlines
Speaker 1: um with flight attendants who were previously in unions. And
Speaker 1: the way that my mother put it was basically, Delta
Speaker 1: is a family, and we get whatever the pilots get
Speaker 1: from their union, and you know, essentially finger wag like
Speaker 1: we don't want these people coming in here kids today
Speaker 1: telling us how to run our airline. And they're definitely
Speaker 1: in the minority, as we'll find out in terms of
Speaker 1: labor representation in the airline industry. So the motivation though,
Speaker 1: for talking to your mom about her experience as a
Speaker 1: Delta flight attendant for almost fifty years, was wanting to
Speaker 1: get a first hand take on a lot of the
Speaker 1: tropes that we hear about in terms of the early
Speaker 1: days of flight Stewart is is as they were known
Speaker 1: back then. We're really they're more as eye candy than
Speaker 1: as flight attendants. Right, well, that's the assumption. I mean,
Speaker 1: as we're going to go through with some of this
Speaker 1: labor and activism history with flight attendants, they have been
Speaker 1: fighting tooth and nail pretty much since the get go
Speaker 1: to be taken seriously, and there has been a lot
Speaker 1: of damage done over the past decades, over the past
Speaker 1: forever in terms of how long flight attendants have been around.
Speaker 1: In terms of marketing, airlines have purposely marketed their flight
Speaker 1: attendants a sex objects in order to say, like, look
Speaker 1: at this great service. You're gonna get wink wink on
Speaker 1: your flight. And I was asking my mother about sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: and I thought that her response is so enlightening, um
Speaker 1: because when I said, you know, did you ever deal
Speaker 1: with sexual harassment, She's like, oh no. But I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: well that can't be true. But um, well, you know,
Speaker 1: did anyone ever act in a way that you know
Speaker 1: was too sexual or made you uncomfortable? Did anyone ever
Speaker 1: grab your butt? Did you know, did they say anything
Speaker 1: to you? And she said, well, I mean, there's not
Speaker 1: a lot that I would want to tell you dot
Speaker 1: dot dot. But um, She's like, it just wasn't sexual
Speaker 1: harassment back then. My mother started flying when she was
Speaker 1: twenty years old. She left college because she wanted to
Speaker 1: go have a more glamorous life in Atlanta as an
Speaker 1: Atlanta based Delta flat attendant. Y'all um, And yeah, she's right,
Speaker 1: back then, it wasn't sexual harassment. We hadn't had Anita
Speaker 1: Hill yet, there were there were no laws protecting women
Speaker 1: who were working these aisles on these flights. Did the
Speaker 1: term even exist when she was flying? Exactly No? And um,
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, did you have to deal
Speaker 1: with gross passengers because that's what we hear most about
Speaker 1: being on the outside of the airline. And she said,
Speaker 1: you know, no, And if they ever said anything, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd make sure they never said anything again.
Speaker 1: And my mother is a bit of an outlier, because
Speaker 1: what you have to understand about Sally is that she
Speaker 1: is a tough effing cook, and she is skilled at
Speaker 1: being able to say something with a smile and reduce
Speaker 1: you to rubble. And she said that where it really
Speaker 1: came in and was most annoying was from the pilots,
Speaker 1: because the pilots also treated the flight attendants like the
Speaker 1: sex sex objects that they're marketed as, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: even necessarily always physical. It was more jokes comments, And um,
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, were they funny? Did you laugh?
Speaker 1: Or were they bothers them? Did? Were they offensive? And
Speaker 1: she said, you know, they were always terrible and gross.
Speaker 1: And she said, you know I would just tell them, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't really like jokes with with a
Speaker 1: meaningful stare. That's a terrific response, especially in the era
Speaker 1: before you could say, oh, actually that is sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: not a joke. I love that, right, And um she
Speaker 1: said yeah. They immediately learned. And when every you would
Speaker 1: bard a flight, because you would fly with the same pilots,
Speaker 1: the same crew, over and over and over again, when
Speaker 1: you got on the same consistent schedule, and she said that,
Speaker 1: you know, the flight attendants would be getting on board,
Speaker 1: the pilots would say, oh they're Sally, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't even bother she didn't think this is funny, And
Speaker 1: eventually just less and less and less and less in general,
Speaker 1: well and The whole twist to this whole flight attendant
Speaker 1: or stewardess back then as sex object scenario is that
Speaker 1: originally stewardesses were steward's right. Yeah, the first ever flight
Speaker 1: attendants women's shocking. It goes against all of the all
Speaker 1: of our stereotypes. I know. I love the photo of
Speaker 1: the world's first flight attendant, literally, the world's first flight
Speaker 1: attendant that Dan Grossman over at airships dot Net love it.
Speaker 1: Dug up a guy named Heinrich Pubis who worked in
Speaker 1: a not a blimp, what is it called zeppelin? Thank
Speaker 1: you Zeppelin? He worked and he worked in a led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin um and he's standing there looking like a proper
Speaker 1: butler um surrounded by all of these tables with people
Speaker 1: just loving their time in Zeppelin's. Yeah, just picture the
Speaker 1: scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade No ticket,
Speaker 1: although I doubt Heinrich threw anyone out of the Zeppelin. No,
Speaker 1: he was too busy making sure that dinner was served correctly.
Speaker 1: But speaking of Indiana Jones, all Heinrich survived the Hindenburg explosion.
Speaker 1: Yeah he did. Yeah, So he had started working for
Speaker 1: this German blomp company in nineteen twelve. People are like,
Speaker 1: it's not a blimp to Zeppelin. I know, I know. Um,
Speaker 1: but he actually headed up a team of ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen cooks and stewards, and yeah they were They were
Speaker 1: all men, because that's how it was on steamliners and
Speaker 1: that's how it was on rail There were men in
Speaker 1: those you know, lovely white jackets like the pullman porters. Yeah, same,
Speaker 1: same idea, because well, this has been a transportation and
Speaker 1: the way we've done things forever. Why would we have
Speaker 1: it be any different? You know, why would we have
Speaker 1: women coming on board to serve people? That doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. And in the nineteen twenties once people were like, um,
Speaker 1: maybe these giant balloons are a little too flammable. Passenger
Speaker 1: air travel gets under way, and the first flight attendants
Speaker 1: in the US were really couriers, and they were like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump juniors. They were the sons of the guys
Speaker 1: who financed the airlines. So just imagine Donald Trump Junior
Speaker 1: carrying his elephant tail and like handing you a cocktail.
Speaker 1: That was sort of the idea. I wouldn't take my
Speaker 1: cocktail and be like thank you, the road in your face,
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, gin it burns the eyes. Um. Also at
Speaker 1: this time in the in the nine twenties and the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom, in real airways hired what they called cabin boys.
Speaker 1: Oh like cabin boys today. Okay, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: That just sounds so it sounds so fun. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a pool boy, you know, but a cabin
Speaker 1: and maybe wearing like a smart nautical themed suit. I
Speaker 1: was thinking, you know, cabin boy, a little woodsy lumberjack situation,
Speaker 1: shorts and flannel. So why are you carrying an axe
Speaker 1: on the plane? Um? Well, then of course we have
Speaker 1: the stock market crash and no more couriers. Instead, you've
Speaker 1: got the co pilot, poor guy who has to not
Speaker 1: only be there in the supporting role to the pilot,
Speaker 1: but he also has to serve the drinks and the
Speaker 1: food to the passengers. And it's hard out there for
Speaker 1: a co pilot. Well, let me tell you. Um. And
Speaker 1: then in the nineteen thirties, though Western Air was the
Speaker 1: first to hire stewards to help passengers board, help them
Speaker 1: with luggage. They served meals, and they not only made
Speaker 1: sure that your cigarettes and cigars were out, but they
Speaker 1: made sure that you would not open the window to
Speaker 1: throw them out. Because you have to keep mine this
Speaker 1: early early air travel, you weren't in those jets that
Speaker 1: you would take to fly from New York to San
Speaker 1: Francisco today, this is kind of a rough ride in
Speaker 1: an airplane flies really low and really slow, and I
Speaker 1: don't think they even in crested thirty feet. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: cabins weren't even pressurized by that point. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: it drops suddenly, which they were wont to do, your
Speaker 1: ear drums would surely suffer. Um. But basically, these these dudes,
Speaker 1: these stewards were expected to be kind of traditionally masculine
Speaker 1: style icons. Okay, they weren't meant to be style icons,
Speaker 1: but they were because you have aviations association with war
Speaker 1: and engineering, so it only made sense to have stewards
Speaker 1: staffing the cabin who were dressed in military inspired gear.
Speaker 1: And that's definitely trickled down. It's why you see flight
Speaker 1: attendants still wear their little wings. That's why some of
Speaker 1: the uniforms still have epaulets. And you know they had
Speaker 1: hats with at Jounty angleskins and bobs, doodles and doodles,
Speaker 1: who it's and what's it's. Guys love bedazzling their uniforms,
Speaker 1: don't you know. But there were plenty of feminine attributes
Speaker 1: to the job, serving food being just one of them. Um,
Speaker 1: taking care of passengers in general was feminine, quote unquote,
Speaker 1: and soon because of that, the job itself became feminized.
Speaker 1: And by nineteen thirty six, when Eastern Airlines said that
Speaker 1: it was creating a male only flight attendant corps, the
Speaker 1: men were being referred to as male hostesses. It was
Speaker 1: already so gendered by that point to be an air
Speaker 1: hostess that the men were like, oh well, yeah, a
Speaker 1: male host test and masculinity so fragile. We can't have that.
Speaker 1: So when that happened, though, that was six but six
Speaker 1: years earlier, in nineteen thirty, we have America, his first
Speaker 1: female flight attendant or stewardess arrive on the scene, and
Speaker 1: Mary Ellen Church really finagled her way in. She had
Speaker 1: to essentially work her way around through beyond sexism because
Speaker 1: she was a trained pilot, she was a licensed pilot,
Speaker 1: she was a registered nurse um, so she could fly
Speaker 1: a plane. But of course no one wanted a Mary
Speaker 1: to fly a plane. So she was like, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: how can I get around this? I really want to
Speaker 1: do air travel? Oh well, why don't I suggest that
Speaker 1: it would be a good idea to have not only
Speaker 1: a registered nurse on board, but also a woman hosts
Speaker 1: a sing because everyone's still kind of nervous about how
Speaker 1: dangerous air travel is. But if a woman's up there
Speaker 1: doing it, then men can't say they're too nervous to fly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean that's exactly her WoT. She said, don't
Speaker 1: you think that it would be good psychology to have
Speaker 1: women up in the air. How is a man going
Speaker 1: to say he's afraid to fly when a woman is
Speaker 1: working on the plane. And Boeing is like, okay, sure, whatever,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll do this trial. They hire eight women, including Mary,
Speaker 1: as a three month experiment, because who knows what might
Speaker 1: happen to a woman's body. How many tampons do they
Speaker 1: need to So four of the eight flew from San
Speaker 1: Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Four others flew from Cheyenne to Chicago.
Speaker 1: And it was such a hit when over so well,
Speaker 1: because I can keep in mind, there their nurses, their women,
Speaker 1: they're comforting you and bringing you drinks. Um that the
Speaker 1: experiment turned permanent, and not only did those eight stay on,
Speaker 1: but other air carriers started to recruit their own nurse people,
Speaker 1: well nurse women, to work the aisles. I prefer gender
Speaker 1: neutral nurse humans, thank you. Um. But even from the
Speaker 1: get go, their uniform was very stylized. It often be
Speaker 1: wearing a nurse's uniform, sometimes accessorized with a snappy beret
Speaker 1: and cape. They were really making capes happen. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean that the nurse's uniform was so intentional. I
Speaker 1: mean like, there's no reason yet, just because your registered
Speaker 1: nurse working on a flight to put people at ease
Speaker 1: and potentially attend to emergencies, there's no reason you should
Speaker 1: necessarily have to dress like one. I mean you could
Speaker 1: wear a suit. They should have had them like dressed
Speaker 1: in surgeons scrubs, like masks on and everything. It would
Speaker 1: have gone over so well. But I mean instantly, instantly,
Speaker 1: how flight attendants look is part of marketing. It's part
Speaker 1: of saying hey, passengers. And granted this was still the thirties.
Speaker 1: This was so exclusive. You didn't just have like Mom
Speaker 1: and Paul from down the street flying on airplanes. But
Speaker 1: it was a way to ensure these clearly upper crust
Speaker 1: important people that they were in good hands. Um. But
Speaker 1: even as far back as nineteen thirty eight, Time magazine
Speaker 1: was reporting on the lay of the land for flight attendants.
Speaker 1: Stewardess is I'm sorry. I have literally been trained my
Speaker 1: entire life not to say stewardess, so it sounds like
Speaker 1: I'm using a dirty word when I say it. So
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep saying flight attendant even though it's anachronistic. Um.
Speaker 1: But in night Time reported that uh, women were making
Speaker 1: a hundred two a hundred and twenty dollars a month
Speaker 1: as flight attendants. UM. Applicants for the three hundred stewardess
Speaker 1: posts that existed at the time had to be pretty petite,
Speaker 1: single graduate nurses between twenty one and twenty six years old,
Speaker 1: and between a hundred and a hundred and twenty pounds
Speaker 1: depending on your height. Uh. And the whole being white
Speaker 1: thing was just implied. I guess I should go ahead
Speaker 1: and say, right well there. They wouldn't explicitly say you
Speaker 1: need to be a white Christian, UM, but it would
Speaker 1: come up in requirements such as all your hands fair
Speaker 1: and soft. Do yeah exactly, we know what that means.
Speaker 1: Do you ever eat a satyr? Oh? Really. Oh man,
Speaker 1: I totally fell for it, just because the requirements to
Speaker 1: be a flight attendant were crazy. Yeah, and anti Semitism
Speaker 1: was just raging at the time. I saw some quote
Speaker 1: that was like, yeah, I think I knew one Jewish
Speaker 1: girl right. Oh yeah, well in the way requirement though,
Speaker 1: they tried to get away with that by saying, listen,
Speaker 1: extra pounds. We can't be carrying all that weight up
Speaker 1: in the air. Our plans can't handle it well. And
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that was mostly because of marketable sex
Speaker 1: appeal for sure. Um, but you have to look at
Speaker 1: the job because they weren't just there for eye candy.
Speaker 1: They clean the cabin and they helped fuel the planes,
Speaker 1: often forming a bucket brigade of fuel. They would make
Speaker 1: sure to bolt down the seats before takeoff, which is
Speaker 1: a very vitally important task. I would think. Um, they
Speaker 1: would also be and we're expected to be first responders
Speaker 1: in the case of a passenger health emergency or like
Speaker 1: a whole plane emergency, like the case of twenty two
Speaker 1: year old t w A flight attendant Nellie Granger, who
Speaker 1: not only helped critically injured passengers when a nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: six flight crashed but had to walk through the snow
Speaker 1: to the nearest town to go get help. And I
Speaker 1: really love how t W A was like, Nelly, thank you,
Speaker 1: you're going on a cruise? Wait? Really? Yeah, they rewarded
Speaker 1: her with a cruise, which cool. I guess it's there's
Speaker 1: no snow, They're true. And also no airplanes on a ship. Well,
Speaker 1: when we get to the forties, as we often do,
Speaker 1: and stuff, Mom never told you you've got World War two,
Speaker 1: all right, And this really serves to solidify the gendering
Speaker 1: of flight attendants even more so than it had been already. Um,
Speaker 1: you have, first of all, a lot of the nurses
Speaker 1: who'd been serving as flight attendants leaving to aid the
Speaker 1: war effort. Um and pretty much any man who was
Speaker 1: working as a steward high tailed it off to war
Speaker 1: as well. And all of these men and women were
Speaker 1: replaced by female non nurses. And even though after the
Speaker 1: war it was considered patriotic to try to rehire all
Speaker 1: these stewards who had returned home, Um, you had a
Speaker 1: lot of gender bs, basically, a lot of people like
Speaker 1: you're in a woman's job, And so there were all
Speaker 1: of these weird suspicions already tied up in your sexual
Speaker 1: orientation if you were a man trying to get a
Speaker 1: job as a steward. Yeah, I didn't realize that the
Speaker 1: stereotype of the gay mail flight attendant goes back to
Speaker 1: World War Two well around that time. And this is
Speaker 1: something we've talked about on the podcast a lot before.
Speaker 1: Around that time, with men returning to roles that women
Speaker 1: had been holding for the entire war. You see this
Speaker 1: like uptick in essential masculinity, uh, the need to define
Speaker 1: yourself as a masculine man head of the household. Women
Speaker 1: go back to your sphere. Basically society sort of in
Speaker 1: an upheaval kind of turbulent period with you know, women
Speaker 1: wearing pants. Man, they had to wear pants for work,
Speaker 1: usually their husbands. These men were coming home being like you,
Speaker 1: you've sold all of my pants, weird um. And you've
Speaker 1: also come out of the early nineteen hundreds, the twenties
Speaker 1: and Freud, who'd put forth all of these theories about
Speaker 1: anal retentiveness and um theories about sexual orientation and deviance.
Speaker 1: So this is just like a like a uper traditionalist
Speaker 1: masculine kind of period. And it took no time at
Speaker 1: all for that stereotype to yield some stats. By nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, only four percent of flight attendants our men
Speaker 1: and of the women others who were women. Of course,
Speaker 1: in addition to being very white and very slim and
Speaker 1: very pretty, you could not be married and you could
Speaker 1: not have kids because the whole pitch, the whole marketing pitch,
Speaker 1: was fellas if you see something you alike, you might
Speaker 1: be able to take her home. Yeah, duty free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can get a bottle of perfume on the plane,
Speaker 1: maybe a wife who knows. But that of course meant
Speaker 1: high turnover. Um. Women would typically stay in the role
Speaker 1: of flight attendant for like two years, And honestly, that
Speaker 1: was my mother's goal too, the woman who's been working
Speaker 1: for eight She was like, I'm gonna go to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get this job. I'm gonna put on that
Speaker 1: pastale suit with that hat, and I'm gonna get me
Speaker 1: a husband, maybe a lawyer, passenger, maybe a pilot, I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah she did eventually, but she's like, I
Speaker 1: can't wait to quit six months from now and just
Speaker 1: be a wife. And that was like forty years ago.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was almost fifty years ago. Because when
Speaker 1: she got the husband, she was like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: want to stay home with my husband all day. Um.
Speaker 1: All right, And so the the industry is changing after
Speaker 1: World War Two. The technology is improving, Thank god, we
Speaker 1: have cabin cabin pressurization at this point, faster planes that
Speaker 1: can carry more people. But it's still really pricey to fly. Um.
Speaker 1: And so it is still a fancy, glamorous, very exclusive thing. Um.
Speaker 1: But this is also a post war when you start
Speaker 1: to see the emergence of unions and women flight attendants
Speaker 1: trying to get organized. Yeah. I mean, because we should
Speaker 1: say that getting the job as a flight attendant was
Speaker 1: harder at that time than getting into Harvard. So a
Speaker 1: lot of women didn't want these jobs. And the pay
Speaker 1: wasn't amazing, but it was better than you would probably
Speaker 1: make as a teacher or as a clerk at a store,
Speaker 1: and it was glamorous. A lot of women bought into
Speaker 1: the marketing themselves and really wanted to be able to
Speaker 1: travel the world. There is a great tear jerker of
Speaker 1: a video that Delta put out um on their website
Speaker 1: and I it's I totally teared up watching it. And
Speaker 1: it's an interview with one of their first ever flight attendants,
Speaker 1: Paige Jones, who attended Wesleyan UM in Georgia. You know,
Speaker 1: she's she's so smart, she's going to be a teacher.
Speaker 1: Her friend is like, well, Page, let's go to Atlanta
Speaker 1: and try to be one of those flight attendant voice
Speaker 1: her France Sally and and she's like, oh, I I
Speaker 1: don't know about that. I'm going to be a teacher.
Speaker 1: Her she tells her mother, and her mother's like, Page,
Speaker 1: to do it. You might never have a chance to
Speaker 1: travel like this ever again. And so from nineteen forty
Speaker 1: three to nineteen forty six, Page Jones worked as a
Speaker 1: flight attendant because she wanted to just see the world,
Speaker 1: to travel, to have these exotic, amazing experiences. And of
Speaker 1: course she married a pilot, which is how it goes
Speaker 1: when you work in an airline, and had to retire
Speaker 1: man because she got married and but her husband stayed
Speaker 1: on as adulta pilot. She had to return home to
Speaker 1: be a wife. How did she feel about that? She
Speaker 1: there is no hint of sadness, bitterness, angryness or anything
Speaker 1: when you watch this video. She is so happy to
Speaker 1: be part of this airline family. Um and so she
Speaker 1: seems so grateful and and happy that she was on
Speaker 1: the front lines of airline history and still considers herself
Speaker 1: a Delta family member. And it does seem like with
Speaker 1: all of us, there is that dicho eatomy of these
Speaker 1: women and men still today, you know. But but looking
Speaker 1: at this earlier history, who really wanted this life? And
Speaker 1: there were a lot of amazing things and amazing opportunities
Speaker 1: that came with it. But then on the flip side
Speaker 1: of it, you have all of the not so wonderful
Speaker 1: things that go along with it, like the men's only
Speaker 1: flights that United would offer so they could just get
Speaker 1: uh excellent, the most excellent service and not have to
Speaker 1: worry about sitting next to women. Also they served steak dinners. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: I mean you could. You used to get like a
Speaker 1: six course dinner on a white tablecloth. Not these days.
Speaker 1: Tell you what spirit air charge your first spoon. Well,
Speaker 1: part of this changing environment was, of course, the emergence
Speaker 1: of unions. In ninety five, a group of speaking of
Speaker 1: United United flight attendants organized the Airlines Do Words Is Association,
Speaker 1: which was the first UH flight attendant labor union in
Speaker 1: the United States, and they were pretty successful. They won
Speaker 1: voluntary recognition from the company. They achieved pay raises, duty
Speaker 1: our limits, and the right to see their personnel and
Speaker 1: grievance records, which is totally a thing that I would
Speaker 1: think that we take for granted today, but they had
Speaker 1: to fight for it back then. But not just a
Speaker 1: year later, maybe not even a full year. In nineteen six,
Speaker 1: the Airline Pilots Association, which is the Pilots Union, created
Speaker 1: a rival and better funded flight attendant union called the
Speaker 1: Airline Stewards and stewardess Is Association that was sort of
Speaker 1: this subordinate branch within ALPA, And in nineteen forty nine
Speaker 1: the two flight attendant unions merged under ALSA, the Airline
Speaker 1: Stewarts and stewardess Is Association, which then ended up representing
Speaker 1: two thirds of the workforce, or thirty five hundred flight
Speaker 1: attendants on sixteen airlines. And let me tell you, and
Speaker 1: we'll re visit that's in a little bit. But there
Speaker 1: were a lot of misgivings. A lot of women in
Speaker 1: leadership of that separate, independent union that was independent from ALPHA,
Speaker 1: were like, I don't really think we should be falling
Speaker 1: under men under the pilots because maybe that's patronizing. I
Speaker 1: don't know. So, but we'll revisit that in a little
Speaker 1: bit anyway. In ninety one also does get to vote
Speaker 1: in their own officers for the first time. They choose
Speaker 1: a woman president, Mary Alice COO's and really focused in
Speaker 1: on this goal of getting federal certification for flight attendants
Speaker 1: for their safety qualifications, which was one of the steps
Speaker 1: in the effort to be taken seriously. It was one
Speaker 1: of the first big major steps toward this because getting
Speaker 1: licensed by the government essentially would be proof of their
Speaker 1: importance in passenger safety, just as important as a pilot
Speaker 1: who flies the plane or the mechanic who fixes it.
Speaker 1: And it would guarantee that their training and hopefully their
Speaker 1: compensation would reflect that really role in passenger safety. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, can we talk to Neddie Granger, like, we
Speaker 1: already know that flight attendants are vital to passenger safety.
Speaker 1: And they came up against not only patronizing pilots, but
Speaker 1: also patronizing regulators who said that licensing such a high
Speaker 1: turnover group would not prevent an emergency. They're like, why
Speaker 1: would we want to give you licenses and make you
Speaker 1: super duper official when you're just gonna quit and get
Speaker 1: married to have babies, and it's like dudes, DIDs DIDs.
Speaker 1: The high turnover rate is because you make us quit
Speaker 1: when we get married. And I'm sure there were plenty
Speaker 1: of women who would want to quit when they got married,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure that there were equally plenty of women
Speaker 1: who would have loved to keep working because it was
Speaker 1: such a glamorous job at the time. Well, and even
Speaker 1: if you don't get married, most airlines had the age
Speaker 1: cut off between thirty two and thirty five, which means
Speaker 1: that I am portionate you one my the clock is chicking,
Speaker 1: I'd be out already. But I mean, this is an
Speaker 1: aspect of flight attendant history that totally gets short shrift
Speaker 1: um and is overshadowed by all of the sexy sex
Speaker 1: times and the uniforms and oh those sexism and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But here you have sisters doing it for themselves,
Speaker 1: who are literally professionalizing this new job. And I realized
Speaker 1: as you were talking, this is the only history of
Speaker 1: professionalization that I think we've talked about on Sminty where
Speaker 1: it didn't then turn into a masculinized job. But since
Speaker 1: you already have the hierarchy of male pilots at the top,
Speaker 1: that established a glass ceiling. Yeah, and you know what
Speaker 1: side note speaking of pilots and glass ceilings, I was
Speaker 1: when I was poking around for sources on flight attendants
Speaker 1: and labor unions and such, I came across a kind
Speaker 1: of an industry blog, so to speak. It had some articles, definitely,
Speaker 1: there were some interviews where they talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the industry. And there was one particular
Speaker 1: article that was about, you know, um, how to pilots
Speaker 1: succeed in their family lives when they're away, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: looking at divorce rates and stuff like that. In the
Speaker 1: picture accompanying the article was a man a male pilot,
Speaker 1: because that's just what you think when you think of
Speaker 1: a pilot. Literally, the first like five people, the five
Speaker 1: pilots interviewed in that article were women. And I'm like
Speaker 1: sitting at my desk like, yeah, fist pumping. The guests
Speaker 1: were representation for women pilots. But I am sitting here
Speaker 1: cringing because they're only spotlighting women because it's a question
Speaker 1: of how you do it all, how do you balance
Speaker 1: work and life? Well it kind of yes, you're not wrong.
Speaker 1: I was so excited though, that they were even talking
Speaker 1: to all of these female us. I mean they talked
Speaker 1: to male pilots to I know, I know, if you
Speaker 1: could seek Christian's face, I'm giving a feminist what is
Speaker 1: this called? What is my face doing? I know it's scowl, squint,
Speaker 1: wind squind squint. I'm giving Caroline a feminist squint right now.
Speaker 1: I know. I didn't even think about it when I
Speaker 1: was reading it. I was honestly just so excited for
Speaker 1: the representation. And they weren't even talking about like I
Speaker 1: don't think balance was used. I don't think they were
Speaker 1: talking about household duties. But there was a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about divorce and end of my side note, but
Speaker 1: that's just another layer of gendering within the industry. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a very very gendered industry for sure. Um. And
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about gender. But when we come
Speaker 1: right back from a quick break, we're going to get
Speaker 1: back to racism. So stay tuned, bolt down your seats, folks,
Speaker 1: because it's still a bumpy ride. So we're back. Um And,
Speaker 1: like Kristen said, we've obviously got to talk about the
Speaker 1: racial and racist aspect of flight attendant rules, rags and expectations, UM,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this, We've got to give a
Speaker 1: shout out to Kathleen Barry who wrote the book Femininity
Speaker 1: and Flight, a History of flight Attendants. It's really a
Speaker 1: great resource talking about everything from sexism to racism, union history, everything.
Speaker 1: It's it's a great resource for this episode and just
Speaker 1: if you're curious about the industry in general. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, when we entered the nineteen fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: things are slowly starting to change. Some things are getting worse,
Speaker 1: like the clothes are getting even sexier and tighter and shorter. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, you've got union representation growing, and you
Speaker 1: have the racist segregation slowly starting to be broken down.
Speaker 1: And in nineteen fifties seven, a woman by the name
Speaker 1: of Ruth Carol Taylor, who's an African American nurse, was
Speaker 1: the first to push back against discriminatory hiring practices. She
Speaker 1: applied to be a flight to tendant at t w
Speaker 1: A and I think kind of knowing that she would
Speaker 1: get rejected, and for sure they did. Um. And when
Speaker 1: they turned her down, she immediately turned around and filed
Speaker 1: a complaint with the New York State Commission on Discrimination.
Speaker 1: At the same time, she hears that local carrier Mohawk
Speaker 1: Airlines is specifically looking to hire women of color, so
Speaker 1: she applies there, she gets hired, and she therefore becomes
Speaker 1: the first African American flight attendant in February, big news,
Speaker 1: huge news, still just one woman. Uh. Three months later though,
Speaker 1: t w A. I guess they were like, oh should
Speaker 1: we I don't know, they hire Margaret Grant, making her
Speaker 1: the first African American flight detendant for a major airline.
Speaker 1: So one thing though, that we should note about Ruth
Speaker 1: Carrol Healer was that she did not dream of having
Speaker 1: the glamorous life of a flight attendant. She could kind
Speaker 1: of care less. She just wanted to break the color line.
Speaker 1: She came at it from a very intentionally activist perspective
Speaker 1: because it was so glaringly obvious to her and a
Speaker 1: lot of other groups at the time, like the Urban
Speaker 1: League and n WCP that even though their whites only
Speaker 1: rule was not codified, it was still, you know, just
Speaker 1: um just they just happened to turn away any women
Speaker 1: of color unless you wanted to be on a carrier
Speaker 1: to the Caribbean or to Hawaii, in which case they
Speaker 1: would hire exotic in quotes looking women of color. To
Speaker 1: add you know, to the to the flare of going
Speaker 1: to one of these tropical locations. So that's some disgusting
Speaker 1: tokenism happening. So you're right, like Taylor goes in and
Speaker 1: she challenges the system and she ends up making history.
Speaker 1: And partly because of that and also the pressure being
Speaker 1: put on UH state commissions to then put pressure on
Speaker 1: these airlines to hire women of color, you have t
Speaker 1: w A essentially having their arm twisted and saying, okay, fine,
Speaker 1: we'll hire this beautiful woman, Margaret Grant, stunning, stunnying woman. Um.
Speaker 1: And there's just this slow trickle effect across the whole
Speaker 1: industry where you see airlines starting to hire a few
Speaker 1: African American stewardesses here and there. But one thing that
Speaker 1: was really interesting in the era of the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act four, you have LBJ actually getting on the phone
Speaker 1: from the White House calling up Old PanAm et cetera,
Speaker 1: and being like, I can't do an lb J, I
Speaker 1: wish uh, Brian Cranston, we're here to do reprise his role. Uh.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless lb J is using his executive power to
Speaker 1: call these airlines and basically say, look, you gotta get
Speaker 1: with the times, like you have to hire more black
Speaker 1: women because this is this is just this is how
Speaker 1: it's got to be. And so that's when you start
Speaker 1: to see more more black women being hired. And in
Speaker 1: the seventies I noticed in when we were researching the
Speaker 1: uniforms in particular, you start to see black stewartists in
Speaker 1: the lineup, you know, here and there. Um. But what
Speaker 1: was funny slash not funny in looking at the numbers
Speaker 1: and how self congratulatory these airlines were, especially in the
Speaker 1: seventies when they were like, we've diversified now four percent
Speaker 1: of our flight attendant force is African American. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then layers right, because both Margaret Grant and Rose Carol
Speaker 1: Taylor were Yes, they were beautiful, they were also incredibly
Speaker 1: light skinned black women. So you also have the colorism
Speaker 1: aspect where it was semi acceptable to start to quote
Speaker 1: unquote diversify. Um. But there were some women that, like
Speaker 1: Kathleen Barry talked to in her book Femininity and Flight,
Speaker 1: who were like, yeah, I was I was too black.
Speaker 1: Basically I was too dark skinned. And it's not just
Speaker 1: the airline executives who are exhibiting this kind of racism.
Speaker 1: The New York Times reported in late nineteen fifty seven
Speaker 1: that part of their reluctance to diversify was based on
Speaker 1: the fear that, oh, all of these, just like dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of glamorous white girls, aren't gonna want the
Speaker 1: job anymore, because if they're working with black women, then
Speaker 1: inherently the job is not glamorous. God. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: of course you have the experience that Kathleen Barry talks
Speaker 1: about in her book Femininity in Flight, which obviously we
Speaker 1: recommend because it's terrific. Um. These first Carol Taylor's would
Speaker 1: also have to deal with racist passengers. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: one woman, I don't think it was Rose Carol Taylor
Speaker 1: who talks to Kathleen Barry about how a woman passenger
Speaker 1: in one of the flights shrieked when she saw a
Speaker 1: black flight attendant handing her a tray of food and
Speaker 1: refused to allow the woman to hand her her coat
Speaker 1: at the end of the flight. Yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: think out loud to myself, I said, seriously, Well, and
Speaker 1: this is another chapter of the history that just gets
Speaker 1: covered up with the more scintillating bits of stewardessts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the chance to talk about Amelia Pucci designing uniforms to
Speaker 1: talk about women getting arrested for prostitution, that hit book,
Speaker 1: coffee tea or me a lord. Uh yeah, Sally still
Speaker 1: says that coffee to your Yeah. But as all of
Speaker 1: this is going on in the background, the carriers are
Speaker 1: doing gangbusters. Business is booming. And on the flip side
Speaker 1: of that too, we have to revisit the whole unionization issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have. They have achieved even more. In this time,
Speaker 1: flight attendants from the late nineteen forties to the late
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties started seeing monthly earnings increases of about a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty percent. So that's awesome. And by nineteen sixty,
Speaker 1: alsa's active membership had grown to seven thousand, up from
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred and nineteen fifty three, and total membership was
Speaker 1: around nine thousand flight attendants on thirty airlines. But here
Speaker 1: it is again, a lot of a lot of flight
Speaker 1: attendants were not pleased with Alpha's oversight. You have all
Speaker 1: of these intra and inter union fights erupting with fly
Speaker 1: at attendants realizing basically that they lack the power to
Speaker 1: achieve independence from male labor leaders. All of these you know,
Speaker 1: pilots basically being like nope. UM. And in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: one and sixty two there were union elections and the
Speaker 1: Flight Attendants Union ends up splitting into so you've got
Speaker 1: one that's a division of ALPA still and then a
Speaker 1: separate one also which ends up becoming a local of
Speaker 1: the Transport Workers Union of America. Whoops, Hey, you're independent,
Speaker 1: but you're still subordinate to a male dominated parent union.
Speaker 1: So like, great, hopefully some of you got what you wanted,
Speaker 1: but you're still not um as independent as I think
Speaker 1: a lot of those flight attendants would have liked. Uh.
Speaker 1: Same year, in nineteen sixty two, flight attendants as a
Speaker 1: pack managed to lobby Congress to push a bill that
Speaker 1: would require flight attendants to be licensed to remember when
Speaker 1: we talked about that from the forties, but it failed
Speaker 1: because of lack of support from pilots and lack of
Speaker 1: support from regulators. And so at this point in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, the flight attendants essentially turn their attention to
Speaker 1: all of those marriage, age and weight requirements to to
Speaker 1: tackling those and bringing those down, because they're like, look,
Speaker 1: we just put a lot of effort into all of
Speaker 1: these licensing and certification efforts, and we've got other things
Speaker 1: that maybe we can do faster. I feel like all
Speaker 1: of that was just these politicians, pilots, etcetera, just saying ladies, ladies, ladies, relax,
Speaker 1: you don't need professionalization. If you're pretty like, you're not
Speaker 1: going to stay in this job very long, right, That's
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, that's basically what it was. And so
Speaker 1: to get from A to C you had to tackle B,
Speaker 1: which is the marriage requirements. And I mean you still,
Speaker 1: though at this time, have strict appearance requirements. I mean,
Speaker 1: my mother would fast like she would starve herself. You
Speaker 1: had all of these women starving themselves for their way
Speaker 1: ins um and I mean it's still a glamorous job.
Speaker 1: Women are still clamoring for it. And if you look
Speaker 1: at a nineteen sixty six New York Times classified ad,
Speaker 1: you can see what they're clamoring to be. You had
Speaker 1: to be a high school grad single. If you were
Speaker 1: a widow or a divorcee with no children, you might
Speaker 1: be considered UM. Ideally you would be twenty. If you
Speaker 1: were nineteen and a half, you could apply for future consideration.
Speaker 1: Uh five too, but no more than five nine. I
Speaker 1: barely made it too. Five to UM you had to
Speaker 1: be between a hundred and five and a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five pounds in proportion to your height. Again, that's
Speaker 1: specified and at least vision without glasses like hyper crazy specific.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind you also were going to be
Speaker 1: no matter if you were tall and thin or short
Speaker 1: and thin, because those were your options as a flight attendant.
Speaker 1: You were still going to be shoved into a girdle
Speaker 1: to keep keep things all smooth. And a lot of
Speaker 1: airlines would do the flick test, and if they flicked
Speaker 1: your behind or your waist or anywhere on you that
Speaker 1: you would traditionally have fat as a woman and it jiggled,
Speaker 1: you'd have to go get a tighter girdle. I want
Speaker 1: to show them a flick test for sure, right in
Speaker 1: the eyeball, um. And you know I mean this, it's
Speaker 1: it's this focus on appearance that does fuel that massive
Speaker 1: flight attendant fashion industry that everybody loves to go look
Speaker 1: at online and look at galleries. And I mean, we
Speaker 1: could do a whole other episode on that. We definitely
Speaker 1: don't have time to talk about all the fashion, um,
Speaker 1: but I know that I've definitely seen fabulous pictures of
Speaker 1: my mother and godmother in those in those little pastel suits.
Speaker 1: I just have to give a quick shout out though
Speaker 1: to which airline was it that had a Pucci come
Speaker 1: in and I want to say it was Brand If Yes,
Speaker 1: it was Okay. So they had this whole wild wardrobe
Speaker 1: that included a space helmet looking hair protector that frankly
Speaker 1: I wish I had because it was it was like
Speaker 1: a giant plastic bubble that would go around their big
Speaker 1: bouffonted hair and keep them looking fresh and beautiful, which
Speaker 1: just a little open space for their for their face,
Speaker 1: for their breathing, because they're human women. Uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they had there were so many crazy, uh outfit gimmicks.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had this thing called the flying strip,
Speaker 1: which to me is a little too close to landing
Speaker 1: strip for comfort. But these women would wear layers and
Speaker 1: layers and layers of clothes and throughout the flight, and
Speaker 1: this was used in marketing. This was an advertisements in magazines.
Speaker 1: Throughout the flight. They would like take off a layer
Speaker 1: and be like, look at me, I'm in a new
Speaker 1: outfit now, and really I just think of my mother
Speaker 1: and I'm like, God, this women must be so hot.
Speaker 1: I want to try that at work. See if anyone
Speaker 1: notices there was also an airline I want to say
Speaker 1: it was United that tried a very short lived gimmick UM. Wherefore,
Speaker 1: each dinner, the stewardesses would have to put on paper
Speaker 1: costumes corresponding to the cuisine. So if they were serving
Speaker 1: American food, they would put on these paper what they
Speaker 1: called Manhattan pajamas. Yeah, it was the it was the
Speaker 1: Penthouse pajamas. If you were flying to New York, you
Speaker 1: had a toga. If you were eating Italian food, there
Speaker 1: was a gold paper dress with a high neck if
Speaker 1: you were I think that was going to Paris. But
Speaker 1: just very strange. But eventually they actually and this is
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding, they ran out of the UM fireproof
Speaker 1: heavy paper material and we're wearing flammable heavy paper material.
Speaker 1: So that that run of of a little marketing gimmick
Speaker 1: lasted a couple of months. Also, can you just imagine
Speaker 1: how loud dinner time would be, just like, yeah, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: I just bumped an your paper, I just crushed your outfits,
Speaker 1: just trying to color on you with your crayons. But
Speaker 1: once the airline industry jumped the shark with their overtly
Speaker 1: sexist marketing. It just so happens to coincide with second
Speaker 1: wave feminism, and and there is a turning point when
Speaker 1: people are like okay, really really, which which really seems
Speaker 1: to at least it comes up in pretty much every
Speaker 1: article that you read about this. It seems to really
Speaker 1: crystallize with the Northern Airline flymy campaign where you have
Speaker 1: the headshot of a pretty flight attendant and it's like, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Cheryl, fly mey. That's that's not heavy handed? Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And it was massively successful. It was a nine million
Speaker 1: million dollar ad campaign, and it had so much spinoff swag,
Speaker 1: like you could get all sorts of things with hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Cheryl or Hi I'm Joe. Condoms included, uh. And
Speaker 1: and then I owe you like hand drawn coupon to
Speaker 1: go take a cold shower. Uh. And also you keep
Speaker 1: in mind, I mean, this is the the golden age
Speaker 1: of the miniskirt uniform. That's part of creating sort of
Speaker 1: great sexpectations for for this line of work. Um. And
Speaker 1: basically it was happening at this time that was reaching
Speaker 1: a fever pitch of sexism and objectification. Is that airlines,
Speaker 1: because of technological advances Because flying was becoming more and
Speaker 1: more democratized, airlines had to sell service to differentiate themselves.
Speaker 1: Like they all had the fast jet. Now they all
Speaker 1: had faster flying times. They you know, they all had
Speaker 1: you know this, many seats could fit this many passengers. Um,
Speaker 1: they had to sell sex basically to differentiate themselves and
Speaker 1: a lot of women at this point we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: enough enough, I'm tired of getting grabbed and groped and
Speaker 1: asked on dates. And they're a Slate article that we
Speaker 1: read about this particular turning point that shows just how
Speaker 1: flight attendants were definitely no longer shrinking violets. So you
Speaker 1: had union members striking, You had UM stewardesses protesting their treatment,
Speaker 1: their exploitation. They were demanding to be taken seriously as professionals. UM.
Speaker 1: They fought against sex based discrimination, against beauty and age discrimination,
Speaker 1: and they had a very helpful tool to do this.
Speaker 1: All they had the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four Entitle seven forbade discrimination on the basis of sex.
Speaker 1: So this flight attendants, whether they were unionized or not,
Speaker 1: suddenly had new leverage in challenging all of those bs, weight, marriage,
Speaker 1: and age related rules, and in nineteen sixty eight, the
Speaker 1: federal courts had struck down those rules, prohibiting marriage and
Speaker 1: forcing the thirtysome things into retirement. And in nineteen seven,
Speaker 1: the restrictions against flight attendants getting pregnant work quote unquote
Speaker 1: voluntarily withdrawn, I mean voluntarily, yes, only because the federal
Speaker 1: government wasn't making them put an end to those rules.
Speaker 1: So women using Title seven was massively important. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: the unions had already tried to get these policies overturned,
Speaker 1: but the airlines wouldn't budge. And we should note that
Speaker 1: these kinds of rules do exist in some other countries
Speaker 1: as recently as you have Cutter Airways, which ran a
Speaker 1: foul of the u N and was found guilty of
Speaker 1: discrimination for its policy of firing women who got married
Speaker 1: or pregnant within the first five years of employment. Five years.
Speaker 1: So they're they're trying not to have too much turnover, right,
Speaker 1: They're like, let's let's get him for at least five years.
Speaker 1: And then in nineteen seventy one, we have a Miami
Speaker 1: trucker named Carlos Diaz who successfully sues PanAm who turned
Speaker 1: him down for a flight attendant job, and he bases
Speaker 1: us all on the Civil Rights Act. And I kind
Speaker 1: of love the story of Carlos because he just wanted
Speaker 1: to be a flight attendant. That's like all you wanted
Speaker 1: to be. Because his grandfather was a steward before World
Speaker 1: War Two. Yeah, so it was in his blood blood.
Speaker 1: But Panama was like, you are are not slim, slender
Speaker 1: and sexy enough. I don't think so. But because of
Speaker 1: that decision, the airlines have to start hiring more flight attendants.
Speaker 1: And then the following year, I mean, we really start
Speaker 1: to see this activism snowballing. In nineteen seventy two, feminist
Speaker 1: flight attendants launched the non union affiliated Stewardesses for Women's Rights.
Speaker 1: Love This Their whole thing was protesting those sexist ads
Speaker 1: and the degrading treatment, and they brought up a very
Speaker 1: good point that this hyper sexualized marketing meant that passengers
Speaker 1: wouldn't take these flight attendants seriously when they were actually
Speaker 1: the ones responsible for their safety. Right, It's the same
Speaker 1: thing you see now, We're like, you're just a waitress basically,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, well, my mother could save your
Speaker 1: life if she wasn't the kind of person who would
Speaker 1: refuse to touch another human, so good luck getting her
Speaker 1: to do CPR anyway. Um, in nineteen seventy four, you
Speaker 1: get American Airlines flight attendant Paula Kane publishing another turning
Speaker 1: point memoir called sex Objects in the Sky, a personal
Speaker 1: account of the Stewardess Rebellion. And I love this. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, here's like a woke flight attendant talking
Speaker 1: about objectification. And it's because she'd hooked up with stewardess
Speaker 1: is for women's rights and she learned from them all
Speaker 1: about the terminology and realities around objectification. She wrote in
Speaker 1: her book about being so sick of submitting to abusive businessmen,
Speaker 1: both physically and verbally, and she I think she penned
Speaker 1: the book with a co author, but she was kind
Speaker 1: of a it's kind of a convenient face fork because
Speaker 1: she was also really cute and all American looking. But
Speaker 1: here she was coming as like a full fledged feminist
Speaker 1: out against the sexist treatment of flight attendants. So she
Speaker 1: was sort of the feminist answer to coffee Tea and me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, also during this time, in the like
Speaker 1: early mid seventies, you've got more people flying. Jumbo jets
Speaker 1: are a thing now the workforce of flight attendants. It's
Speaker 1: forty thousand by nineteen seventy four. But all of this
Speaker 1: also sparks again those union autonomy efforts to break from
Speaker 1: their male dominated parent unions. And from like nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four to seventy seven, you see a lot of success,
Speaker 1: a lot of flight attendant unions being able to break
Speaker 1: away from those bodies and be the independent unions that
Speaker 1: they had really been working to be for for decades
Speaker 1: and decades. And in nineteen seventy eight you see the
Speaker 1: Carter administration deregulated in the airline industry. The government no
Speaker 1: longer sets the roots and fairs. Ticket prices drop, more
Speaker 1: people are flying, more airlines spring up, and this is
Speaker 1: what old school airline people point to as the nail
Speaker 1: in the coffin for glamorous flight. It's no longer exclusive.
Speaker 1: When I was a teeny tiny child, um my mother
Speaker 1: and I, you know, we would get dressed up to fly,
Speaker 1: and I remember very distinctly, um walking through the airport
Speaker 1: and these two what to me at the time looked
Speaker 1: like ancient women, saw us and saw me in my
Speaker 1: little smock dress with a white card again over it,
Speaker 1: and they were like, Oh, isn't that so nice? People
Speaker 1: used to dress up to fly. We love to see that.
Speaker 1: And I mean my mother still says it. She is
Speaker 1: super judgy about flight outfits. So, going back to the
Speaker 1: whole licensing issue that first came up in ninety two,
Speaker 1: first came up in the forties. Well, when the last
Speaker 1: time we were there, it was nineteen sixty two. They
Speaker 1: took it before Congress, and Congress was like, you're too pretty,
Speaker 1: you don't need to be professionalized. That didn't happen. The
Speaker 1: licensing program for flight attendance did not happen until two
Speaker 1: thousand three, when Congress finally mandated it because of nine eleven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, I guess you kind of are
Speaker 1: on the front lines of a lot of danger, aren't you.
Speaker 1: We should probably make sure that you have some sort
Speaker 1: of like official licensing to save people. I had no
Speaker 1: clue about that. Not surprising, I mean I was in
Speaker 1: high school. But still, yeah, I mean I wouldn't. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know anything either, And I haven't asked my mother
Speaker 1: about it. I mean I did ask you about the
Speaker 1: whole union thing, because out of so many flight attendants
Speaker 1: who are unionized, Delta is still hold out. UM. The
Speaker 1: most recent effort in the International Association of Machinists and
Speaker 1: Aerospace Workers withdrew its efforts to have a union election
Speaker 1: with Delta flight attendants. There was a lot of support
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of and go ahead semi letters. Um.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of like intimidation on behalf of
Speaker 1: the union to try to get um, the flight attendants
Speaker 1: to to support it. Um. And you know, I read
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of intimidation the other way too.
Speaker 1: I only know what Sally tells me. Sally's inside scoop.
Speaker 1: Sally's scoop. There you go. She can have a little corner,
Speaker 1: a little ice cream stand. Um, let's be honest, it
Speaker 1: would be a wine stand. Um. But that that works,
Speaker 1: That's all like play on words and literally I think
Speaker 1: that works. Also, let's just make scoop of wine happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a scoop that wine thing, like a scoopy a wine. Um.
Speaker 1: But but one of the big conversations today, aside from
Speaker 1: is Delta ever going to unionize? Um, is you know, hi,
Speaker 1: hello sexual harassment? Oh yeah, it is not a relic
Speaker 1: of a bygone era. Unfortunately, No, And according to the
Speaker 1: International Transport Workers Federation, who represent more than six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand aviation workers. The most common complaints from cabin crews
Speaker 1: relate to physical contact and inappropriate advances. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: most of the complaints that this UH International Federation gets
Speaker 1: are anonymous because despite all the advances we've had in
Speaker 1: the on the ground workplace, UM, women who are flight
Speaker 1: attendants and men who are who are flight attendants are
Speaker 1: still afraid of losing their jobs because it is so
Speaker 1: infrequent for sexual harassment, especially when it's coming from a passenger,
Speaker 1: to be taken seriously. And I'm glad you mentioned men,
Speaker 1: because male flight attendants also experienced sexual harassment and this
Speaker 1: isn't limited to the United States either. In a Hong
Speaker 1: Kong based study found that twenty seven percent of the
Speaker 1: Asian flight attendants it surveyed reported being sexually harassed while
Speaker 1: on duty over the previous year, consisting mostly of quote padding, touching, kissing,
Speaker 1: or pinching, and other forms of sexual harassment they highlighted
Speaker 1: included lu jokes, quote staring in a sexual way, showing
Speaker 1: obscene or pornographic materials, and just straight up explicit requests
Speaker 1: for sex favors, and the majority of that sexual harassment
Speaker 1: was coming from passengers, but still forty one percent was
Speaker 1: coming from fellow workers, including senior cabin crew and cockpit members.
Speaker 1: And I think it was Heather Pool, who was a
Speaker 1: flight attendant UM who was writing over at Mashable about this,
Speaker 1: who was saying that the down route flights, I believe
Speaker 1: they're called. I guess after the flight attendants or have
Speaker 1: have completed their shift and they're flying home, they're not working,
Speaker 1: they tend to booze up. And that's when sexual harassment
Speaker 1: between crew members have most often, and on layovers too.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you can end up getting into some kind
Speaker 1: of sticky situations when booze is involved. Well, and Katherine
Speaker 1: Pool writes about the whole issue of the passenger perpetrated
Speaker 1: sexual harassment not being taken seriously under the mindset of
Speaker 1: a I don't want to be the person who is
Speaker 1: holding up all of these other passengers because of one
Speaker 1: bad apple. You know, it's the whole one bad apple
Speaker 1: ridding the barrel um and also the whole thing of
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm never going to see this person again.
Speaker 1: And and that mindset, though, is so is doing a disservice.
Speaker 1: It seems like to flight attendants because it's like, well, no,
Speaker 1: passengers shouldn't be allowed to do this. I don't care
Speaker 1: if they do get wasted. Yeah, I mean and yeah,
Speaker 1: so it exactly works both ways, the flight attendant who
Speaker 1: lets it go because she's never going to see him again,
Speaker 1: or the passenger who's behaving badly because he's he might
Speaker 1: never see her again. But let me tell you, you
Speaker 1: see the fun attendants if you fly the same roots
Speaker 1: well and yeah, and I'm not even like putting any
Speaker 1: blame on the flight attendants themselves. It's more just the
Speaker 1: it seems like the mentality. Yeah, it's sort of the
Speaker 1: understanding of like, you know, you don't don't don't be
Speaker 1: that person. And and if you are the one who
Speaker 1: reports it, chances are it might, like my nothing might
Speaker 1: even come from it. Pool reported on a coworker of
Speaker 1: hers who was flashed by some famous jazz musician. I
Speaker 1: am dying to know who. Some of you out there
Speaker 1: know who. I assume it is Michael Bolton. Is it
Speaker 1: Michael Bolton? Oh my god, that'd be hilarious. No, that
Speaker 1: would not be funny. Um, So this famous jazz musician
Speaker 1: flashes Pool's coworker for an entire flight, like every time
Speaker 1: she walks up into the aisle, and she did her
Speaker 1: due diligence and had the authorities meet the flight upon landing.
Speaker 1: But the authorities made the call not depressed charges because
Speaker 1: she was an employee, not another passenger. Oh so this
Speaker 1: is just part of a job description. What and and
Speaker 1: Pool talks about that. She talks about it in this
Speaker 1: smash double piece, and she talks about it in an
Speaker 1: interview somewhere else to um about, like, ladies, this is
Speaker 1: what and gentlemen in the world, like, this is what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with with the fallout from all of that
Speaker 1: sexualized marketing, the great sexpectations of like the sixties and
Speaker 1: seventies in particular, we're still dealing with it now because
Speaker 1: y'all feel entitled to grab us or be gross or whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: those those sexual assumptions are still so wrapped up in
Speaker 1: the job of a flight attendant. Well, and add on
Speaker 1: to that too, you have the I don't want to
Speaker 1: say subservience, but they are serving passengers and that really,
Speaker 1: uh you know, gets people's entitlement going. And something about
Speaker 1: the confined space where it's it's not like you can
Speaker 1: walk away from the person never to return. You can't
Speaker 1: lock yourself in the bathroom like you. You have to
Speaker 1: serve the passengers. My mother has been known to tell
Speaker 1: passengers that she will no longer be serving them good
Speaker 1: I mean, and and the pool echoed that she I mean,
Speaker 1: she kind of talks about how there are the flight
Speaker 1: attendants like your mom, where it's like you kind of
Speaker 1: have to take sexual harassment into your own hands and
Speaker 1: either just like shut the passenger down or you just
Speaker 1: let it fly. Let it fly. Nor does it seem
Speaker 1: like flight attendants are being compensated even close to enough
Speaker 1: to where a the should never be acceptable. But it's like,
Speaker 1: on top of this, they're not making that much money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the media and pay in was almost forty five thousand
Speaker 1: and uh their wages when you adjust for inflation, their
Speaker 1: media hourly wages actually dropped by between nine and two
Speaker 1: thousand seven UM. And and this would be one of
Speaker 1: the big reasons why you have unions UM and why
Speaker 1: people a delta are fighting over the union issue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean that that fort k is definitely a
Speaker 1: decent income, but in the US you can start out
Speaker 1: making just eighteen thousand a year yeah, and I hope
Speaker 1: that that's for part time work because that just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem right mathematically at all. Yeah, but I mean it
Speaker 1: also goes back like flight attendants have always had a
Speaker 1: history of basically bunking with other flight attendants to to
Speaker 1: manage to even afford the lifestyle. We didn't even talk
Speaker 1: about all of the flight attendant training dormitories, the stews dorms, yeah,
Speaker 1: where they had to have electric fences around them because
Speaker 1: men would try to sneak in. True, it's just it's
Speaker 1: almost stranger than fiction, all of this. I know, it
Speaker 1: really is. Well, just I had totally forgotten until you
Speaker 1: said that about the training dorms and that they would
Speaker 1: bring these women to like resorts or compounds built specifically
Speaker 1: for flight attendant training. And sure there would be like
Speaker 1: a here's how you, um, you know, save someone's life maybe,
Speaker 1: but it was mostly focused on here's how you walk, stand,
Speaker 1: handle a coat, um, serve a tray, all of this
Speaker 1: stuff appropriately. Wait, are you sure you're not talking about
Speaker 1: Trump University? But bringing a full circle with Donald drum Jr. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I think the moral of the story is treat your
Speaker 1: flight attendant like a human. Oh, yeah, and I also
Speaker 1: have to have this is a selfish on behalf of
Speaker 1: my mother. Note, Um, your flight attendants clean the bathroom. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you think you're doing when you
Speaker 1: go into the airplane bathroom and are disgusting, but just
Speaker 1: imagine me, and therefore imagine my mother who is sixty
Speaker 1: eight years old and has to clean up after you
Speaker 1: insane people on airplanes. So just that's my plea. Please
Speaker 1: treat your flight attendant and your entire crew crew staff,
Speaker 1: your entire flight crew like humans. So if Sally were
Speaker 1: here with us in the studio and we asked her
Speaker 1: what one piece of advice or request, whatever it might
Speaker 1: be for being a good air passenger would be, what
Speaker 1: do you think Sally would say, Um, stop being a jerk.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the entitlement I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of people feel, and the way that they
Speaker 1: feel that they can treat flight attendants and really anyone
Speaker 1: in a service position at all is uh is mind boggling.
Speaker 1: Um I don't I think we need to get it
Speaker 1: out of people's head that they can um because they're
Speaker 1: in a seated position and having someone bring a drink
Speaker 1: to them, that they can treat them like they're dirt. Um,
Speaker 1: just try to try to act like a Then my
Speaker 1: mother would probably say, you know, tell him to tell
Speaker 1: him to be nice and maybe check your bag if
Speaker 1: you know it's too big for the overhead compartment. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: she would tell you to put your own g D
Speaker 1: bag in the overhead Because I'm sixty eight, I don't
Speaker 1: lifted those bags anymore. Well, flight attendants listening, because I
Speaker 1: know there have to be some of you listening, is
Speaker 1: this ringing a bell? I mean, because I think that
Speaker 1: that is the danger sometimes of the whole sort of
Speaker 1: vintage nostalgia of like, oh oh those sexy times when
Speaker 1: all the women were just seen as wife material. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like, you know, everything is fine now. Um.
Speaker 1: So I am curious to know, for people who are
Speaker 1: in the air and working in the industry, whether you're
Speaker 1: a flight attendant or just in that world at all,
Speaker 1: what it's like, and whether it's something that's swept under
Speaker 1: the rug or um whether it is more of a
Speaker 1: non issue than the stats at least that we've been
Speaker 1: talking about suggests that it is. Mom Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com is our email address. You can
Speaker 1: also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we've got a couple of messages to share with
Speaker 1: you when we come right back from a quick break. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I have a letter here from Jane. She's actually responding
Speaker 1: to three episodes lunch Ladies, Custodians and Librarians Um. She said,
Speaker 1: I felt compelled to email today after listening to your
Speaker 1: Lunch Lady episode because with this episode, along with the
Speaker 1: recent one on Janitors for Justice in the Librarian two parter,
Speaker 1: you've managed to hit on multiple facets of my job.
Speaker 1: I'm a research librarian for a public employee union that
Speaker 1: represents custodians and food service workers. Every day I get
Speaker 1: to come to work and gather studies, reports, and news
Speaker 1: articles about different privatization and outsourcing campaigns. This information is
Speaker 1: then used to help protect the jobs of custodians and
Speaker 1: food service workers employed by school districts, cities, counties, and states.
Speaker 1: Since so often I'm reading about how private companies flash
Speaker 1: wages and benefits for their new employees, it was relieving
Speaker 1: to hear you talk about how much being in a
Speaker 1: union can help the individuals who are in these often
Speaker 1: thankless and invisible positions. One thing that I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention that I believe was left out of the Librarian
Speaker 1: to parter is how unions have also helped librarians and
Speaker 1: library workers. Along with representing custodians and food service workers.
Speaker 1: The union I work for, asked me or the American
Speaker 1: Federation of State County Municipal Employees also represents library workers.
Speaker 1: While it's easy to think that unions primarily or only
Speaker 1: represent blue collar workers and jobs, unions have had a
Speaker 1: lot of influence on professional employees livelihoods as well. Unions
Speaker 1: help library workers fight for pay raises and equitable pay,
Speaker 1: protect against de skilling of the workforce, and help maintain
Speaker 1: funding for continuing education. Thank you so much for all
Speaker 1: the work that you do your episodes. You're always a
Speaker 1: treat and I look forward to all the topics you
Speaker 1: discussed in the future. Well thanks, Jane, Well, I've gotta
Speaker 1: let her here. From Audrey, who writes, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to say a big thank you for your wonderful podcast
Speaker 1: that constantly expands my worldview. I wanted to thank you
Speaker 1: for helping me pass one of my two California social
Speaker 1: work license your tests yesterday. Congrats. I struggle with test
Speaker 1: anxiety and facing an hour and a half drive to
Speaker 1: the testing center was not helping keep me calm. I
Speaker 1: played my next podcast from Sminty, and up came Welfare Queens.
Speaker 1: I found myself nodding to a lot of your points
Speaker 1: on both the pros and cons of our current system,
Speaker 1: and found myself reminded of all the reasons I chose
Speaker 1: to be a social worker. Sometimes in the trenches of
Speaker 1: medical social work, it's easy for me to forget that
Speaker 1: I have an awesome job that lets me help so
Speaker 1: many people who are stuck in the loopholes of our
Speaker 1: welfare system. I went into my test inspired to kick
Speaker 1: butt and get back to social working. I passed to
Speaker 1: test thanks to a lot of study, gut reactions and prayer.
Speaker 1: After a good cry on a bench, I headed home
Speaker 1: listening to more of your awesome feminist work. I recommend
Speaker 1: your podcasts all my friends, and I'm constantly quoting fun
Speaker 1: facts I learned from Sminty. Please keep up the good work.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to your podcasts on social workers sometime
Speaker 1: in the future. Audrey, I am so glad to hear it.
Speaker 1: We were helpful with you passing your test. And if
Speaker 1: you've already taken a second one, I hope you passed it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you did, because you can do it. We
Speaker 1: believe in you. And if anyone has any thoughts or
Speaker 1: experiences highs and lows that they would like to share
Speaker 1: with us, mom stuff at how stuff works dot com
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