Deregulating Desire: Flight Attendant Activism, Family Politics, and Workplace Justice

Sexuality Studies

by Ryan Patrick Murphy

In 1975, National Airlines was shut down for 127 days when flight attendants went on strike to protest long hours and low pay. Activists at National and many other U.S. airlines sought to win political power and material resources for people who live beyond the boundary of the traditional family. In Deregulating Desire , Ryan Patrick Murphy, a former flight attendant himself, chronicles the efforts of single women, unmarried parents, lesbians and gay men, as well as same-sex couples to make the airline industry a crucible for social change in the decades after 1970. Murphy situates the flight attendant union movement in the history of debates about family and work. Each chapter offers an economic and a cultural analysis to show how the workplace has been the primary venue to enact feminist and LGBTQ politics. From the political economic consequences of activism to the dynamics that facilitated the rise of what Murphy calls the “family values economy” to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, Deregulating Desire emphasizes the enduring importance of social justice for flight attendants in the twenty-first century.

Genres: Labor

252 pages, Hardcover

Published October 14, 2016

Reviews

[Jonathan Kissam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uses the workplace struggles of flight attendants to weave together histories of labor; gender, sexuality, and family; and political economy in a fascinating exploration of the way that the "family wage" economy of the New Deal regime gave way to the "family values" economy of the neoliberal era, while maintaining a critique of how both economies failed people who did not conform to traditional models of "family." Not sure if Murphy identifies as a fellow "David Montgomery grandchild" (one of his undergraduate mentors was a student of the legendary labor historian), but the section explaining the importance of work rules to flight attendants brought me into the world of skilled labor like the best of Montgomery's studies of (white, male) skilled trades. And a brisk, engaging read as well — something not always common in labor history :)

[Jim Twombly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought-provoking and curiosity raising.