Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants

Radical Perspectives

by Kathleen M. Barry

“In her new chic outfit, she looks like anything but a stewardess working. But work she does. Hard, too. And you hardly know it. ” So read the text of a 1969 newspaper advertisement for Delta Airlines featuring a picture of a brightly smiling blond stewardess striding confidently down the aisle of an airplane cabin to deliver a meal. From the moment the first stewardesses took flight in 1930, flight attendants became glamorous icons of femininity. For decades, airlines hired only young, attractive, unmarried white women. They marketed passenger service aloft as an essentially feminine exercise in exuding charm, looking fabulous, and providing comfort. The actual work that flight attendants did—ensuring passenger safety, assuaging fears, serving food and drinks, all while conforming to airlines’ strict rules about appearance—was supposed to appear effortless; the better that stewardesses performed by airline standards, the more hidden were their skills and labor. Yet today flight attendants are acknowledged safety experts; they have their own unions. Gone are the no-marriage rules, the mandates to retire by thirty-two. In Femininity in Flight , Kathleen M. Barry tells the history of flight attendants, tracing the evolution of their glamorized image as ideal women and their activism as trade unionists and feminists. Barry argues that largely because their glamour obscured their labor, flight attendants unionized in the late 1940s and 1950s to demand recognition and respect as workers and self-styled professionals. In the 1960s and 1970s, flight attendants were one of the first groups to take advantage of new laws prohibiting sex discrimination. Their challenges to airlines’ restrictive employment policies and exploitive marketing practices (involving skimpy uniforms and provocative slogans such as “fly me”) made them high-profile critics of the cultural mystification and economic devaluing of “women’s work.” Barry combines attention to the political economy and technology of the airline industry with perceptive readings of popular culture, newspapers, industry publications, and first-person accounts. In so doing, she provides a potent mix of social and cultural history and a major contribution to the history of women’s work and working women’s activism.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Aviation, Womens, Labor, Gender

328 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2007

About the author

Kathleen M. Barry received a BA magna cum laude in history from Harvard University in 1992, and a PhD in history from New York University in 2002. She has taught American history at NYU and Cambridge.

In 2004 she served as an historical advisor for “Fly With Me: The History of the Flight Attendant,” a documentary film produced by West Park Pictures and Kaizen West Productions. The film was initially broadcast on Channel Five (UK), the Discovery Times Channel (US), and the History Channel (Canada) in Spring 2005, and has since appeared on the History Channel in the United States.

Before moving to the UK to take up a Cambridge fellowship, Barry was on the staff of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, working closely with the Institute's President as the
Coordinator of Special Projects and Publications. She was involved in the design, editing, and production of a wide range of publications for students, teachers, and the general public. She also assisted in the development of the New York State affiliate of the National Council for History Education and the Institute's summer internship for undergraduates.

Femininity in Flight is Barry’s first book. She lives in London with her husband and two children.

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Category: A Book with an Alliteration in the Title

A fascinating read! Certainly flight attendants are not the first group that comes to mind when I think of feminists, but this book has taught me so much about their activism.

The book does a beautiful job of outlining the history of commercial airlines and customer service and how these services were advertised.

The book also explains how unions played an important role in the rights of women. I am glad that this story is being told and hope that by remembering the struggles and fights won in the past, we can continue to fight now-- to hold onto these rights!

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Femininity in Flight is a well-researched book that strikes an academic tone while remaining engaging and accessible to a broader audience. I learned a lot from this book. One of the more interesting tidbits is that the first female flight attendants were required to be nurses--but the airlines didn't advertise that fact because they didn't want to scare away passengers in those early days of aviation. The book focuses heavily on the unionization of flight attendants and their struggles against sex-based discriminatory policies in the 1960's and 1970's. This was an important era in the history of flight attendants, to be sure, but all the union history started to blur together for me after a while. All in all, I was struck by the paradox of the profession: glamour, sex appeal, and adventure meets drudgery, physical labor and sexual harassment. Not an easy role to maintain, no matter how you slice it, and one that is absolutely worthy of respect (and, dare I say, book-length study.)

2021 Reading Challenge Category: A book set somewhere you'd like to visit in 2021 (i.e. the inside of an airplane!)

[Gayle · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was in high school (graduation class 1972) I read a novel about a girl who went to flight attendant school and found it fascinating. The standards were rigorous and I was enthralled. So when I saw this book I thought it would be interesting. It was but only to an extent. I ended up skimming and skipping to the end after a certain period. The initial history was very interesting. But the book was quite detailed as to the political machinations that went on as flight became more popular and less expensive. I understood better the protests and demands of the woman's movement that I grew up in because stewardesses, as they were then called, were little more than sex objects in the eyes of the airlines. Many hard fought battles took place to gain respect and fair treatment but the names of the unions/organizations and different people involved became tedious to read. I don't think many would be interested in this unless they were a flight attendant.

[Krystal Leonardo von Seyfried · Rating 3 out of 5]

had this as required reading for a liberal arts course on american labor history. interesting read - flight attendants aren't the first thing i think of in relation to feminism but the author makes a good case for these two subjects to be connected, and connected they are.

[Ali · Rating 2 out of 5]

ehh not super exciting especially since it was overly repetitive. could’ve been an article not an almost 300 page book

[Gray Jabaji · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was pretty interesting but a bit repetitive

[Cloak88 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A non-fiction less rose-coloured look at the profession of Flight Attendants and their struggle for recognition, equality and the prestige they are due.

As it turns out sexism doesn't end when you get off the ground. Femininity in Flight tells the story of what it was like being a Flight from te 1940s onwards. From the glamour on the 40s and 50s to the unionization attempts and the skimpy uniforms of the 70s and 80s. Attitudes and circumstances changed a lot, but not always for the better.

This book takes you through the ages of aviation from the perspective of a Flight Attendant. The triumphs and struggle for equal pay, better working environments, but also the status and freedom of taveling the world.

A fine aviation history book.

[Vanessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little less cultural or social history than I would have liked, less anecdotal evidence. For those who are interested in women's labor history and the co-evolution of Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) this is a great resource.

There is a chapter on advertising that I particularly liked: "Come Fly Me--Fly Yourself!" that unlocked how attendants had to overcome their visual representation--that hospitality isn't work, and all they have to do is be HOTTT--to change advertising campaigns and gain legitimacy in the labor environment.

[Chris Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the books we read for our Gender and Labor in American History course. Barry does an excellent and seemingly thorough job of describing the evolution of flight attendants, from the air nurse days in the 1930s to post-9/11. The highly feminine faces of stewardesses could be the poster children for women's labor evolution, and their struggles to be taken seriously in their chosen occupation echoes the struggles of many groups of women in the workforce--to include my personal interest, women in the military. We have a lot to thank these women for.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an especially readable one of our books. I took home the manuscript before publication and actually got sucked in. Barry relates a lot of fascinating and shocking information about what it was like to be a flight attendant before the mid 70s.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting but a little dry. I would have like more stories from flight attendance and less labor union history.

[Foxglow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look into the assumptions and prejudices around the flight attendant profession.

[Sean Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read - focused more on the legal struggles of flight attendants and flight attendant unionism less so but still good.