Working Women's Activism in the Airline Industry, 1964–82

Flight attendants occupy a significant position in the history of working women in the United States:  while most women were trying to gain entrance to the professional workforce in the 1960s and 70s, flight attendants were advocating for the right to have families.  The airline industry expected women to follow a traditional trajectory that explicitly limited their “choices.” Although the job seemed to encourage independence and world travel, women were only expected to enjoy these luxuries for a short period of time, i.e. before age 35.  Flight attendants were supposed to have jobs – not careers – and return to the home as soon as they were ready for marriage and children.

However, many flight attendants, beginning with the passage of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, initiated a battle against discriminatory practices in the airline industry, including mandatory retirement at age 35, rules forbidding marriage or children and stringent weight requirements.  While many of these flight attendants did not identify themselves as feminists per se, they employed the strategies of liberal and cultural feminists, challenging both the stereotype of the sexy, young, thin, “stewardess” and the policies that created and sustained this image.  Their activism consisted of filing complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, initiating class action lawsuits, joining unions, and building coalitions with already established women’s groups such as the National Organization for Women.  Some women eventually established their own feminist organization, Stewardesses for Women’s Rights. The history of American women flight attendants – their evolving roles, their fights for labor rights and gender equality, and their key role in the cultural conflict over the depiction of women – sheds light on the changing nature of women’s work in the late twentieth century and offers a window onto the evolution of second wave feminism.