Flying the 'unfriendly skies': Flight attendant activism, 1964-1982

This dissertation investigates 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---from the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the early 1980s. This account sheds light on the changing nature of women's work in the late 20th century and offers a window into the evolution of second wave feminism. In Chapter One, an analysis of the popular culture of the period reveals that representations of flight attendants were pervasive at the height of the feminist movement, obscuring the skilled work that the women performed as well as their own activism in the movement. Chapter Two focuses on flight attendants in the 1960s who 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. Employing the strategies of liberal and cultural feminists, flight attendants challenged both the stereotype of the sexy, young, thin "stewardess" and the policies that created and sustained this image.;Chapter Three explores flight attendants' ongoing battles in the 1970s. Although many did not identify themselves as feminists per se, their activism consisted of filing complaints and lawsuits against the airline industry, building coalitions with other women's groups and eventually establishing their own feminist organization, Stewardesses for Women's Rights Chapter Four provides a closer examination of SFWR and the role that it played in the broader feminist movement. Flight attendants occupied 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, 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." Drawing on advertisements, films, memoirs, women's organizations' materials, court cases, and newspaper articles, this dissertation challenges the negative stereotypes of flight attendants and demonstrates that they played a crucial role in the history of the second wave of the feminist movement.