How the Stewardess Lost Her Stripes
There was a time when jetsetting playboys were pictured as having a stewardess or two on his arm. On TV, one guy would try to get some other guy to be the necessary second guy for a double date: "They're stewardesses, Bob ... stewardesses!" Today? Something has changed. We find the answer in the theory of the controlled price. FULL ARTICLE
Comments (17)
...Which explains the ability today for customers to get what they want with a niche carrier: If you really want good-looking stewardesses, you can fly Hooters's airline, if that's a service you're willing to pay for. Choice makes the world go 'round!
Published: January 4, 2006 9:04 AM
My mom actually wanted to be a stewardess at one point.
Published: January 4, 2006 9:34 AM
One thing which surprised me the first time I flew on a US airline (back in 1994) was how ordinary the stewardesses looked compared to those on European airlines, who looked like fashion models. In spite of the competition from low cost carriers, it seems to me that they still do, although perhaps not as much as before. Maybe this is due to the fact that in most of Europe unemployment is high, so there is a larger pool of wannabe stewardesses to choose from.
Published: January 4, 2006 9:57 AM
An interesting objection has been raised to BK's piece, that the REAL reason for the loss of the institutional identity of the "sexy stewardess" is discrimination lawsuits, not deregulation. Well, it turns out that the very first discrimination law, according to this background history, was in 1966 and the EEOC did indeed find against the airlines. It was hugely controversial, and it is probably true that fear of lawsuits did have an impact on airline hiring practices. Here is the Supreme Court case of 1977, that addressed the question of who can join a class-action suit against United Airlines.
At the same time, here is an interesting interview with the former assistant to the chairman of the EEOC, in which discusses the stewardess question in the context of discrimination.
" You had the airline stewardess issue. I was very involved in that. Airlines, at various times in their history, hired only women, and at other times, they hired only men. The various rationales for this varying discrimination were fascinating. In the beginning, they hired only women. The airlines' rationale was people were afraid to fly because they felt it wasn't safe. So the airlines hired women and put them in nurses' uniforms so that people would be reassured that if something happened, there was a nurse on board to take care of them. Later on, they hired only men, because they could carry the luggage. Then, they went back to hiring women--this time because of their sexual attraction for the mostly-male passengers.... The stewards were used to move luggage to wherever the airline was moving it. In the sixties, airlines were hiring only women for domestic flights because they [the airlines] were competing on the basis of the 'glamour.' "
Of course she misses the price control issue completely. In any case, it doesn't seem to me that these two perspectives are not incompatible. The airliness were emphasizing glamour instead of price in order to compete. This reality drew the attention of the government, which then intervened again, Misesian style.
As to whether glamour would have otherwise been such a huge part of airline life, who is to know? It seems like an issue influenced by culture etc. In any case, as the above poster points out, much of this will be handled in the future based on market segmentation--of course we'll have to see how long the EEOC will put up with that!
Published: January 4, 2006 10:47 AM
It's a good theory, but a bit of a stretch. The main reason Flight attendants don't look like they once did can be summed up in one word, Law-suites. Flight attendants working for most U.S. airlines during the 60's, were not allowed to be married or have children. If a flight attendant married while employed by an airline she was required to resign or be terminated. Airlines only hired the best looking girls applying for the job. And once they were hired were required to wear sexy uniforms and go-go boots. The airlines have all lost discrimination law suites for those hiring practices. They have been forced by the courts to hire women and men of all shapes and sizes, and large girls don't look so good in short skirts and go-go boots, so the old uniforms went out the door.
Published: January 4, 2006 11:29 AM
Hehehe, too bad this can't get reprinted in the Swedish press. I can really imagine the reaction of the feminists that dominate Swedish media, they would get furious, not because of the price control theory (I don't think hey care about that), but over the normative view that stewardesses should be sexy. That's just sooo sexist, male chauvinist etc. and reflects the patriarchial structures of society bla bla bla and it shows why we need to have the government impose gender quotas in corporate board rooms and elsewhere bla bla bla....
Published: January 4, 2006 12:33 PM
Neil Block is right, but I imagine Hooters Airline would be constantly, legally harrassed by the neo-puritan bluestockings we know and love called the feminists!
Published: January 4, 2006 1:14 PM
Actually, Hooters has been harassed by discrimination suits from men who claim they want to be waiters. However, I suspect a lot of the plaintiffs are fronts for those who despise the restaurant's "exploitation" of women.
Published: January 4, 2006 2:30 PM
I have been vainly searching for the beautiful young woman who "stewed" for Eastern Airlines when I returned home from Viet Nam during 1968. I must assume that she suffered the same demise as that once proud airline. So much for an "American Beauty" and a brief moment in time.
Published: January 4, 2006 2:44 PM
I expected to see a lot of feminists ripping their clothes for such a "sexist" commentary. Anyway, I can tell you that the most rude and careless stewardesses I've encountered work for American or Continental. Latin American and European are much nicer, and prettier!
Published: January 4, 2006 10:44 PM
When I used to fly with United they always had attractive airline stewardesses on international routes. They were very polite and a pleasure to deal with. Real nice people. A different story once you hit continental USA and transferred to United's domestic services. That's when you got a lower standard. The politeness and attentiveness to service went right out the window. Quite a few of these women really were utter trolls. They were a minority but they delivered the impression that they really didn't give a stuff about the job and didn't want to be there in the first place. That was always a shock. So I gave up flying United on US domestic flights.
The last time I flew with United (two years ago) the trolls had taken over the international side of things as well. What an unpleasant bunch of ugly harridans they were. I've avoided US carriers since.
You guys should try the Asian airlines. Big difference in standards and, yes, the stewardesses are beautiful more often than not. Best of all, the entire flight crew go to great lengths to ensure the standard of service is consistently high.
The faster carriers with ugly, unhelpful, impolite crews go out of business the better for all of us.
Sione
Published: January 5, 2006 2:40 AM
A devil of a lot of erudite verbiage, all wasted because: the real reason for the lack of conspicuously sexy stewardesses is the infernal institutionally driven uppitiness of women that has snow balled in America since the late 1960s; yet another grievance borne by long suffering losers of straight white protestant male patriarchal bourgeois exploiter-oppressor privilege--any one else wish George Wallace had been elected president in 1968? Oh, I FORGOT: we are all supposed to be rational-philosophic anarchists who eschew attempts at addressing & tackling social problems with the innately evil force of compulsory government even if it will get us DESIRED results--better to let women & other erratic creatures be uppity, insolent, militant et cetera!
Published: January 5, 2006 2:48 AM
Steven Smith:
This anarchist won't presume to tell you, or anyone else, what they are "supposed" to be, but will nonetheless "eschew attempts at addressing & tackling social problems with the innately evil force of compulsory government even if it will get us DESIRED results" himself, and persist in trying to convince others that doing so will lead to a freer & more prosperous world.
Yes, it would be "better to let women & other erratic creatures be uppity, insolent, militant et cetera" - as well as to "let" individuals publicly voice their bigoted & brutish views - and simply punish the aggressive use of force.
So, in this grand contest of memes that drives society into the future, you have cast your lot with the forces of barbarism (with the orcs, if you will) by promulgating the aggressive use of force upon those with different values & opinions. Surely you can see that if you were to succeed in legitimizing this, you, yourself, would become a "legitimate" target of violence? Everyone would be. Help me understand this… have you just failed to think this path through – perhaps letting your emotions get the better of you - or do you believe that in the final, brutal, contest you would somehow "win"? I fail to see where your advice leads to anything other than fear, poverty, & despair for all.
I don’t know if your post was even serious, but the views espoused in it, to the extent that I could parse them out, are all too prevalent in my opinion. No, I won’t be organizing a committee of concerned citizens to beat you into agreement (or submission), but I was moved to speak out against the adoption of your ideas. Civilization, such as it is, will stagnate or decline as long as we all compete to use the hammer of the state upon one another in order to achieve our desired ends.
Published: January 5, 2006 10:36 AM
Elf's got it right, I think. By thinking that it is acceptable to initiate force for desired results (in this case, the "uppitiness" of women?), then one is implicitly accepting the idea that might makes right, and should have no legitimate cause to complain if other groups take advantage of government power to get *their* desired results.
Published: January 5, 2006 11:35 AM
Oh, and for the sake of clarity, I think it would be different if we're talking about *preventing* others from using government power to get their desired results. A person in office could conceivably do that, although it's not necessarily an easy battle.
Published: January 5, 2006 11:39 AM
Several theories immediately come to mind, such as the observation that everything is in decline, due in part to the campaign to eradicate conspicuous signs of sex differences from mainstream commercial culture (thereby forcing it all into the red-light district).
Paragraph four, full stop.
Do you happen to own a television, perchance?
- Josh
Published: January 6, 2006 3:15 AM
I'm perusing the internet this morning because I was told my old 1960's Continental stewardess uniform was worth a bit of money. I'm now off track and running into some interesting conversation.
It's true we could not be married, but that changed in about 1967. Someone wondered where we all had gone since those days of mini skirts, etc. Well......we're now all grandmothers!
I flew MAC during Vietnam. I often wondered what happened to all those men. However I did marry one of them and consequently know that right now he's in bed and I can't sleep. :
Thank you for the walk down memory lane.
Published: April 1, 2007 6:53 AM