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A Herstory Lesson: Founding Feminists – September 12, 1967


Are being quite young, very attractive, and an unmarried woman "bona fide occupational qualifications" for being a flight attendant ? According to the airline industry, the answer is "yes," but two unions and feminist Betty Friedan strongly disagree. Today a hearing was held by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission so it could listen to both sides, then make a ruling on whether the airlines are in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, or whether their biased standards are justified and should be permitted to continue.

Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique" and president of the almost 11-month-old National Organization for Women, noted the similarity between the job requirements of the airlines and those of a Playboy Club, and said that the airlines were "transforming stewardesses into bunnies of the air."

"While the airlines talk about these pretty girls and the service they give," she said, "the sexuality of the girls is a necessary factor in the job." She called the airlines' policies "the most flagrant kind of sex discrimination" because male airline employees are never required to resign or take other jobs upon reaching age 32 (or 35 in some cases), nor when they marry, and do not have the same ultra-strict weight requirements.

None of the airline executives disputed the fact that they have unique and far more restrictive age standards for female flight attendants than for any of the jobs done by men, but tried to show why these rules were needed. According to Walter Rauscher, vice-president of American Airlines: "We must have a glamorous product that is wanted and needed by people," and he resented the comparison between his company's employees and Playboy bunnies. But he didn't say what the difference was between being "glamorous" vs. being a "sex symbol," or which of the many duties of a flight attendant could not be performed by a married woman, someone over 32, or a man.

Robert E. Johnson, vice-president of United Air Lines, also objected to the "airborne bunny" comparison. "I resent the implication that stewardesses are sex symbols. They are not," he said. "They perform a quality service. I resent characterizing them as 'bunnies.' That is unwarranted on the basis of their conduct, breeding and behavior." He then said that it was United's stewardesses who kept the " 'friendly skies' of United friendly," apparently adding an ever-smiling, compliant attitude to the strict age, height, weight, beauty, grooming and marital status requirements.


Protests against these policies date back to April 17, 1963, when eight flight attendants held a press conference to denounce the American Airlines policy of forced retirement at 32. "Do I look like an old bag ?" asked 35-year-old Barbara "Dusty" Roads. (She was able to work past the deadline because all those employed at the time the new policy went into effect in November, 1953, were given exemptions.)

The Civil Rights Act was signed into law on July 2, 1964, and the E.E.O.C. began its work a year later, charged with interpreting and implementing Title VII. However, the Act permits bias in "those certain instances where religion, sex, or national origin is a bone fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise." Congress began taking testimony on the issue of discrimination against flight attendants on September 2, 1965, when Colleen Boland and several other women testified about the unfairness of the rules.

