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Book Review
| Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants. By Kathleen M. Barry. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. xviii, 304 pp. Cloth, $79.95, ISBN 978-0-8223-3934-2. Paper, $22.95, ISBN 978-0-8223-3946-5.)
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| From the early days of commercial aviation until the late twentieth century, flight attendants— or stewardesses—were typically attractive young white women whose jobs were seen as bringing coffee and cocktails to tired businessmen. Their more serious job of ensuring passenger safety was rarely mentioned in airline advertisements, which focused on sexuality with suggestive slogans such as "Fly Me" and "We Really Move Our Tails for You." |
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Kathleen M. Barry's Femininity in Flight examines the development of this field, from its beginnings in 1930 through the flight attendants' struggles in the 1960s and 1970s to end discriminatory practices, including no- marriage rules and mandatory retirement at age thirty-two. In doing so, the book adds to our understanding of how gender roles were prescribed in the twentieth-century workplace. |
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