Dismantling Gender Roles in Aviation: Pan Am to Today
The airline industry has a long standing and deeply entrenched gender division of labor. Men are pilots; women are flight attendants. They both play important roles in transporting passengers in safety and comfort. They work closely together in order to complete flights all around the globe. It begs the question how did this system become so skewed and why does that gender disparity still exist? Today flight attendants are overwhelmingly women, over 74% of US registered flight attendants are women according to the Population Reference Bureau. On the other hand, pilots, are only a mere 7% female. While these numbers have been slowly changing in recent years, the historical roots are deep. Historical roots that tie back to the boom times of aviation during the prime years of Pan Am.
The aviation industry started in the turn of the 20th century but really became iconic with the emergence of Pan American. The airline that took flying into the commercial marketplace unlike any other. Flying became the most glamorous and luxurious method of transportation. Pan American flew exclusively international routes and became famous for its clipper service across the oceans, in the process Pan Am became the most recognizable brand in aviation history. Julie Cooke’s Come Fly The World tells the story of Pan Am through perhaps what the airline is most famous for, its flight attendants. During a time when Women’s roles in society were changing perhaps none more so than with America’s most famous brand Pan American. While symbolizing the boom in flying and in many ways empowering women to new heights, Cooke’s interviews also paint the darker side of Pan Am’s corporate discrimination.
Pan American grew their image of glamour and prestige through their flight attendants, the first line of interaction between the company and its customers. Women desiring to become Pan Am flight attendants had to be college educated, speak multiple languages, and possess the savvy international knowledge of someone in the foreign service while also having the soothing ability to calm passengers. Cooke tells the stories of five different flight attendants during this peak boom time of Pan Am.
The job as a Pan Am flight attendant was extremely sought after during the boom of Pan Am. The 1960’s saw many apply, and many dreamed of one day becoming a flight attendant. For women across the country, the new luxurious and fast growing industry was a way to see the world and experience different cultures. The same mystique the company carries in its marketing to passengers applied to its new employees. For many women, the idea of being a Pan Am flight attendant was a new idea that would allow them to break many of the typical gender norms of the time and get out and see the world. This opportunity arose as the 50’s gave way to the 60’s when in the 50’s flight crews had almost entirely been male until airlines began a new era of marketing. As the decades changed airlines realizing the mostly male business traveling clientele decided to actively market the attractiveness of their crews. Selling male business travelers on a luxurious piece of high society travel while being surrounded by smart, beautiful women, this in many ways was the principle marketing strategy that led to the boom of airlines, primarily Pan Am. So much so that these women had to uphold strict standards for their appearance.
In talking with 5 former Pan Am flight attendants Karen, Lynne, Clare, Hazel, and Tori, Cooke goes into detail about the strictness of the standards at Pan Am. From 1966 to 1975 women working at Pan Am had to be between 5’3” and 5’9”, maintain a weight between 106 pounds and 140 pounds, as well as maintain a series of other standards of appearance. Oftentimes, flight attendants would have to ask or not be allowed to change their hair style or other physical features. Pan Am enforced these standards with incredible strictness even managing when women could get pregnant. Breaking from any of these standards would result in the immediate termination of employment. These women lived the lives that so many dreamed of breaking the gender norms of the time and earning a high living wage, traveling the world, and much more, yet, in this role seemingly breaking gender norms they were watched over by their hawkish employer who had made this role possible.
Pan Am remains a bit of a controversial corporation. The standards of employment changed with non-discrimination legislation in the 70’s, but the company remains controversial for its use of women as marketing tool. Despite the change within the US, some of this marketing narrative still exists today in many parts of the world. Attractive women working as flight attendants catering to wealthy business traveling men. While this has changed in America for the most part many still remember and idolize the style of business. Pan Am’s logo and famous New York city headquarters are American icons, it remains a huge icon in aviation history symbolizing glamour and the glory days of aviation. Airlines today even go as far to trace their corporate heritage to the dissolved branches of the complex Pan Am conglomerate, merely to gain the association to the company. Needless to say, Pan Am holds a place in aviation lure that no other company will be able to reach.
Cooke’s writing and the words of the former flight attendants brings the notion and the glorification of Pan Am we have today into some question. While we can look back and debate the business ethics of the past, the repercussions are clear, there is a huge discrepancy in the aviation industry where the jobs have been divided. Even in today’s world we see this massive divide where almost three quarters of flight attendants are women and only make up a small fraction of pilots. A discrepancy where more men in the high paying pilot jobs. This discrepancy needs to change, and this is the perfect time to make the changes in the aviation industry. There is a massive pilot shortage and the discriminatory rules of the aviation industry that have dictated the demographics for so long must change now.
There is progress, the number of women pilots is on the rise and has been rising for many years. Etihad airways, the Abu Dhabi based carrier, even celebrated its country’s nations women’s day by recording the first all-female crew on one of its flights. As well, the average age of flight attendants is now in the mid-forties rather than the high twenties as it was in the 1960’s. These are positive changes that are a sign of the industry becoming less sexualized. These changes and the evening of the gender disparity in this position are good things to see for the industry as a whole. While it is still good to see these changes, the large gender disparity still exists among pilots. Still this disparity exists as the pilot industry is even more stretched than flight attendant positions. The worldwide pilot shortage has gotten so bad that Airlines have invested millions in building and partnering with their own flight school and colleges in order to get more pilots into their ranks. Increasing wages for young pilots and offering subsidies for schooling in order to gain recruits. An aging industry like piloting, with many being forced to retire and increasing the prominence of the shortage, the perfect solution to this labor shortage is out there. Airlines using resources in order to gain pilots is the perfect solution for increasing the amount of women in pilot jobs.
Airlines should take the lessons of the past and right the wrongs of historical aviation and do what they can to increase the appeal of piloting jobs to women. This first change can be with the structure of these jobs. As of now pilots work on a systematic structure of seniority and bidding for schedules, flight attendants work on a similar scheduling system. Monthly schedules are posted, and pilots can bid on those contracts they are then awarded based on seniority. This system has existed for many years and is protected by the pilot unions. This system is among the first reasons why being a pilot can be a challenging career path for both men and women. Consistency of scheduling is impossible for pilots, making predicting where you will be difficult at times. While pilots have the luxury of being home and not working for days on end they also can’t be away from home for days if not weeks depending on where they live. Pilots must also fly a certain amount of hours in order to stay “current” or maintain the status of their pilots’ license. It doesn’t take much understanding to realize this scheduling can be a tough one to manage with a spouse let alone a whole family. While airlines have gotten better in recent years about restructuring some systems to allow for maternity or childcare leave it’s still a hard system to manage, as well as having a certain archaic feel to it. A change to this scheduling system however could really make the profession more appealing, especially to women. One possible route to this would be to change the regulations on pilots and allow them to manage time off easier as well as more control over their physical locations.
While changing the whole scheduling system and structure of how piloting jobs function would be tremendously difficult, it could really flip the script and make piloting jobs more appealing to women. A change like this would take serious effort on the part of employers, but it would contribute to destroying the underlying divide of men as pilots and women as flight attendants, as well as the major pilot shortage these employers are currently facing.
The legacy of the Women of Pan Am is unmatched, they broke out of the times gender norms and tell a story of empowerment even with the dark shadows of the company sexualizing them. As Cooke writes about they went above and beyond what their jobs required making passengers comfortable, even when those passengers were young troops fighting in Vietnam or thousands of children flying out of collapsing Saigon. These Women have a memorable and empowering story that stretches far beyond the miles they covered in the air. Now it seems like time to listen to the stories of these women and see the flaws that still fundamentally make up the aviation industry. Making changes to the structure of piloting jobs can start to make these jobs and the industry as a whole more welcoming for women. By making changes like this the underlying past wrongs can be righted and an industry that has traditionally been male dominated can begin to open even further.
Citations
Cooke, Julia. Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am. Boston, Mariner Books, 2021, read.amazon.com/?asin=B08B3CDMFQ.
Silk, Robert. “Airlines facing a new pilot shortage as planes, but not personnel, return.” Travel Weekly, Travel Weekly, 7 Sept. 2021, www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Airline-News/Airlines-facing-a-new-pilot-shortage-as-planes-but-not-personnel-return.
Twombly, Ian J. “The 7 Percent.” Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, AOPA, 1 Apr. 2019, www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/april/pilot/the-seven-percent.
“The Changing Demography of U.S. Flight Attendants.” Population Reference Bureau, Population Reference Bureau, 3 June 2009, www.prb.org/resources/the-changing-demography-of-u-s-flight-attendants/.
