Aesthetic labor and female workers in Airline Industry
Author: Janni Alapartanen
2 Commentries
Abstract: Both men and women are facing multiple gender inequalities in the aviation industry. This paper will focus more on female workers perspective. The issues women are facing in their job are sexualization, stereotyping, inequal rules and treatment compared to men. This paper will discuss the aesthetic labour through the decades and some of the requirements airline companies have, as well as how they will affect women.
Keywords: Aesthetic labour, gender inequalities, sexualization, aviation industry, job requirements
Aesthetic labour means that employers are recruiting employees, because of their looks and physical features. Airline companies have very restricted dress codes for their ground and air staff. They are the people who represent the company and the ones whose customer sees a lot. For that reason, it is important that employees look representable, but some airlines take this too far. Jet Airways says they don’t accept their cabin crew to have pimples or scars and United Airlines doesn’t accept male flight attendants to wear makeup. Airline companies such as Qatar Airways had very strict rules for their cabin members. Employees were not allowed to get married or have kids in the first few years of employment. If they did, they would get fired. (Kim, 2016) However since 2015, those restrictions have been relaxed, although some rules such as female employees must be picked up from work by their male relative or husband are still in place (AFP, 2015).
It is understandable that organizations want to dress their employees the same way because it is aesthetically appealing. Service workers are the first people customers see from the company, and the image should be clean and professional. It is also easier for customers to recognize and find the employees when they are dressed the same, in the company’s uniform.
It’s not right to force women to wear makeup, and not allow men to wear it. It should be everyone’s own choice whether to wear it or not, however, it is understandable for companies to require that the makeup should be appropriate for work and not over the top. It should also be everyone’s own choice and right to decide whether they want to have kids or get married and when they will do it, and not be afraid of losing their jobs because of it. Lastly, people can’t do anything about their acne and scars, and it can be something that already affects them and their confidence a lot. It is saddening that it can be a barrier to having a job as well.
Aesthetic labour has changed a lot over the years. In 1930s airlines were recruiting young female flight attendants and required them to be nurses. This was a selling trick to make passengers feel safer. Young girls wanted to be a flight attendant because they saw it as a glamorous job. The novels of the “glamorous era” of the 1960s were showing females as young and beautiful flight attendants, who are caring and serving customers. The way novels are describing male was that they work as pilots, and are handsome, fatherly and strong professionals. From the 1930s onwards flight attendant job was seen as women’s job. Women had to look feminine and aesthetically pleasing for employees and customers. (Baum, 2011)
In the 1970s airlines advertised flight attendants as sex objects with ad slogans such “I’m Cheryl, Fly me!”, which meant that they wanted to attract mainly male customers on board. (Xiaoni, 2017) Female flight attendant’s uniforms were highly sexualised as well, with tiny shorts and high boots (Lagrave, 2017). The reality of airline cabin crew work is very different from the “glamorous era” and from the picture that these novels and advertisements are showing. From 1980s work of flight attendants has meant, angry customers, delays, overbooked flights, low payment and uncomfortable working environments. (Baum, 2011 7) Flying used to be luxurious and only rich people could afford it, but nowadays flying has been made possible for everyone, with cheap prices and variety of options with airlines and destinations, and for that reason has lost its specialness. (Baum, 2011)
There is a huge difference in the statistics of how many men and women are for example pilots. In 2017 the statistics show that there were 609,306 pilots in total worldwide and of that only 42,694 were women. That makes women’s percentage 7,01%. (Women in Aviation, 2017) A lot has changed since the 1970s, and women are not as sexualised, and flight attendant job is becoming more gender equal. More men are working e.g. as a flight attendant and more women are working as pilots. The change is happening but very slowly.
Gender inequality in the airline industry can be difficult for women and can make them feel like they have to work harder than men to prove that they are just as capable as men. Women might feel discriminated and isolated in male-dominated job’s because the conversations between men can be very inappropriate and they can be teased for working in “men’s” job. There is also a lot of pressure for women to perform in the same level as men. (McCarthy, Budd and Ison, 2015) We need to change the view that these job’s such as piloting and engineering aren’t men’s job and encourage and support young women to go study and become pilots. We could have women pilots or women engineers to mentor young women to give them more confidence that they can do it too. We should welcome all genders to any positions, with equal rules and wages and go towards more gender equal industry.
References:
Baum, Tom. (2011) Working the skies: Changing representations of gendered work in the airline industry, 1930e2011. Available from: https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0261517711002378 Accessed 14 May 2019
Kim, Soo. (2016). Unusual flight attendant requirements: the good, the bad and the beautiful. Telegraph. Available from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/unusual-flight-attendant-requirements-the-good-the-bad-the-beautiful/ Accessed 14 May 2019
McCarthy. F, Budd. L and Ison. S. (2015) Gender on the flight deck: Experiences of women commercial airline pilots in the UK. https://www-sciencedirect-com.proxy.library.lincoln.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0969699715000447 Accessed 17 May 2019