Confessions of a Male Flight Attendants

 

Airline flight attendants have been around for over 90 years. However, you may be surprised to learn the first ones were men.

 

No, I was not one of these first ones. The first were called “couriers” and were the sons of the steamship companies who were starting up airline passenger service. They even had the First Officers come out of the cockpit and serve snacks and drinks.

 

It was in 1930 when Ellen Church presented to the predecessor of todays’ United Airlines, the radical concept of having women work as in-flight servers. The idea quickly caught on, and the airlines portrayed the “stewardesses” as just a step below Playboy Bunnies. Uniforms were designed with short skirts, and even hot-pants and boots. Advertising touted suggested slogans such as “Fly Me” and “We really move out tails for you”.

 

As women fought against these sexist practices- mirroring what they were doing in general society- the airlines realized that to comply with the new equal hiring requirements, they would need to begin hiring more men. And what did you get in this unexpected benefit of Women’s Lib?

 

Me!

 

The airlines began to hire more men in the early ’70s, so I was by no means the first hired- and men had been hired as pursers for flights as well. But the 70s brought on a noticeable onslaught of male applicants.

 

 

 

The airlines were not quite ready for all the men coming in. In training, one of the classes was make-up and grooming. Since the male applicants didn’t want the John Boehner look by using facial toner, the trainers just had us sit in a corner and buff our nails.

 

Before aligning with the government practices, layover hotel rooms were shared by two stews. That, unfortunately, didn’t include the men sharing with the women. As layover hotels are contracted rooms, if the hotel was fully booked, the extra room needed might be at another hotel, and the lone male flight attendant would be bussed alone to the other hotel for their layover.

 

Female passengers loved having the men on board. After years of worrying their husbands were bedding the beautiful stewardesses on their business trips, they now had men serving and catering to their needs.

 

And the female flight attendants loved having us on board as well, as we became more attuned to their needs and desires, and were their age, and had a less chauvinistic/misogynistic attitude.

 

The pilots did not want us though. for years they held the top dog position in the crew. Besides being officially in charge as per the chain of command, many considered the “girls” to be part of their stable of drink and dinner companions - and hopefully overnight companions as well. Never mind the fact most of these pilots were old enough to be fathers of these women…we know men can be pigs.

 

On the whole, pilots at that time were buzz-cut, white sock wearing ex-military men with homophobic issues. They thought any man who would want to do a “girls” job had to be a queer.

 

Wait- let me get this straight…I’ll be working next to, and spending nights in the same hotels with some of the most beautiful, cultured and reputably promiscuous women in the world….Right! We’re gay….you manly men need not apply!

 

One captain was about to be served his dinner by a male Flight Attendant, who was summarily ordered out of the cockpit with the command: “I want to be served by someone in a skirt”. The Flight Attendant promptly rolled up his pants legs above his knees, borrowed a female Flight Attendants wrap-around serving apron and went back in to serve the red-faced captain his meal- though I’m not sure if he dared to eat it.
And it’s at tis point of the story that I have to tip my had to the first female pilots, who had to endure a lot to be accepted as an equal in the cockpit.

 

There was no place more testosterone filled than the cockpit. Even the name evokes manliness. (When we have an all female pilot crew, we change the name to the box office). Behind each panel, between the pages of manuals and log books, you could find nude photos of women. It would be the first things pilots would pre-flight when they arrived in a new cockpit- just to prove their musk. Some photos were pressed into such small spaces that all you could make out might be a nipple- not even knowing if it belonged to an man or a woman. Yet it provoked the appropriate Pavlovian response.
Gradually the Korean/Vietnam war pilots retired and were replaced by younger pilots, more hip to the new relationships between men and women, and the situation equalized out.

 

Oh, and the pictures are gone.

 

Funny thing is- there were a lot fewer gay men in the early days than that are currently being hired. But these doors have been opened to them in part by the efforts of female flight attendants for equal treatment in the industry.

 
Tim Kirkwood is in his 39th year as an airline flight attendant. He is the author of THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT CAREER GUIDE a career resource guide for aspiring Flight Attendants. He is also Executive Director for Women in Corporate Aviation- a non-profit organization helping all applicants in corporate aviation.