Glamour, travel, sexism: when flight attendants fought back
In 1958, when Mary Pat Laffey Inman became a flight attendant – as they were then called – for Northwest Airlines, she was twenty years old and the clock was already ticking. At the age of 32, she would be forced to retire. That is, if she did not marry, became pregnant or even became overweight for that: these were all reasons for ending the marriage. It was the golden age of aviation for everyone, except perhaps the women who served meals to the smartly dressed passengers during the flight.
Six years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and female flight attendants began joining forces against sexism.
In 1970, Ms. Laffey Inman, a labor leader and Northwest's first female purser — the head attendant on a flight — led a class action lawsuit, Laffey v. Northwest Airlines Inc., which resulted in the airline paying more than $30 million in damages and back wages in 1985. It also set the precedent for non-discriminatory hiring of flight attendants across the industry. But even then, not everything changed: flight attendants at some airlines were still subject to “weighings” until the 1990s. (Northwest merged with Delta Air Lines in 2008.)
Now, decades after the landmark decision, Ms. Laffey Inman, 86, is one of several former flight attendants featured in “Fly with me,” An “American experiencedocumentary chronicling how women fought to overcome discrimination in the airline industry. The film premieres on PBS on February 20. The New York Times spoke with Ms. Laffey Inman about how she made history. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired your career in the aviation sector?
I worked at Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh. I always wanted to travel, ever since I was a child. As a flight attendant I was able to travel – all expenses paid. I loved it. Other flight attendants and I laugh about how lucky we were to be in the industry at the time. We would bid on three-day stopovers in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo. A limousine is ready to pick you up and take you to the hotel.
What did the training entail at the time?
Flight attendants had a six-week session where we learned about the airline and received emergency and safety training. We learned the commands to use in an emergency. And we had grooming classes – women came and taught us how to apply our makeup and paint our fingernails.
Beyond keeping up appearances, how was sexism evident in the industry?
When I started, senior flight attendants talked about younger men being hired to take charge of the plane and crew, bypassing flight attendants who had been flying for a while. They discussed this in whispers, or sometimes not whispering. It was always a point of contention. Men were elected to positions that controlled the union, and they conducted the negotiations. Flight attendants couldn't really consider the job as a career because we had to quit when we got married or when we were 32. That was always in the back of your mind.
How did you become the first female Purser?
In 1968, Northwest hired four men off the street as pursers. I called the director of labor relations and said, “You have to place this bid!” When they did that, a lot of women were intimidated, but I applied and got the job.
How did the duties of flight attendants differ in the 1960s?
We had to work with military air contracts. In times of emergency, the US military has the right to fly aircraft that can be used on a military basis. We flew to Vietnam quite often during the Tet Offensive in 1968. I was a purist, but I was new and had no seniority, so I was assigned to those flights. We would take 165 soldiers to Okinawa, then take them to Vietnam and hopefully bring 165 back. We got in and out of Vietnam as quickly as possible because there were rockets going back and forth.
Taking over a huge company is no easy feat, especially as young women in the 1960s.
We didn't have a legal leg to stand on until the Civil Rights Act, which mandated discrimination based on sex. That was our renaissance.
What role did you play?
In 1967, I became head of the Northwest union and negotiated the airline's first nondiscriminatory contract. We were able to prove that female flight attendants had the same skills and responsibilities. Then we brought back the flight attendants who had been fired because they were over 32, or because they were overweight or because they were married.
How did you end up with a class action lawsuit?
In 1969 negotiations for the next contract began. The negotiating committee was dominated by men. I expected changes, but Northwest refused to include language that would treat female wallets the same as male wallets. I spoke to an employment lawyer who said we had a case. Ultimately, 70 percent of the union signed. The airline dragged it out for 15 years – took it to the Supreme Court twice, but the case was sent back to the Federal District Court of Appeals, where Ruthie Bader Ginsburg was the judge who wrote the opinion in our favor.
When you filed the lawsuit, did you have any idea of the impact you would have on the industry – and on history?
No, I was just looking for equality in pay. I wasn't thinking 40 or 50 years ahead. I just hoped that every step up the judicial ladder would go our way.
As for flying today, with the many reports of bad passenger behavior What do you think can be done about flights and crew stress to make flying better?
I would like to see someone pass a law to widen the seats. That's one of the reasons there is so much tension.
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