When we hear “Flight attendant” as one of the airport Jobs in Detroit, MI, we usually associate it with woman or female. This is understandable because Airlines persisted in hiring only female flight attendants throughout the 1960s. Airlines made a point of hiring only female flight attendants during the 1950s and 1960s. Airline executives said they had to appeal to businessmen, the primary airline customers. The implicit sexism of this business model aside, the airlines also required that these stewardesses be single, very young and pretty — a fairly explicit sexism. In 1968, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that sex could not be a bona fide occupational qualification of being a flight attendant as one of the Airport Jobs in Detroit, MI. The BFOQ ruling came on February 23, 1968. Airline stewardesses had been among the first to file sex discrimination complaints after the creation of the EEOC, but it took several years for the EEOC to issue its ruling on female flight attendants.
Airlines wanted stewardesses as one of the airport Jobs in Detroit, Michigan– that is, women only – and they wanted the women to be young and single. Most stewardesses were fired or grounded when they got married or turned a certain age, usually 32 or 35. In 1965, the EEOC responded to a Northwest Airlines stewardess who was terminated when she got married. Airlines also forbade stewardesses to marry. In October 1965, one of Northwest Airlines’ flight attendants filed a sex discrimination complaint with the EEOC because Northwest terminated female flight attendants upon marriage but did not ban marriage for male employees. Aileen Hernandez, later a president of the National Organization for Women, was a member of the EEOC when it found “reasonable cause” that Northwest had discriminated against women by having a marriage ban for women but not men. After this official word from a government agency, the flight attendant took her case to court.
However, the airlines in Detroit MI asked for a BFOQ exception: they wanted “being female” declared an airport job qualification of being a flight attendant. The EEOC ruled in November 1966 that being female was not a BFOQ, but a judge prevented the commission from releasing this ruling. The airlines protested that the 1966 BFOQ ruling would be improper because Aileen Hernandez had been elected to the board of the newly formed NOW. However, she also submitted her resignation from the EEOC before she was elected as a NOW officer. Finally, with new commissioners and years after the original stewardess complaints, the EEOC issued a BFOQ ruling on female flight attendants as one of the airport jobs in Detroit MI in February 1968. Being female was not a BFOQ for the position of flight attendant.
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