A few weeks ago, I attended “The rise of populism and the future of economic policy” conference. In her keynote, Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants, shared that airlines had marriage bars.
United Airlines (United) required female stewardesses to remain unmarried as a condition of employment, but did not have the same requirement for male stewards. Mary Sprogis initiated one of the first legal challenges to United’s marriage bar in August 1966, the month and year I was born. Ms. Sprogis filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) alleging her termination was a violation of Section 703(e) (1) of Title VII of the Act. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 (e). United argued that the no-marriage rule for stewardesses was essentially one of many “qualifications that merely distinguished between classes of employees within the job category of stewardess in the same manner as educational or physical requirements.” In 1965, the EEOC ruled that the no-marriage rule for stewardesses was discriminatory based on sex. In 2023, 44% of flight attendants reported being married (see Table 1).
Table 1. Flight Attendants by Ethnicity, Race, and Marital Status: 2023
Source: Calculations by the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race using the American 2023 Community Survey. www.ipums.org
One of the things I appreciate about the work we do at the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race is putting data to the statements we hear in passing and at conferences. Our work encourages me to take fewer opportunities for granted, especially when I realize that many of these opportunities became available to women in my lifetime, literally. I hope our work inspires you in the same way.
Grateful,
