{"id":37664,"date":"2011-07-27T10:08:43","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T15:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=37664"},"modified":"2013-11-10T23:53:08","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T04:53:08","slug":"hanging-onto-the-stewardess-at-delta-airlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/07\/27\/hanging-onto-the-stewardess-at-delta-airlines\/","title":{"rendered":"Hanging onto the “Stewardess” at Delta Airlines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when we were kind of obsessed with “man” and “woman” symbology — e.g.,\u00a0whether traffic lights ever include female figures<\/a>,\u00a0how stick figures tend to be male, unless they’re parenting<\/a>, the weird world of default avatars<\/a>, and also this interesting alternative symbol for disability<\/a> — I had considered writing a post featuring the then-stewardess, now-flight attendant icon seen on airplanes. \u00a0Airplanes have a longer life than cars and, so, many of the airplanes operated by commercial companies still have the old stewardess icon: a friendly round head with a dress. \u00a0These were old planes though, I figured, so the post wouldn’t pack much of a punch. They were <\/em>like that, back then, after all.<\/p>\n

Lo and behold, MirandaB took a flight on Delta and snapped a photograph of an undeniably modern incarnation of the friendly round head:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Delta chose <\/em>to use a digitally<\/em>-skirted stick figure on its task screen. \u00a0Just to be clear, Delta still, in 2011, feels comfortable representing “flight attendants” as 100% female. \u00a0That’s a win with the language, a fail with the symbology.<\/p>\n

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women account for 81% of flight attendants<\/a>, not 100% by a long shot. \u00a0But you can see why men might be reluctant to join their ranks.<\/p>\n

Also in gender, sexism, and air travel: Sexism in Aviation, Then and Now<\/a>, Selling Feminine Passivity<\/a>, “Singapore Girls” and Emotion Work<\/a>, and Fly the Unfriendly Skies<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when we were kind of obsessed with “man” and “woman” symbology — e.g.,\u00a0whether traffic lights ever include female figures,\u00a0how stick figures tend to be male, unless they’re parenting, the weird world of default avatars, and also this interesting alternative symbol for disability — I had considered writing a post featuring the then-stewardess, now-flight attendant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,23622,307,76],"class_list":["post-37664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-social-construction-symbols","tag-traveltourism","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37664"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58772,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37664\/revisions\/58772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}