Are Most Male Flight Attendants Gay? – Beyond Highbrow

Contents:

• HOW THE GAY AIRLE STEWARD BEME A STEREOTYPE
• ARE MOST MALE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS GAY?

HOW THE GAY AIRLE STEWARD BEME A STEREOTYPE

Some mentary on Pedro Almodóvar’s new edy I’m So Exced has noted that rerc gay stereotyp, particularly the characters of s sassy male flight attendants, who are all gay. When did the gay steward bee such a mon stereotype? Some stewards were hired back after returng om World War II—often out of a sense of loyalty or patrtic duty—but bee they performed what was nsired “women’s work, ” they were thought to be effemate and were therefore spected of beg homosexual, acrdg to the bias of the time.

ARE MOST MALE FLIGHT ATTENDANTS GAY?

This perceptn was further rerced when the killg of a gay male flight attendant a “lover’s lane” Miami brought the stereotype to the headl of sensatnal stori the Miami Daily News. In the macho, homophobic years of the 1950s, this provoked a crackdown on the cy’s unrground gay muny, and stori like the were seen as evince that gay people were “perverts. ” Many airl (some of which traed their stewards Miami) turn quietly did away wh hirg stewards, both gay and straight.

Ever sce, men have generally prised about 15 percent of flight attendants, pendg on the airle, and a high percentage of the men returng to the ranks of the flight attendant rps the 1970s were gay. For gay men, there were many reasons to bee a flight attendant— wasn’t jt the willgns of many to do stereotypilly feme work. As Tiemeyer wr, “the aisl and galleys of airplan, as well as crew hotels and crash pads, served the same role that other gays and lbians found bars: a place where they uld meet others like themselv and even embrace their same-sex sir for the first time.

And I’d walk through termals, and I knew if there were gay men, they’d be lookg at me. So how many flight attendants were and are gay? They timated that “between 30 and 50 percent of male flight attendants were gay the 1950s, and between 50 and 90 percent the 1970s.