Gendering the Ideal Flight Attendant

Seminar summary

Despite attempts by airlines and the wider tourism industry to cultivate more diverse working environments, gendered practices and pressures persist. A feminist poststructuralist approach involving interviews with flight attendants from three airlines is used to examine how airlines attempt to construct the ideal aesthetic flight attendant and how individual workers may resist these gendered practices through their work. The findings demonstrate that airlines consistently shape and discipline flight attendants’ gendered grooming performances through rules, peer surveillance and engendering self-regulation. While flight attendants occasionally employ subtle forms of resistance, they primarily adhere to traditional gender norms. The paper provides a conceptual shift from binary perspectives on surveillance in tourism work to a relational understanding that reveals circulatory force.

How to attend this seminar

This seminar is free to attend with no need to register in advance.

We welcome you to join us online on Wednesday 6 March 2024 at 12pm.

Speaker bio

Dr Whitney Vernes Smith

Dr Whitney Vernes (Smith), Lecturer, is a researcher interested in equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), particularly focusing on gender inequalities and inequities in tourism. She is a qualitative researcher using a combination of primary and secondary data sources to examine gendered cultures and ideologies. Previous work has focused on deconstructing gendered discourses within airline organisational narratives. Research projects have included industry-focused, collaborative work, including a United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) funded Centre Stage project that sought to gain an understanding of women’s empowerment during the COVID-19 Recovery.