In 1968, a stay-at-home mom named Iris Feeley joined a class action lawsuit against American Airlines. It challenged the company’s policy that “stewardesses” – as they were then called – had to quit their jobs when they got married. The suit was one of many that year aimed at the airline industry’s gender-specific rules about marriage, pregnancy and body weight. Iris’s daughter Robyn was 8 at the time and didn’t realize the magnitude of the situation. But decades later, when she came across her mom’s job training pamphlets and paystubs, she realized what Iris and so many other women had been up against. And, she knew her mom had a part in opening the door for future changes in the airline industry related to equality, diversity and the desexualization of flight attendants. In this Mother’s Day audio postcard, Robyn Feeley shares her story of finding out her mom was a history making rebel.
Robyn Feeley:
It was after she passed away and I was going through her belongings that I came across the paperwork in an old antique bureau of hers that she used to use for her costume jewelry. I was going through it and I stumbled into it along with her first pay stub. Once taxes were taken out, it was a whopping $96.32.
Basically, this is what they call Flight Service Notes. It’s dated July 13, 1956, and it talks about who the American Airlines stewardess is. It reads, “She may have been a school teacher, or a dance instructor, a nurse or a social worker. She is somewhere around 24 years old…she weighs 113 lbs. But, chances are she will resign to be married as 85% of her stewardess friends do.”
That’s exactly what happened to my mother. She started flying for American in 1955. When she married my dad in 1958, she had to quit. And, like the paper said, 85% of the women that happened to. So, they sued. And, they won.
All of the women were offered their jobs back. It worked out great because we still got all the benefits. We flew first class all over the world. It was one of the most fascinating things I’ve done in my life, and it’s all because the women got together, they were brave enough and bold enough to sue the industry.
I don’t think she saw herself as a feminist. I don’t think she saw herself as part of any big movement. But, when you look back at it you realize yes, indeed she was.
There’s something about this document that just screams at me every time I read it. I remember her telling me stories about the cosmetic bag that they got issued. All the women wore the same color lipstick.
They wore the same shoes. Nobody was going to tell me what lipstick to wear. Nobody was going to tell me I had to wear a skirt or 7 inch stiletto pumps and walk up and down an aisle on an airplane.
It was the 60’s, so things were changing radically. The feminist movement was happening. I saw my mom as being, seriously, just your average, middle class mother. Now, today, I look at that very differently as an adult. I think that she was pretty rad, and I didn’t give her enough credit at the time. But, I do now! I totally do now.
