Anyway, one of the other things I was thinking about in this context was the diversity of the flight attendants. On the flights I had a female attendant who looked to be in her 50s. I had a few male attendants. A gloriously effeminate male, a flight attendant with an accent, a flight attendant who was clearly overweight, and several who were very brown. All were wonderful at their jobs. What a difference from when when I was flying on planes as a student back when the student fare (do they still have that?) for the flight between DC and Toledo was $14. Airlines had strict rules about who could be flight attendants. The rule was pretty much that you had to be young, good looking, thin, white, and above all, female.

Back in the day, Southwest Airlines, one of the flights I took, was sued by males wishing to be flight attendants but not allowed to be because they were male. Southwest argued that being female was a bona fide occupational qualification for being a flight attendant. Thank heaven the court disagreed. Now, one of my students told me her Southwest Airlines flight attendant was a male with bright blue hair. I love it.

None of the attributes that I named about who my flight attendants were this time around did a thing to get in the way of them being perfectly fine flight attendants. (What makes us think we should try to fit people into molds to make ourselves feel more comfortable?)

I could not be happier that times have changed such that they are now able to do so.