1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910826792603321

Autore

Tiemeyer Philip James <1970->

Titolo

Plane queer [[electronic resource] ] : labor, sexuality, and AIDS in the history of male flight attendants / / Phil Tiemeyer

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, 2013

ISBN

0-520-95530-7

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (301 p.)

Disciplina

331.7/61387742

Soggetti

Flight attendants - United States - History

Flight attendants - Labor unions - United States

Gay people - Employment - United States

Sexual orientation - United States

Civil rights - United States - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

List of illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The pre-World War II "gay" flight attendant -- The Cold War gender order -- "Homosexual panic" and the steward's demise -- Flight attendants and queer civil rights -- Flight attendants, women's liberation, and gay liberation -- Flight attendants and the origins of an epidemic -- The traynor legacy versus the "patient zero" myth -- Queer equality in the age of neoliberalism -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

Sommario/riassunto

In this vibrant new history, Phil Tiemeyer details the history of men working as flight attendants. Beginning with the founding of the profession in the late 1920's and continuing into the post-September 11 era, Plane Queer examines the history of men who joined workplaces customarily identified as female-oriented. It examines the various hardships these men faced at work, paying particular attention to the conflation of gender-based, sexuality-based, and AIDS-based discrimination. Tiemeyer also examines how this heavily gay-identified group of workers created an important place for gay men to come out, garner acceptance from their fellow workers, fight homophobia and AIDS phobia, and advocate for LGBT civil rights. All the while, male flight attendants facilitated key breakthroughs in gender-based civil



rights law, including an important expansion of the ways that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act would protect workers from sex discrimination. Throughout their history, men working as flight attendants helped evolve an industry often identified with American adventuring, technological innovation, and economic power into a queer space.