Plane queer : labor, sexuality, and AIDS in the history of male flight attendants / Phil Tiemeyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tiemeyer, Philip James, 1970-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Flight attendants--United States--History.

Flight attendants.

Flight attendants--Labor unions--United States.

Gay people--Employment--United States.

Gay people.

Sexual orientation--United States.

Sexual orientation.

Civil rights--United States--History.

Civil rights.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (301 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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.

Contents:

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.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780520955301

0520955307

OCLC:

827207381