Former flight attendant-turned-writer, Yvonne
Lee, reveals the dirty truth behind ‘flying the friendly
skies’. (Photo:The Star).
“Your senior would force you to smoke, drink and even sleep with
them. If you didn’t comply, they would make your life hell.”
“A colleague of mine was terrified because the head steward
wouldn’t stop knocking on her hotel door in the middle of the
night. When she didn’t respond, he taunted her in front of everyone
the next morning. It got so bad that she cried every single
day.”
“She felt dirty every time she put on her uniform so she quit
her job.”
These are just some examples of the many traumatic experiences
female flight attendants have suffered in their line of work.
In a newly published book, a flight-attendant-turned-writer
recounts her own air horror tales with a liberal dose of humour,
even though things were far from funny back then. And the title
doesn’t get any more appropriate —
Madness Aboard! Welcome to Plane
Insanity.
“It (sexual harassment) was so prevalent that you can ask any
stewardess who worked at the time and they will tell you the same
stories,” says 40-year-old Yvonne Lee, who left the aviation
industry in 1995 after six years.
She tells Malaysian daily The Star of how a chief
steward called “Joe Square Jaw” had
attempted to make a move on her in
the cargo hold.
“I felt a strange erected pressure against the small of my back.
If I remember correctly, it was the same kind of pressure I had
felt when I was among the sardine-packed commuters on a bullet
train in Tokyo,” wrote Lee.
“Some Japanese pervert had jacked up against my butt. Then it
quickly occurred to me that this was no bullet train but a deserted
cargo hold where only one other person existed! Joe Square
Jaw!”
Insanity indeed.
A UK report entitled ‘Sexual
harassment culture shatters illusion of high life‘ shows
that in a survey of 2,000 women who worked for a national
airline, more than one in five said they had suffered sexual
harassment from passengers.
Apparently, male members of the crew pose an even greater
threat. Almost half of the women said they had had to put up with
offensive remarks or lewd behaviour by colleagues or superiors.
And the easiest prey? “Rookie stewardesses,” as Lee calls
it.
“It was as if it was a time before modern civilisation and the
stewardesses were viewed like cattle stock. Whether pilots,
stewards or passengers, they ogled at a newbie like she was a
walking piece of prime steak, a Chateaubriand with a chignon and in
heels…. It was demeaning.”
So why do flight attendants make such appealing targets for
sexual harassment?
The
International Transport Workers’
Federation (ITF) points the finger at advertising.
“There’s not an airline out there that hasn’t at some time
sought to exploit the notion that air travel includes being served
by a physically attractive hostess,” states the ITF report.
The Star gave the example of
Singapore International
Airlines (SIA)’s “Singapore
Girls” — so famous that a reproduction of “the girl”
became the first commercial icon to be placed in
Madame Tussaud‘s waxworks
museum in London in 1993.
“Gorgeous air stewardesses…I think a majority of passengers have
come to expect that,” agrees flight attendant Max Foo, 26. “In
fact, I have friends who said they preferred Asian airlines
compared to Western ones because the latter were full of old,
matronly women.”
Fussy much? Try the demanding male passengers, or those who had
a little too much to drink, or both.
“A male passenger touched my behind. I told him, you do that
again and I will slap you,” says a stewardess in a report complied
by the ITF.
“I asked the other passengers to be my witness to his behaviour
and, in the end, I had to slap him. Of course, sometimes you’re
afraid you might lose your job.”
Says senior flight attendant Annie Teo, 46, “It’s as if normal
rules don’t apply when you’re 40,000ft (12,192m) in the air. This
problem is further exacerbated during the layover period, when
you’re in a foreign land with co-workers who are virtual strangers.
There was a lot of hard partying going on.”
These cases may not make newspaper headlines, but word gets
around on who the top predators are, says Teo.
“We have an unofficial list of our own,” she adds. “There’s a
Top Five Captains List and a Top Five Supervisors List. We’re very
cautious with those who make the list.”
While Teo admits that things have
somewhat improved since the implementation of more stringent laws
governing sexual harassment at the workplace, the working
conditions are still far from desired.
“It’s still normal for a male captain or steward to refer to a
stewardess as a ‘crew meal’, meaning that she’s an easy lay,” says
Teo. “That’s the first thing they look out for in a flight — a
stewardess that they can makan (“eat”) and pass on to their
colleagues. They think it’s funny.”
And the worst part? The same sexual predators who were around 10
years ago are still around today.
“The supervisor who raped my friend is still working, even
though he has amassed a string of cases over the years,” reveals
Teo. “He even got promoted recently. I think it’s because he has
strong ties with the human resources department.”
There are reasons why such cases go unreported.
“Usually, we’re advised to lodge a complaint in the office
instead of taking matters to the police,” she says. “If the victim
does this, however, the office would require both her and her
perpetrator to be present for an investigation. What if the
perpetrator isn’t penalised for his actions and decides to make her
pay for what she’s done?”
It seems that male flight attendants are not left out of the
nasty game either. What makes it worse is that the airline
companies do not take such matters seriously, says Max Foo.
“I’ve lost count of how many times another male colleague had
tried to grope or rub against me,” he says. “I was bemused at
first, but now I’m just angry.”
“In class, they teach the girls some basic precautionary
measures they can use to avoid salacious advances but, when it
comes to the men, we’re usually on our own. Management makes a big
joke out of it (homosexuality).”
“At the end of the day, we’re just normal human beings,” adds
Foo.
“Most of us just want to make a decent living and go back to our
families.”
