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A review by courtneydoss
Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cooke
5.0
Come Fly the World tells the story of a handful of women who served as Pan Am stewardesses during the peak of the airline's life - the 1950s - 1970s - and uses those women as examples to showcase the ways in which stewardesses effected modern feminism, the war effort in Vietnam, and commercial air travel.
Of particular interest to me in this book was the juxtaposition between Pan Am and their sexually suggestive, misogynistic marketing both to potential stewardesses and potential clients, and the way work in the industry provided women with unprecedented freedom. The rigid standards of the airline for appearance, as well as firing women when they got married or became pregnant, are fairly well known parts of their story, but I think that sometimes people mistake women meeting the standards of femininity with them being anti-feminist. A woman can wear pearls while also believing in and modeling female empowerment, and the stewardesses exampled in this book do just that. They are all strong and independent, many of them well educated, and despite the stereotypes that accompanied their chosen career, all of them were intelligent, opinionated young women with curiosity about the world.
Another aspect of the book that I found interesting was the focus on the Vietnam war, and the crucial roles that commercial airlines and stewardesses played in the war effort. To be a stewardess traveling in an out of war torn countries was dangerous work, but incredibly vital. The horrors that some stewardesses saw, particularly when evacuating Vietnamese refugees from the country, were traumatizing and as a new mother, I was particularly moved by the section of the book focused on Operation Babylift. My heart hurts for the Vietnamese "orphans"- many of whom were the abandoned children of US soldiers - and I can only imagine the stress the stewardesses must have felt handling dozens of injured, traumatized, and incredibly young children through long haul international flights.
This book is relatively short, accessible, and interesting, and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of feminism, the Vietnam War, or travel.
Of particular interest to me in this book was the juxtaposition between Pan Am and their sexually suggestive, misogynistic marketing both to potential stewardesses and potential clients, and the way work in the industry provided women with unprecedented freedom. The rigid standards of the airline for appearance, as well as firing women when they got married or became pregnant, are fairly well known parts of their story, but I think that sometimes people mistake women meeting the standards of femininity with them being anti-feminist. A woman can wear pearls while also believing in and modeling female empowerment, and the stewardesses exampled in this book do just that. They are all strong and independent, many of them well educated, and despite the stereotypes that accompanied their chosen career, all of them were intelligent, opinionated young women with curiosity about the world.
Another aspect of the book that I found interesting was the focus on the Vietnam war, and the crucial roles that commercial airlines and stewardesses played in the war effort. To be a stewardess traveling in an out of war torn countries was dangerous work, but incredibly vital. The horrors that some stewardesses saw, particularly when evacuating Vietnamese refugees from the country, were traumatizing and as a new mother, I was particularly moved by the section of the book focused on Operation Babylift. My heart hurts for the Vietnamese "orphans"- many of whom were the abandoned children of US soldiers - and I can only imagine the stress the stewardesses must have felt handling dozens of injured, traumatized, and incredibly young children through long haul international flights.
This book is relatively short, accessible, and interesting, and I'd recommend it to anyone with an interest in the history of feminism, the Vietnam War, or travel.