Abstract
Since the early years of the airline industry, the female cabin attendant was portrayed in popular media as an icon of femininity, which had implications for the working lives of the women employed in the industry. This thesis shines light on the battle for labour improvements and women’s empowerment that the female cabin attendants in Scandinavia fought. The thesis charts the strong influence of the American airline industry on the standardisation of the cabin attendant job. It traces the portrayal of cabin attendants in books, films, plays, interviews, articles and at beauty pageants to find a trend toward increasing sexualisation. The thesis asks, how did the image of the cabin attendant affect the material side of the job and what role did female cabin attendants play in the labour movement? Questions like these have been addressed in American historiography, but not for the Scandinavian case. Informed by concepts from the sociology of work, the thesis will cover the development, the idea and the material side of the cabin attendants in Scandinavia from c.1950 into the 1970s. The airline company SAS stands in focus; archival material of this company will be used. The thesis wants to contribute to a growing body of “pink-collar” work in labour history.