After being promised a high-flying aviation career and sinking resources into Pune’s privately run Air Hostess Academy, over 100 young tribal people find themselves stranded back where they came from. Not only have airlines refused to hire them, the state has now scrapped the course with the outrageous justification that their looks and accents worked against them. No less than Maharashtra’s minister and commissioner for tribal development have blamed the students instead of sticking up for them.
Apart from an absurd industry standard, there is no reason why the requirements should include anything beyond efficiency, fitness, grooming and smarts. The job description spans serving food and drinks, caring for the ill or elderly, enforcing safety rules and staying alert for possible emergencies. A flight aisle is not a runway — given a choice, who wouldn’t prefer a warm, competent air hostess to an icy, convent-schooled, heavily made-up stick insect? But ever since the first American “sky girls” in the ’30s, flight attendants have been wrapped in a remote glamour, no matter how tedious their service and safety duties. “Trolley dolly” is the condescending British expression for flight attendants. Singapore Airlines unabashedly sells itself through the Singapore Girl, who must be between 25 and 35, of Asian extraction, “slim and attractive, with a good complexion and warm personality”. India’s airlines have easily internalised that idea, of high-heeled, low-status paragons of femininity. Read more on http://maharashtra.ozg.in/2010/03/100-ad ivasi-air-hostess-discriminated.html *Adivasi | Tribal India*<http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&ref=ts&gid=60261715372> -- Sudesh Kumar J H A R K H A N D www.jharkhand.org.uk
