A Clevelander, Retired Flight Attendant, And Women’s Rights Pioneer

ideastream
A Clevelander, Retired Flight Attendant, And Women’s Rights Pioneer
Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Barbara "Dusty" Roads grew up in Cleveland, and is now 86 years old. She was a long-time flight attendant who in the 1960s, stood up to gender and age discrimination for her and her peers. Ideastream's Tony Ganzer spoke to her. She'll be participating in a panel discussion Wednesday, called "the Fight for Fairness in Flight."

(excerpts)
GANZER: “You had a long career with the airlines, but maybe one of the most fiery portions of your career was when you stood up to them, and you said the rules for flight attendants, of when they had to retire, were not fair. Could you remind us of that story?”

ROADS: “I was with American Airlines, and I joined American as a stewardess—we were stewardesses then—in 1950. And in 1953 American Airlines so deemed, in a contract, that anyone that was hired by American after November 1953 would be fired at age 32, and also if you married you were fired.” ...

...GANZER: “Something I found interesting in your story, is that we may take about the Women’s Rights Movement, but this was part of the Civil Rights Movement in this country, more broadly.”

ROADS: “Yes it was. But it was also..I think…we had so much help from a congresswoman named Martha Griffiths, from Detroit. And Martha had been, pardon the expression, screwed, because she and her husband had graduated from Missouri, and they applied to Harvard Law School. He was accepted, and the Ivy Leagues did not take women in law school. So they went to Michigan, University of Michigan and they changed Michigan politics forever. And Martha was the woman who got the Equal Rights Amendment through the House after years and years of trying, and no one could do it then.”

MORE at http://www.ideastream.org/news/feature/a-clevelander-retired-flight-attendant-and-womens-rights-pioneer