Gender aspects of the civil aviation flight attendant profession in the 21st century: from \"sky sisters\" to the crew of the futureThe word \"stewardess\" still evokes the image of a smiling young woman in impeccable form, with perfect hair and careful makeup. This stereotype, propagated by cinema and advertising, has become so firmly established in the public consciousness that the profession of flight attendant is still perceived as \"female.\" However, the history of aviation knows periods when men dominated the cabin, and today the industry is experiencing a new transformation: airlines are increasingly striving for gender balance, and passengers no longer associate the quality of service with gender. How and why has the gender portrait of the flight attendant changed, what stereotypes continue to exist in the 21st century, and what will the crew of the future look like?Historical paradox: from \"yungs\" to \"sky sisters\"Today, looking at the statistics where women make up 75-79% of flight attendants in the United States and up to 90% in some Russian airlines, it is hard to believe that in the first decades of commercial aviation, this profession was almost completely monopolized by men. The history began in 1912 when Henri Cubis, a waiter at the Paris hotel \"Ritz,\" became the first flight attendant serving passengers on the German zeppelin \"Zeppelin.\" At that time, they were called \"yungs\" (cabin boys), and their presence in the cabin was considered necessary for safety: flights were risky, and passengers felt safer in the presence of men who were believed to be better able to handle emergencies.The turning point came in 1930 when Ellen Church, a nurse who dreamed of becoming a pilot but was rejected due to her gender, proposed that Boeing Air Transport hire nurses as flight attendants. This idea was commercially successful: passengers, mainly men, felt secure in the hands of reliable professionals, and airlines were able to use the image of a young, ca ... Read more