An American “Stewardess Instructor” in Postwar Tokyo Challenging Japanese Women’s Attire in the Skies

Abstract

International 'stewardess' was considered one of the most cutting-edge and attractive jobs for women in postwar Japan. In 1951, when the newly established Japan Airlines (JAL) called for applications for its first cohort of flight attendants, one thousand three hundred women vied for just fifteen posts. The cabin crew's smart uniform and high-heeled shoes were very much a part of the position's modern appeal. This paper discusses the American 'stewardess instructor' who was hired by JAL to train the new recruits for its first international services, and the impact she had on their look and service expectations. The twenty-seven-year-old United Airlines employee arrived in Tokyo in 1953 and, in addition to teaching first aid, emergency and inflight procedures, she took it upon herself to write to JAL's president and suggest several wardrobe modifications. These included the provision of a pair of low-heeled shoes for female cabin crew to change into to perform their inflight service duties on the thirty-hour flight between Tokyo and San Francisco. In her role as intermediary between JAL's male executives and her female trainees, she addressed issues related to women's work attire that continue to be debated today, over sixty years later, by movements such as the KuToo campaign (from the Japanese kutsu, meaning shoes, and kutsū, meaning pain).