British Airways - lipstick

To be fairm and if I remember correctly, there is a young guy in NY? who dresses himself according to his male boss who has everything just so as well.

Outrageous, and I think they woukd struggle to defend if a sex discrim case was brought.

ppplease I am intrigued by your comment thT you're not a big fan of feminism. Not a fan of being able to vote, equal pay, not being fired for being a women, access to contraception and abortion, maternity leave, it being illegal for your husband to rape you. Not a big fan of those things? I hope you never avail yourself of any rights which feminists have secured for you.

It's the same at ALL airlines. You have to look smart and this is part of it. It sets the right tone for the company, if you see staff looking like shit, you make a connection that if they're not taking care of the small details they're not taking care of the larger ones either.

You are representing your company (and country) on a global stage and should bloody well look smart and well groomed. If you don't like it, I suggest you don't fly. Ever.

The women who take these jobs are not silly girls, but grown women and if they don't like the contract they don't have to take the role. As for saying well the American staff were more relaxed, they were. They looked a bloody mess and do in real life too. I've flown in and out of JFK many times and they let BA down with their appearance.

I don't work for BA, never have.

I have to say that I am not a big fan of feminism. But this really did seem to have partiarchy written all opver it.
How on earth could people at BA let the programme go through like that, exposing themselves in such a bad way.

I can only assume that their PR department is mainly male as well.

That programme is an eyeopener to British Airways. And not in a good way.

Glad someone posted about this , I was appalled , I can see that actually the girl who lost her job had many other issues but honestly for people to be so obsessed with makeup and hair in this day and age made me feel sick .It was institutional sexism at its worst , and frankly why they needed to taste the wine , ridiculous .

at Virgin a specific shade of red lipstick is mandatory for crew

I have a friend who was a flight attendant, she told me that they had to wear high heels for take off and landing. In between they wore practical, soft soled shoes.

Aside from the sheer sexism of this being a requirement, the fact that most accidents happen during take off and landing would surely indicate that practical shoes should be worn by flight attendants at all times?

They only have to wear high heels to and from the plane. Even so, the double standards are unbelievable.

Don't forget we are only a couple of years on from this delight being trialed by virgin airways at JFK. The airline industry is full of dinosaurs.

www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4578552/Virgin-Atlantic-accused-of-sexism-over-anniversary-advert.html

but the advert is OK because it was set in the 80s..so the joke is that the 80s were sexist.

Right.

I remember that airlines used to insist on lippie and eye make up to be visible from about 15 rows away (read it in Air Babylon!) but I thought it had been relaxed nowadays. Obviously not in progressive BA!

christ that is ridiculous. How in 2014 can discrimination be legal?

I wonder what the rules are at Virgin? Not flown with them before but their advertising makes them look like they are there for decoration.

It's actually really important job, you have to handle the customers who are causing problems deal with illnesses and be the one who gets everyone off the plane in an emergency. WHo gives a fuck if they get their lipstick right!?

It was cringe tv, I am shocked BA want to come across this way. I kept expecting Fearghal from Our Lady Airlines to make an appearance!

jamaisjedors you're right. I did think that she would scrape through by the skin of her teeth though. But when they gave the other woman a snapshot for being late, even though they knew there had been an accident on the motorway which caused chaos, I kind of knew that Jodies days were numbered.

I saw it too and was shocked by the lipstick thing, but more shocked that BA let that be aired for its image. (firing a black girl for not wearing lipstick).

TBH, if you watched the whole thing it was obvious she wasn't going to be up to their standards and had already had 2 or 3 other warnings - she was late, left her stuff in the car etc.

As a teacher (not at BA!) I could see there were multiple incidents where she was not quite up to scratch, you could tell she didn't quite fit in and always had some excuse for it (I see students like this a lot, it's always someone else's fault). They used the lipstick as an excuse but it will get them ridiculously bad publicity (or maybe not, maybe the sort of "businessman" who travels BA expects this sort of attitude)?

I want to write to BA about this, but a) it's a TV prog and I'm mindful of editing etc., and b) I need to think of a way to word the letter other than calling BA management sexist arseholes.