This piece has to begin with a significant mea culpa. Like most people, deep down inside I am a hypocrite, two-faced and desirous of having my cake and eating it, too. I like to have it both ways. So what you read here will be evidence thereof.

As I recently celebrated my 62nd birthday (sixty-two summers!), I am obviously no longer in the 25–54 demographic the New York Times calls “the prime working years.” How could I not be aware that many of my cohort are dead, retired or underemployed? I am none of the above. Fortunately, I have a job that I can continue to do for many years into the future. Praise the Lord for that since I am living in a country, Korea, in which age discrimination is rampant. A lot of men do good work at Samsung, Hyundai or another of the major corporations and upon reaching 50 are sent on their way. They end up toiling as security guards, taxi drivers or owners of beer-and-chicken franchise restaurants. 

Of the many societal changes in recent decades, one pertains to the cabin crews of commercial airplanes. I would surmise that nearly all the employees of American or European airlines—excluding pilots, co-pilots and so forth—were young and female as late as the 1970s. Maybe some progressive laws were passed, or maybe people’s attitudes have evolved, but there has been a gradual relaxation of that narrow age-and-gender rule.

The most recent visit to my former homeland involved one trip on Korean Air, one on Japan Airlines and one on American Airlines. For the first two, every member of the cabin crew was a young woman. No exceptions. These airlines are very picky about who can handle the duties of making announcements, reminding us that seat belts should be fastened before takeoff and landing, ensuring that all bags are safely stored in the overhead bin, serving meals and coffee, bringing blankets and other things the traveling public seldom sees. They have a lot of responsibilities, no doubt about it.

Is there any reason in the world why only attractive young women can do that job? Clearly not. Any physically and mentally fit adult, with a modicum of training, could do it. But there seems to be a bias, or perhaps a preference, on the part of the flying public for young women. Whether it is sexist or wrong, I would not presume to say.

The third leg of my trip in the summer of 2014 was predictably different from the first two. The cabin crew was made up of middle-aged people, with about a 60–40% female–male ratio. All, I can say for certain, were competent. They did their best and kept up the happy façade that is a necessary part of their job.

And now we come to the moment of truth. I did not like the AA cabin crew nearly as much as what obtained with Korean Air and Japan Airlines. I prefer to have pretty, young females handle the job. It pleases me, it makes me happy, and it appeals to me in a basic and almost visceral way. Would that I were not a hopeless and unregenerate heterosexual male, but that is the bottom line. As such, I like to have young, attractive women (a.k.a. "trolley dollies") taking care of those aisle duties in the airplanes on which I ride. Terrible as it sounds, I do not want to see a cabin crew made up of older men and women, some of whom actually have gray hair. This gives me no pleasure. The aforementioned Asian airlines, and it is equally true for those from Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Qatar, the UAE and others, adhere to this policy. There may be other criteria, but if you want to be hired, you have to be female, young and cute. Bright eyes, an unlined face and a perky voice are mandatory.

When I was teaching at a hagwon in Daegu in 2008, a member of one of my classes was named Lee Ji-Won. She was a typical middle-school girl, a decent student and a real sweetheart. The years passed, and Ji-Won became quite a lovely young woman. Her career goal was to join an airline's cabin crew. She currently attends an institution whose sole purpose is to select and train women in their early 20s to become airline attendants or, to use the old term, stewardesses. Maybe Ji-Won will make the grade and be hired. I hope so, but the competition is stiff. There are few job openings and lots of applicants.

And what happens to these gals when they are no longer at the peak of their feminine beauty? What is their career span? At what point do the airlines gently ask them to step aside—28? 29? I have never seen a Korean, Japanese or Chinese stewardess who looked any older, plastic surgery notwithstanding. While I may be entirely mistaken, I think that during those few crucial years jetting through the skies, they are doing more than the aforementioned mundane duties. They are looking for a hubby. Maybe a handsome pilot or rico-suave traveler in business class, hmm?

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