Posted On: Wednesday - April 10th 2024 8:26AM MST
In Topics: Feminism History Race/Genetics Books Female Stupidity
I got this book out of one of the LittleFreeLibraries nearby over a year ago. I finally read it at least 3 months ago, so it's time to write this review before I forget everything and time to return the dang book. Even if you all don't get entertainment value out of these reviews, at least I can save you some time by explaining why you'll not like a book here and there that you may have seen.
Julia Cooke's Come Fly the World* is one such book. Note that the title is not Come Fly with Me (of which there are many books and a song**). Were it the latter, I would have expected a story of mile-high club events, and all kinds of fun on the overnights, i.e. sex, sex, sex. I really was neither looking for nor expecting that, but I figured this might be an interesting history of the aviation world of a half century ago.
What I didn't expect is that this book would be political. As I look now, I see that I should have read the back cover blurbs more carefully.
The first section of 3, The Wrong Kind of Girl is interesting enough. It goes through the motivation for young ladies for getting into a Stewardess job, the interviews, the uniform/fashion aspect of it, and the lifestyle, especially the travel benefits. This is written using the stories of 3 girls, Karen, Lynn, and Tori. The author skips around among the stories of these girls to paint a picture of this portion of the world of American commercial aviation in this long-ago era, and more specifically that of the storied Pan American Airways - Pan Am, whose last flight was operated over 32 years ago.*** Speaking of pictures, there's a very nice section of 30 annotated B&W pictures in the middle of the book. Now, THERE"S some history. (There are also 2 1968 Pan Am route maps at the beginning. I like maps!)
Well, the feminism comes in early on. The author makes sure to tell us that these women were ABSOLUTELY NOT in this business just to meet men and have sex with various crew members and whomever on layovers. They did, the latter, she admits, but not the nice ones, Karen, Lynn, and Tori, who were in this business to help the world, not so much anyway. These 3 were very intelligent and could have done other things, per the stories, but then, were they representative? I know about this business, and I know about women. They were exceptions.
Julia Cooke can't seem to handle the truth that she described herself (end of Chapter 7):
Competition snuck into the field and Pan Am had no play. "We must add to [our excellence] 'a new dimension' -- that is, emphasis on what pleases people. And I know of nothing that pleases people more," Halaby [Jajeeb, successor, after a year, to the famous Juan Trippe] said in December of 1968, "than female people".That means pretty women, who were indeed the norm at this time, well before the woke HR departments took over. Women can't appreciate these "female people" working the airplane cabins like men can, but they still would rather be in this world than today's.
The feminism in this book comes to the forefront in the 2nd section, You Can't Fly Me. There you go. The 3rd chapter within this section is titled Open Skies for Negro Girls. That's enough. I had to skip that one. As pretty as Hazel Bowie looks in the B&W picture in her cute Pan Am cap, I didn't need to read more anti-White crap.
Where this book gets really political, though not really one-sided about it, is with the story of Vietnam. This is part of the story of these years of Pan Am, as that airline did quite a big of flying to that country during the war, flying American soldiers there and home. The story of the Nixon-arranged baby-lift is told here. All this is indeed a story worth telling, but it encroached deeply into the main story. That might be a good story in its own right, but it takes the book way off track.
The Vietnam story goes on into the last section, Women's Work. More Women's Vietnam memorial, civil rites, racism, etc. Ugghh... I got through it just because I'd gotten this far, well beyond the point of diversion back to the origin.
Come Fly the World is not the book you might think you're picking up. It helps to read ALL the blurbs!
* The subtitle is "The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am".
** ... which is played in one fun scene in the the movie Catch Me If You Can, one of my favorites.
*** It was Boeing 727-200 service from Barbados to Miami, Florida.
Comments:
The Alarmist
Wednesday - April 10th 2024 12:45PM MST
PS
The two flight attendants who waited on us on our last flight to the USA were two old White dudes. Competent, professional, courteous. On an earlier flight, a young chick FA poured hot soup in my wife’s lap.
YMMV.
The two flight attendants who waited on us on our last flight to the USA were two old White dudes. Competent, professional, courteous. On an earlier flight, a young chick FA poured hot soup in my wife’s lap.
YMMV.
MBlanc46
Wednesday - April 10th 2024 9:13AM MST
PS Books by women, about women. At least those written since the Second World War. Just take a pass.
Alarmist, I think you related that story in a comment here, but possibly it was on The Unz Review.