“I’m not flight attendant Barbie!” With this clear message, it claims Maria Fernandezworker of Iberia for more than 30 years, that the company allows its female employees choose whether or not they prefer to wear heels as part of the uniform.
Their protest begins after the recent publication of the airline’s new clothing regulations, which offer staff on board the option of wearing flat shoes during the period of time covered between takeoff and landing of the plane. However, the measure still requires women to wear heels during greeting passengers, baggage checks, boarding, and moving around the airport; while his male colleagues wear moccasins throughout the working day.
“Really male flight attendants will walk around in flat loafers while we will have to destroy our feet?” declares María indignantly. “Obviously I respect the colleagues who feel comfortable with these heels and even with the higher ones, but that option should be a choice, not an imposition“, Add.
That is just what the stewardess demands of Iberia, the ability for each one to choose the footwear they want to work with. A petition which has formally launched via the website ‘Change.org’and that already has more than 51,000 signatures in favor.
sexist uniforms
There is already a history of sentences, both from the Supreme Court and the Superior Court of Justice, which have proved the workers right, alleging that forcing them to wear different uniforms from men of the same category and activity “lacks objective justification and is contrary to the principle of discrimination on the basis of sex.Rachel Munoza hostess at the Conde de Godó tennis tournamentdenounced in May 2017 that she and her seven companions had to work with a miniskirt and short sleeves despite the cold What did you do during competition days? “During the cold snap we had to walk around in short dresses, and they didn’t let us wear a jacket so as not to hide the brand of the dress,” she said.
That same month, it fired to six of the workers at an Aservi gas station in Córdoba, for refusing to work wearing a new uniform that replaced the usual set of insulated pants and boots with a miniskirt with leggings and sneakers. The company assured that the dismissals were for other reasons and that, coincidentally, it coincided with the change of clothes.
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The fight against sexism in the workplace is gaining strength, and more and more women are raising their voices against these injustices. Last summer, the German Olympic gymnasts paraded at the opening of the Tokyo Olympics wearing jumpsuits that covered the legs instead of doing it with the typical swimsuit cut; and the complaints of the players of the norway beach handball team allowed to put end to the obligation to play matches in a bikinia clothing that many players consider sexist.