The Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG) is appalled by the report that female candidates interviewing to be Malindo Air flight attendants were told to strip down to their bras and “expose their chests, lift their skirts, fold up their pants or remove their pantyhose”, and that Malindo went on to state that it was their right as the employer.

The airline has any number of options to check that the female candidates would be “presentable” in their uniforms. This includes requesting that they put on the uniforms to simply asking them, as male candidates are asked, whether they have any visible marks. The way Malindo Air treats potential female flight attendants is discriminatory, perverse, and sexist.

No potential employee of any airline should be subjected to such degrading treatment. This act of Malindo Air reflects how power of a potential employer can be abusive, making discriminatory demands on those who seek employment. Women candidates are often subjected to such treatment because of patriarchal norms that deny women their bodily autonomy.

Nowhere in this whole construction of their role as employees is any thought given to the bodily autonomy of women. Malindo is at fault in this incident, but the problem extends to the rest of the airline industry. From requiring female flight attendants to wear restrictive clothing - while male attendants wear the usual suit - to imposing constraints on their number of children, airlines have long freely violated women’s human rights by exploiting and commodifying their bodies.

Finally, JAG is also disappointed with how The Malay Mail chose to sensationalise this story by using a stock picture of a woman’s back, clad only in a bra, as the cover photo of their afternoon e-paper, accompanied by the headline ‘Stripped for job’. It is clear that they were tantalising readers by sensationalising this issue instead of focusing on the actual problem.

In short, the hypocritical way in which The Malay Mail sexualised the faceless body of a woman to sell their story, which was a story about women’s bodies being commodified needs to be rectified.

Malindo Air, just like any other company, must take the responsibility to respect their women employees and not subject them to degrading and objectifying treatment. The Malay Mail, too, must be held accountable for their sexist cover photo and commodifying women’s bodies. These acts show that we have a long way to go as a society in the march towards gender equality.

This statement is endorsed by the following members of the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG):

1. All Women’s Action Society (Awam)
2. Association of Women Lawyers (AWL)
3. Justice for Sisters
4. Perak Women for Women (PWW)
5. Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (Empower)
6. Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor (PSWS)
7. Sabah Women’s Action Resource Group (Sawo)
8. Sisters In Islam (SIS)
9. Tenaganita
10. Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO)
11. Women’s Centre for Change (WCC)