Posted on 09/07/2007 6:02:09 AM PDT by wilco200
As the mercury climbed over 100 on Labor Day, I called Southwest Airlines with a not entirely hypothetical question:
Could a young woman board a flight to Tucson today wearing a bikini top?
Angelique, the agent who took my call, assured me that a young woman could.
“We don't have a problem with it if she's covered up in all the right spots,” she said. “We don't have a dress code.”
Tell that to Kyla Ebbert, who was escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight two months ago for wearing an outfit far less revealing than a bikini top.
Ebbert, a Mesa College student and Hooters waitress, was allowed to stay on the plane, but only after she put up a fight and, she says, was lectured on how to dress properly.
I don't know about you, but one of my big gripes with the airlines is that they just don't take the time to dispense fashion advice any more.
Southwest explained its treatment of Ebbert in a letter to her mother, saying it could remove any passenger “whose clothing is lewd, obscene or patently offensive” to ensure the comfort of children and “adults with heightened sensitivities.”
Ebbert, 23, says she was judged unfairly by the airline and humiliated by the experience. Who wouldn't be?
She had a doctor's appointment that afternoon in Tucson, where temperatures had topped 106 all week. She arrived at Lindbergh Field wearing a white denim miniskirt, high-heel sandals, and a turquoise summer sweater over a tank top over a bra.
After the plane filled, and the flight attendants began their safety spiel, Ebbert was asked to step off the plane by a customer service supervisor, identified by the airline only as “Keith.”
They walked out onto the jet bridge, where Keith told Ebbert her clothing was inappropriate and asked her to change. She explained she was flying to Tucson for only a few hours and had brought no luggage. “I asked him what part of my outfit was offensive,” she said. “The shirt? The skirt? And he said, 'The whole thing.' ”
Keith asked her to go home, change and take a later flight. She refused, citing her appointment. The plane was ready to leave, so Keith relented. He had her pull up her tank top a bit, pull down her skirt a bit, and return to her seat.
Ebbert says several flight attendants overheard the conversation and, after an embarrassing walk down the aisle, she took her seat and spread a blanket over her lap. She kept her composure until the plane landed, when she called her mother and broke down.
She took a photo of herself with her cell phone so her mother could see her clothes. That's when mom became livid.
“My daughter is young, tall, blond and beautiful,” Michele Ebbert told me, “and she is both envied and complimented on her appearance. She dresses provocatively, as do 99 percent of 23-year-old girls who can. But they were out of line.”
Who knows where the lines are drawn these days, particularly when it comes to dress? If you watch television, or visit the mall, or take in a game at Petco Park, you'll see women dressed in ways that, 50 years ago, were pornographic. Today they are stylish.
A Supreme Court justice famously could not define “obscene,” and declaring a thing “lewd” imputes motive. Did Kyla Ebbert intend to excite sexual desire on that flight to Tucson? I doubt it, just as I doubt that flight attendants are proper judges of such matters.
But neither am I. So when I arranged to see Ebbert in the notorious outfit, I brought along my fashion advisers, writer Nina Garin and photojournalist Crissy Pascual, who for years collaborated on a feature in this newspaper called “Seen on the Street.”
The three of us met Ebbert and her mother for lunch at Nordstrom Cafe. Ebbert, who is 5-foot-5 and has green eyes, is pretty enough to be a model.
Yet even wearing the clothes that scandalized Southwest, she did not attract attention beyond some lingering glances.
My fashion advisers were baffled, saying they saw nothing you don't see on a college campus or in Pacific Beach.
“I was expecting to be shocked, and I was shocked the other way,” Pascual told me.
“It wasn't a big deal,” Garin said. “Her skirt was a bit short, which was only accented by her heels. If she had been wearing flip-flops it wouldn't have mattered.”
Garin wondered if a jealous woman may have complained about Ebbert's outfit. I asked her what she would have said had she been on the plane.
“ 'I hope she's not sitting next to my husband,' ” Garin replied. “She's pretty. She wears her clothes well. But I wouldn't complain about it.”
Pascual detected sexism in the way Ebbert was treated, wondering if a man would have been asked to change clothes. Do men dress inappropriately? “I see butt cracks, a lot of butt cracks,” she said.
In its letter, Southwest said “there were concerns about the revealing nature of her outfit.”
I called Hollye Chacón, the Southwest customer relations representative who wrote the letter, to see if we were talking about the same outfit.
“What exactly was being revealed?” I asked.
She said yesterday she'd call back, but never did. That's pretty revealing in itself.
I see a lot worse than that in airports
“However, when she went to sit back down she flashed the viewing audience a crotch shot featuring silky white panties. “
Who sits in front of you in a plane?
I would rather see her on a plane than the teens wearing pajamas with filthy hair or the fat hoochie mamas in their tight Juicy track suits.
5’5”, bleach blonde and dressed like a hooker. That mom raised her little girl to be the hoe she never was.
Enough said.
Yeah Right.
As to this girl's 'embarrassment'. . .I'm not buying it. She dresses the way she does to draw attention to herself. She's not going to be embarrassed by attention - unless of course, she was feeling convicted that maybe she shouldn't be dressing quite this way.
Depends on where you sit. But with skirt that short, you'd be flashing panties all over the place just by bending over to move the seat belt out of the way, bending over to put your bag under the seat in front of you, bending over to scooch under the overhead bins to get to your seat, and so on. If she sat in the aisle, she'd flash if she got up to go to the bathroom or just walk around or to deboard the plane. (And if she sat by the window, she'd flash the guys outside when she got up to deboard.)
It was 106 degrees. I have no problem with an unmarried girl dressing like this when the temperature is that high. She is showing no cleavage, no shoulders, no boobage, just a length of leg. This is the prerogative of youth, fitness, and beauty. Mature men ought to be able to tolerate the sight of a pair of legs without going crazy with lust, and women ought to be able to tolerate the same sight without going crazy with jealousy and hostility.
that’s ridiculous
My take on it is basically - what's the big deal? Some semi-random thoughts...
Sure, she isn't dressed conservatively, but nor would I call her clothing provocative.
So she's young and beautiful and wants to be noticed, big deal.
What happened to the generation of "red blooded American males" who would see her on a plane and say "Yeah, I'm flying Southwest more often!"
I work out, take care of myself, etc. If I get on a plane in snug jeans and a polo shirt am I going to be asked to leave?
I thought the whole "we're slaves to our urges, our women must be covered up at all times" thing was a conservative Muslim thing, definitely not an American freedom of expression thing.
Are we, as a people, so fat and lazy that we feel ashamed of our bodies and jealous of someone who takes care of themselves?
Are we headed down the slippery slope where we can't do anything, say anything, wear anything ... anywhere that may in any way offend someone? {SLAP} Here's a wake-up call America, down that path is madness. You can't please everyone. There'll always be someone who takes offense, even if only to torque you off. Personally, I'm offended by plaids, neckties, green colored cars, bad breath...
A-freakin’-men
I don’t know about you, but one of my big gripes with the airlines is that they just don’t take the time to dispense fashion advice any more.
** To think I felt self conscious wearing jeans one time on the airplane. I don’t recall what I wore for my honeymoon but I think it was a business casual two piece. It’s not the airline’s job to dispense any advice. It’s a person’s personal responsibility to dress in such a way that respects the people around them.
Then how am I to know what to use as a flotation device?!?!?!?
I've been on flights where some of the women wore much, much less than this. Some good looking, some that were scary.
fashion advice :D oops!
Few if any of the women who criticize this sort of attire could get away with showing that much leg themselves. In other words, they’re much older than she is or out of shape, and they know they could never dress that way. So it’s envy and resentment talking, as much as prudery.
Which is not to say I’d dress that way unless I was in a resort area and going out with Mr. Fairview.
Most ludicrous thing I have heard today. Was Keith fired? Who has his side of the story, not that I hold much credence?
Shame on NBC Today Show. When interviewed by Matt Lauer, Kyla, in front of her lawyer of course indicated that she was chastised in front of many of the passengers, all facing front and toward the door of course. But the article indicated the discussion was on the jet bridge. Now I know ratings AND sensationalism go hand in hand but let’s not get just as ludicrous as the story itself.
Bottom line: Shame on Southwest Airlines. Miscommunication, poor judgment, Keith woke up on the wrong side of the bed, whatever. Shame on NBC Today Show. Sensationalism, poor judgment, Kyla woke up with $$$ ringing in her head, whatever.
I think that at 23 years old, it's a bit late for a mother to exercise control over what her daughter wears. She might have been able to do so years earlier. But at 23, the daughter's an adult, and we have no idea if the daughter lives at home with her mother or not.
Mark
Not at all. I've seen women with skirts this short on planes more than once. Perhaps you haven't.
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