Arab women find freedom in the skies

Flight attendants at a graduation ceremony last year in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates. (Tamara Abdul Hadi for The New York Times)

Flight attendants have become the public face of the new mobility for some young Arab women, just as they were the face of new freedoms for women in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. They have become a subject of social anxiety and fascination in much the same way.