I don’t know what you do for a living, but imagine if I told you I needed your Body Mass Index, or BMI, to decide whether or not you were fit to do your job — a job you were doing every day, a job nobody had complained about.

You might say that was ridiculous. You might even call me sexist when it became clear I was measuring mostly the women, and less so the men.

That would be crazy, right?

Of course, that wouldn’t happen at your job. Why? Because we’ve come a long way, baby.

@Heather_Poole, I cannot believe it’s 2015 and that is still happening

— Amy Patti (@amybp) September 16, 2015

Unless, of course, you’re a flight attendant. Particularly a flight attendant in India, where about 130 Air India flight attendants have been grounded or forced to retire because they were deemed unfit to fly. Unfit to fly — because their BMI was “too high.”

In case you missed it, India’s aviation authority is requiring female flight attendants to have a BMI between 18 and 22. If it’s higher than 22, the crew have a limited amount of time to bring it down — or they will no longer be able to fly. (For men, the scale is higher, with 18 to 25 considered OK.)

Now, never mind that a “healthy” BMI is considered to be between 18.5 and 24.9 for both men and women, according to several authorities. And never mind that using BMI alone to measure health has been criticized because it fails to take into account an individual’s build.

Air India claims flight attendants with a high BMI move slower, and won’t be able to react quickly enough in an evacuation: “It’s a safety issue,” an Air India spokesman told CNN. “The crew has to be fit to be able to carry out their inflight duties, including emergencies.”

But safety is not about BMI. As a flight attendant in the U.S., I go back to recurrent training every year, and have to pass tests on our evacuation drills and medical procedures. If we can’t open the door or remember our commands and procedures we won’t pass.

Call me crazy, but I have a feeling some of our larger flight attendants might have an easier time dragging an unconscious passenger to an emergency door in the event of an evacuation than our teeny tiny ones — but they’re capable, too. I can still remember, when Asiana Flight 214 crash landed in San Francisco, seeing video of a petite Asiana flight attendant giving passengers piggyback rides to safety. The point is crew should be certified they can handle an emergency — not that they can fit in a specific dress size.

I can’t help but wonder if the focus on BMI is about something else entirely — a way to address another issue.

After all, they aren’t talking about pilots’ BMIs. And the airline’s own employees have admitted the importance of “aesthetics.”

“Looks matter in this line of work,” Air India’s personnel manager, Meenakshi Dua, told BBC in 2004. “Therefore we are giving it a lot of importance.”

To apply to be a flight attendant with the airline, according to their recent listings (for 296 women, and just 35 men), you can’t be older than 27. I suppose that’s about safety, too? You also can’t be married. Why do you think that is? Do single people move faster too?

I’m 44 years old. Many airlines around the world wouldn’t employ me simply because of my age. I thank God U.S. airlines aren’t like that.

— Heather Poole (@Heather_Poole) September 16, 2015

If this had only been a single incident in India — an isolated case of discrimination based on size — I wouldn’t have been surprised. There are several international carriers where sexism is on full display. But then the Telegraph in the UK ran a story including a poll asking readers if they thought it was OK to judge a flight attendants BMI. To which I cried, what the?!

Would you believe 71% of the people who responded said ‘Yes,’ that it’s OK to judge flight attendants’ BMIs?

Name another job besides mine where that’s OK. Where it’s totally acceptable to poll readers about a group of workers like that, where it’s totally acceptable to say that a single measurement defines job fitness.

I’ve been a flight attendant for 20 years. When I first started flying, I was a size 4. After I had my son, I came back from maternity leave a size 14. Now I’m a size— wait, that’s none of your business! Or is it?

If you tell me your BMI, I’ll tell you mine. Then we can discuss how it affects our jobs.

For the record, I could do my job just as well as a size 14 as I did when I was a size 4. There’s not much difference between how I did my job as a size 6 or a size 10, either.

In the U.S., fitness for the job is proven by demonstrating evacuation drills on each airplane we’re qualified to work when we go to recurrent training. We also go over medical emergencies, and other important things like what to do in the event of a bomb threat or hijacking. Of course, it wasn’t always like this. U.S. airlines were slow to get rid of the old school mentality — some airlines were still doing flight attendant weigh-ins in the 90s. Flight attendants had to fight to get rid of the scale. We have a few requirements — we can’t use a seat belt extension in the jump seat, and we have to be able to fit through an emergency window. But as for age, we can work as long as we’d like to — as long as we can pass our annual recurrent training.

We’re allowed to get married, have babies, grow older and sometimes we get bigger. Just like passengers.

Here’s something else to think about. A friend of mine, & frequent flier, was surprised to learn we have maternity uniforms – In the U.S!

— Heather Poole (@Heather_Poole) September 16, 2015

This move by Air India really irks me, but it didn’t shock me. What did shock me is how so few people react with outrage when this kind of story comes out about flight attendants. If this happened with another job — any other job — people would go crazy.

Now I’m going to tell you what truly makes me unfit to fly. It’s not my BMI, but it is a number: 8. As in, an 8-hour layover after working for 14 hours, because that’s the legal minimum layover. Add in transit time from the airport to the hotel, a quick meal and a shower, and how much sleep do you think I’m getting? A short layover isn’t terrible every once in a while, but they’re becoming more and more common on domestic U.S. routes.

So if you think I’m moving slowly or that I look bad — and I know you’re looking — it’s probably not my BMI. I’m just tired.

Let’s talk about real problems and real issues, and leave the fantasy where it belongs. In the 70s.

Heather Poole is a flight attendant for a major U.S. carrier, and the author of the New York Times bestseller Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet. You can follow her on Twitter at @Heather_Poole.