Passenger sues Easyjet after crew asked her to move seat for ultra-Orthodox man refusing to sit next to women

How can sex discrimination not be deeply personal? I can do no less about my sex than I can do about my skin colour. I’m absolutely horrified at the posters minimising it.

That sounds dangerously close to the attitude in the 60s and 70s peddled by the Daily Mail about people who "knew their rights" ...

I'd expect some victim blaming in their comments section. A little less so here ....

(The right she is standing up for is the right not to be treated differently because of her sex, by the way.)

Deeply unpleasant and infuriating but these men have every right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs.

Do they? Can you act like a massive cunt, discriminate against people, live outside of law and social norms - but then just hide behind religion to get away with it?

Let's not forget that people are able to find religious text to condem gay people to death. So should it be OK to act on that if its your religion. What about treating women like property, or multiple wives. Slave ownership and beating of those slaves.

Being of an outdated, straight man centric religion does not give you the right treat people like shit and discriminate against people. They need to fuck of out of society if they don't want to follow the rules of modern societies.

It absolutely is discrimination. Basically these men are saying that the physical presence of a woman is not acceptable to them. In that case they should pay for the whole row on the flight. Disgusting that the airline staff pander to them by moving the woman.

It really doesn't seem a lot different to me than having separate sections on the bus and restaurant based on skin colour. Just because the woman was asked politely to move and when she didn't, other - more passive - women did agree to move, doesn't make it better.

@eastie77 I agree. Maybe it's moral relativism, but I feel like Jewish religious beliefs are quite marginalised. I certainly don't agree with them, but I'm not sure what easyjet was supposed to do. Sue their rabbi!

Race discrimination is different from sex discrimination. With sex discrimination we are all in it together - it isn’t about our parents, our heritage, our genes. It’s our sex and that’s half of us, not a minority. That’s not to say it isn’t wrong but it this context it doesn’t hold the savage and specific cut of a racist act. It’s not as deeply personal in my opinion.

If it happened to me as a woman of course I would be furious. But not as wounded as I would be if it was a racist exclusion.

It's worth noting the case is being bought in Israel, under Israeli law, which has already ruled such discrimination totally illegal in previous cases.

So this is on Easyjet, and is the sort of thing that is going to keep happening if you want to run a mickey mouse airline on a shoestring.

I'm not au fait with Israeli secular law, but if it allows exemplary damages Easyjet might want to be careful of clocking up too many complaints.

what are the grounds for suing EasyJet in the above scenario?
It explains in the article, EasyJet are in breach of the law by asking her to move purely because she is a woman.

I think the woman is a bit of an opportunist to be honest.

If a man doesn’t want to sit beside a woman, he should move. That’s fine. No way the woman should be expected to move, that is ridiculous. Even asking her makes it clear that women are unimportant while men must be pandered to.

There is not the slightest doubt she was discriminated against. I'm amazed at the posters denying/ minimising it.

It's such a shame that other women agreed to move. In an ideal world every woman would have said no, your beliefs don't get to inconvenience half the population.

Israel’s Supreme Court has previously ruled it’s illegal to ask women to give up their seats for men (whether planes or buses). It’s not without legal precedent.

I’m actually surprised EasyJet haven’t identified it as a risk & given appropriate training to staff given the ruling happened in 2018.

I cant see how it's not discriminatory based on sex.

The woman was treated differently, purely because of her sex. It's the definition of sex discrimination.

"Different types of sex discrimination
There are four main types of sex discrimination.

1. Direct discrimination

This happens when, because of your sex, someone treats you worse than someone of the opposite sex who is in a similar situation. For example:

a nightclub offers free entry to women but charges men to get in"

It's not about deciding whether or not she should have been offended. It's whether she was treated differently to how a man would have been, in the same situation. And the answer is yes.

i hate that the man booked the flight in full knowledge that it was probable he’d have to inconvenience someone, but didn’t bother to do anything about it until the flight itself because he knew in all likelihood he’d achieve what he wanted without any financial impact on him.
He should have booked out the row for himself.

She was not the victim of discrimination from the airline

Again eh? She definitely was.

I agree with Eastie. I can't see what legal grounds there are.

Whilst you, I, anyone might find behaviours abhorrent, and can debate for ages. That's one thing. This is different. is it legal? Is there a claim?

She was asked to move. She refused. 2 other women agreed, so they sat next to her.

And?

I wonder why airlines haven't come up with some kind of solution to this but suppose they risk putting in some kind of institutional sexism or religious discrimination which would be worse.

It could be so simple, make the back row single sex, men to the left of the aisle women to the right (or vica versa) anyone wanting single sex seating asks at check in.

And before anyone mentions it..asking not to sit next to a woman in the above situation isnot the sameas asking not to sit next to someone because of their race

Eh? It's exactly the same. Sex and race are both protected characteristics in law when it comes to things like provision of goods and services.

Please excuse the typos

This woman was not inconvenienced in any way or humiliated. She was not the victim of discrimination from the airline. She wasaskedif she would mind moving and she said she didn't want to. Two other women chose to accommodate the men's request

Why didn't the airline ask the man to move? Why should she have to give up her seat because of the prejudice of another man?
I also disagree with you, sexisim is as bad as racisim. I have been groped my numerous men during my life, I have had a man try to lock me in his house and assault me. While drunk my boss admitted to paying me and the other women in my team less than the males so we 'could save up for our maternity leave'. I could go on. Why should white women have to put up and shut up about these things?

I agree they should buy all three seats if they don’t want to sit next to a woman. But yes , next time she should say she self-id’s as a man every Tuesday and therefore they should be quite accepting.

Why is it the womeb who are asked to move?

Why arent the men booking 2 seats, or asking to be moved?

From a legal point of view she has every right to sue and I hope she wins. I wonder why airlines haven't come up with some kind of solution to this but suppose they risk putting in some kind of institutional sexism or religious discrimination which would be worse.

I read the article and felt strongly that this wasn’t an overreaction by the lady. It wasn’t a one off incident, it happened over a couple of flights, and it was after Israel’s national carrier had been prohibited by the courts to ask women to move to cater to ultra orthodox men. So EasyJet were skating on thin ice.

I live quite close to the ultra orthodox community in London and whilst I respect their right to live their lives according to their religion, they’re in no way exempt to the laws that govern all of us (schooling, planning, discrimination etc).

A pp makes and interesting point, what if she had been a man? What if she'd asserted her gender was male? It would then have been literal violence for them to refuse to validate that.