worried about DD/DS being molested on plane? plane has more chance of crashing!

[ManfredMann]

www.theotherglassceiling.com/2014/05/sexism-paternalism-flying-high-what-are.html

give the blokes a break !

Stupid woman! Good article . . . .

I agree with her. Children are occasionally molested on planes by men they don't know. I don't care if the risk is small, why should any mother not seek to minimise it? After all sitting your child next to a woman instead of a man, is no real inconvenience for anyone.

There's a man who doesn't have a fucking clue how statistics work. However, the point is that thinking every man will opportunistically molest any child sat next to them is wrong-headed as well. If you are going to criticize someone BASED ON MATHS, get it right.

But it is like anything, why not minimise risk if you can. I know the farther away you are sitting from an exit door, the less likely you are to get out if the plane crashes. So if I can get decent seats near an exit, I do. It makes no difference to me if I am seated at the window 2 rows or 6 rows from an exit in terms of my enjoyment of the flight. So why not minimise the small risk I face?

I think it is the same here. It doesnt make a difference nearly all of the time if an unaccompanied child is seated next to a woman or a man. But why not minimise the small risk and seat them next to a woman.

What if the woman is an abuser?

Statistically less likely. Since you can't interview and CRB check any adult who may sit next to your unaccompanied child on a plane, you have to look at statistics.

I suspect OP that this is a reason turned on its head for the modern generation, I bet back in the day children where put next to women as it would be concidered that men, shouldn't be bothered by children and the added bonus that a woman would "naturally" want to look after a child near them, so less work for cabin crew.

But I do agree with you, even with a 1/2500 chance, what are the odds that someone could abuse a child on a plane, too risky, abuser is as trapped as victim, to much risk of child talking, if child is put in isle seat theness risk they can move away easily.....

This is the most annoying of all sexism, as both sexes are being used by a business to keep costs down and minimal hassle to staff, way to go bastard big corp plc! Make your female passengers responsible for children you have been paid for and taken the money, male passengers out as peados because you think they won't do your job...most men actually do care about children, but why should they like the ladies and 2 you don't want a law suit based on their lack of safeguarding of passengers... Due to families not being seated together or taking children who should be cared for in loco patentis by the airline.

Fuck me! I am angry in so many shades of sexism and corporate bollocks!

Huh. Never heard of this before. Everyone is out to molest, kidnap, and kill your child according to the news. There is a lot of hysteria surrounding men and children, which is slightly unfair considering most predators are someone the child knows, and in most of those cases the parents themselves.

I flew alone all the time as a kid to see family and never had a problem with it.

That said, I would rather my child be seated next to a woman on an airplane flying alone than a man. My husband would not be offended if someone asked him to move (and quite honestly would be happy not to be stuck sitting next to a child for a flight).

With an airline it's a stranger that the parent hasn't met, and if I had to take my choice of my child sitting next to a stranger I'd pick the woman. It's not discrimination. The men aren't losing any rights. They pay for a ticket to go from destination A to destination B, as long as they get there it doesn't matter where they are seat. It would be discrimination if they paid to sit next to a child, but only women were allowed to purchase those seats.

I'd like to see the actual stats on children being molested on planes by anyone, then by unrelated parties and then by a stranger, male and female. Only then would you be able to make any sort of reasonable judgement of the potential risk associated with sitting next to a man vs a woman. I would suspect that given that the vast majority of abuse is carried by relatives or family friends children may statistically be more at risk sitting with their families than flying alone.

I think this is just about the illusion of control.

Oh and missingmum I suspect you are entirely right the expectation is that if you sit a child next to any unrelated woman they will immediately feel the need to nurture them.

I was surprised to see that Virgin's preference was to have an empty space next to the child, given that the expectation is that should an emergency arise the nearest adult should put on their mask etc. Of course the chance of an emergency is very very small, but better safe than sorry hey!

Oh and if a man is being forced to move where a woman would not be then yes it is discrimination. As we know from many threads here many people don't like having to change their seats, and I imagine it could be quite embarrassing too. Plus perhaps irritating for the woman expected to sit by (and possibly care for) the child.

Don't send your dc on a plane alone! Problem solved.
When my ex lived in the US a family member would travel with my dc, I wouldn't let them go otherwise. Not a chance on hell would I let them travel on their own.

@Nooka: Well, the woman could always say no. I would. I have exactly zero interest in sitting next to someone else's child and humoring them for hours.

It would be easier to just have the computer arrange it that way, or to move the child not the man. Most of these cases in the news though are of young girls (11-14), who generally aren't signed up on the child flier program because of their age, getting preyed on. So in that instance it would be almost impossible to prevent without signing them up and paying an extra fee to have a chaperone at the airport.

I am certainly not moving seats for the paranoid! A stupid woman and a sensible article.

If I had a;ready taken my seat and was asked to move so that an unaccompanied child could sit next to a woman I would take serious issue with being pointed out as a potential child-molester and would expect the child to be moved instead.

One of these days a man will sue for discrimination and indeed defamation and not settle and the airline will get an expensive shock.

Princess why would you rather your child be sat next to a woman?
And you say your DH would prefer not to be sat next to someone else's child - why do you think random women would be any happier?

I understand that statistics show sexual abuse of children is most likely to be perpetrated by men against female members of their own family.

Last Christmas, I, a man, took my two daughters on a long-haul flight to see family, without DW.

Surprisingly, the cabin crew did not insist on moving me away from my two daughters. Should they have done so?

I shall make a huge fuss if anyone asks me to move and make them spell it out. Surely the man could then sue for defamation?

To quote the article: "That means that if you picked someone, say out of a plane seat, at random, the chances of that person being a sexual abuser would be roughly .018%. That’s just under 1 in 5,000 people. If we pretend that all sexual abusers are male, then it’s a 1 in 2,500 chance.

Frankly, your child probably has a greater chance of being the one in 80,000 that die from a wasp, bee or hornet sting. Or more pertinently, the one in 7,800 that die in a plane accident."

I'm no expert on statistics but how can they say you're 'more likely' to be the 1 in 7,800 than the 1 in 5,000? Um, what?

Are we forgetting the likes of Myra hindly? It's not just men who abuse.

I like a window seat and DH sits in the middle- I am not swapping because of paranoid people, and it is insulting to say that my DH is not safe with a child.

Turgiday

If you genuinely believe that you should not take the risk then I'd gladly oblige and move to an alternative seat.

IMHO I think you're beyond nuts but this is the way things are nowadays.

Maybe they should create a new section on planes just for men. Just stick us all at the back behind a curtain with 'Potential Abusers' above.

If you really care about your child, never let them board an airplane or get in a car. the risks of death and serious injury involved in those activities far outweigh the chances of being sexually abused on a plane.

I don't want it assumed that I am happy to babysit some random child on a long haul flight because I don't have a penis.

If you are so paranoid, hire a female, CRB checked nanny to fly with your child. Otherwise, build yourself a walled fort in some remote part of Wales and protect your child that way.

A drunk woman sitting next to me on a crowded plane tried to sexually assault me (and the cabin crew were not enormously helpful, I think because it was a woman). I'm an adult woman. The assumption that men are predators and women all lovely is very problematic and can be dangerous.

I think the thing to do if you're worried about your children is to sit beside them. Airlines could very easily accommodate this (and without charging people more), but they don't bother.

Also my experience of airlines not seating my child next to me were that people have been very happy indeed to swap seats with me so they didn't have to sit next to him.

We had no choice at all because we couldn't book particular seats, or check in early online, or anything (because that wasn't available on our route, but it was on other versions of the same route so most other people on the second leg had already done so and there were no seats near each other left); we just got to the check in desk and we'd find they'd seated us all over the plane. They just told us to sort it out on the plane. Brilliant customer service there!