El Al (Airline) will no longer make women move

[Snappity]

gateb3.com/2018/06/26/el-al-policies-have-shifted-around-in-regards-to-religiously-inclined-seating-requests/

This is a great example. Not only will women no longer be moved from their seat the entire balance is shifting and those who object to sitting next to a particular passenger will be removed. It is a really great development IMO.

And any stranger is more of a risk than a parent or guardian

Male strangers more than female strangers

Somebody raised the point earlier about male schoolteachers. After all, what kind of wierdo man wants to be in charge of groups of young kids? All those opportunities...and a sick man isn’t identified as sick until he’s caught. Why do we allow male teachers?

I do not know that male teachers are the problem so much as male teachers and administrators who behave inappropriately with students year after year so that every child in the school knows to watch out for them, but none of the adults do because no matter how many children say a teacher is a creep the children are dismissed because they do not know how to accurately describe the behavior.

Jurgen,

I seriously hope you are being sarcastic above. There is a real lack of positive male role models in many young boys’ lives. There is a desperate need for male primary school teachers. This should be a feminist cause as these are the men who can counter toxic masculinity with real effect.

I suspect, also, that the airlines’ policy is not based on any form of risk assessment but comes from pressure from the any-man-might-be-a-paedo brigade.

If that is not the case how about someone reveals one of these risk assessment documents about children being assaulted during a flight by a random passenger?

If I wanted to make my kids safer I would want them seated next to a parent travelling with their own children (of either sex). Much less likely to be drunk and more likely to be tuned in to children’s needs.

This thread once again proves the misandrist nature of this board (and that misandry is ‘a thing’).

The expectation that women should act as free nursemaids to someone else's kids just because we are women and men are excused isn't feminist?

ROFL - I don't have to nursemaid my own children on a flight, and they're well below the age to fly unaccompanied yet.. I'd be fine having a kid sat next to me, because statistically I'm safer - I bet DP would even swap with me if needed, because he's not a jerk, and doesn't think he has some god given right to sit next to children. (and both of us have done before to make it easier for families who've been split across rows or whatever)

The only time I might think it was unreasonable is if it was to a worse seat - but that should be sortable with some forward thinking.

Personally, I think that safeguarding kids is materially different to some religious type not wanting to get women's lurgy on him. The airline at the time is in loco parentis, and has a responsibility not to put the kid at any more risk than necessary - they are the ones who need to ensure space around the child.

Any decent person would understand the reason behind the safeguarding issue around unaccompanied minors on a plane. I would question the ethics of those protesting about it and the motives for their continued presence on a parenting forum.

#weseeyou.

I travelled a lot as an unaccompanied minor, at least two or three return journeys a year, because I have a large extended family spread across Europe. My kids have travelled this way too more recently, though not with the same frequency I did as a child.

So I’m happy to explain this again for those in the cheap seats who are having trouble with some of the concepts.

1. Unaccompanied minors are age 6-12, not toddlers. They are generally pretty independent, resilient kids who are not in need of having their noses wiped or their food cut up for them.

1. When there are UMs on a flight, they are automatically allocated to the front row of the cabin, and boarded before everyone else. Anyone who travels on regular scheduled flights will have seen this. The kids are right in the front, out of everybody’s way, where cabin staff can keep an eye on them.

1. Generally if there aren’t enough UM kids to fill a row, the extra seats are left empty. The situation of random adults sitting next to unaccompanied kids would only arise if the plane was completely rammed and there were no free seats at all.

1. If that did happen, cabin crew are very reasonably going to try and put somebody next to the child who is least likely to be a safeguarding risk, and who the child will feel comfortable sitting next to.

1. This is a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT set of circumstances from an airline choosing to indulge sexist blokes who don’t want to sit next to a woman.

I suspect, also, that the airlines’ policy is not based on any form of risk assessment but comes from pressure from the any-man-might-be-a-paedo brigade.

Males are 50 times likely to be a sex offender than females are, which will underpin any risk assessment. I'm not aware of any women lobbying airlines to stop men from sitting next to lone children. When I searched for such lobbying, I found that a man has molested a 13yo girl on a flight and Air India have created women-only sections. Any man could be a paedophile and the ones that are don't wear t-shirts saying so, this is Schrödinger's rapist again. Any man with a shred of decency recognises that being asked to sit away ftom a child is not a personal attack, it is a consequence of a class analysis of male versus female behaviour.

The only lobbying happening is by men who take offence at class-based risk assessments.

Actually I think the general point is that if a group A of people object to being next to group B, then it is group A who should be inconvenienced, not group B.

Those damn bigoted kids!

I am supportive of airlines keeping passengers safe.

I don’t want to sit next to anyone on a plane if I am travelling alone. I want to read and doze undisturbed.

Female sex offenders are less common than males. However, they occur more frequently than our stereotyping and suspicions would suggest;
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178916301446?_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_origin=gateway&_docanchor=&md5=b8429449ccfc9c30159a5f9aeaa92ffb&dgcid=raven_sd_via_email

This article discusses the findings;

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/female-sex-offenders-more-common-gender-bias-statistics-rape-abuse-a7839361.html%3famp

This is one statistic;

Similarly, the 2010 survey showed comparable results estimating that nearly 4.5 million men in the US had, at some stage in their lives, been forced to penetrate another person – and that in 79.2 per cent of cases, the perpetrator forcing the sexual act was a woman.

If you ever come across press coverage of female sex offenders, they seem particularly prevalent amongst women in a position of power, e.g. teachers, perpetrated against minors. The sort of situation we are discussing here.

Put kids with others kids. Put them in an area away from adults, under the supervision of a member of the crew. Charge for this as a service if necessary. Possibly even open it out to those travelling with their family. It would be popular with parents, and kids would much rather travel with their peers. Everyone is happy. Problem solved.

agony

Excellent post

The expectation that women should act as free nursemaids to someone else's kids just because we are women and men are excused isn't feminist?

But there isn't that expectation. If the child needs attention I would expect the cabin crew to deal with it.

Put kids with others kids. Put them in an area away from adults, under the supervision of a member of the crew. Charge for this as a service if necessary. Everyone is happy. Problem solved.

Did you not read my post below? This is EXACTLY what happens, and what has always happened since I was travelling unaccompanied back in the 1970s.

You do pay extra for UM service, and the staff are responsible for the children and give them lots of support and attention. The only circumstances in which a random adult would sit next to a UM child is if there weren't enough children to fill a full row and the plane was so rammed they couldn't keep the extra seat empty.

I flew UM as a child and can't say I interacted much with the adults around me at all. Certainly didn't turn to them for help with anything, that's what the cabin crew are for if needed and most kids are fairly self-sufficient by that age. The whole point of sitting the child next to a woman if it's necessary to sit them next to any random adult is to avoid situations where it's the adult insisting on interacting with the child in inappropriate ways.

^
If you ever come across press coverage of female sex offenders, they seem particularly prevalent amongst women in a position of power, e.g. teachers, perpetrated against minors. The sort of situation we are discussing here.^

Except we're not discussing that situation. A female passenger is not in a position of power the way a female teacher is. A female passenger has been chosen by someone else to sit next to that child, a teacher has self-selected to be in a position of power over children. That women self-select into positions of power to hurt people is well-understood and no one denies that it happens, e.g. Beverly Allitt (sp?) the killer nurse. By that argument, that a person self-selecting into a role may be doing so for unsavoury reasons, a random female passenger would be safer than self-selecting cabin crew.

I'm going to guess, based on what others have said about UMs getting a row near the crew, that the girl next to me was overspill from that row. In which case, putting me next to her was the safeguarding option of last resort. Now, I could have argued that ex-bf wasn't going to molest anyone and I would vouch for him, but doing so would have been demanding that the girl, her parents, and the airline trust my judgement. In the wake of the Cromwell Street and Moors murders where mixed-sex couples conspired to torture rape and murder, such objection ought to raise huge red flags about both of us. My point is that these processes exist for a reason and the right thing to do is comply.

jurgen

That would have just been a funny story Jurgen had you not added that unnecessary final paragraph.

Great posts pombear

My DC have flown using UM schemes before . They have been sat in the back row of the plane, next to the crew seats, so that it's easy to keep an eye on them. First to board, last to disembark. Both male and female staff have seen them through the airport (going through security, boarding the plane, clearing immigration). They haven't had anyone else sitting with them - and surely any airline would only place a passenger next to a UM if there were no other option? And they aren't expecting them to nurse maid them

But yes, Snappity it is great news that if a man with religious beliefs that preclude him from sitting next to a woman complains, he will be expected to move rather than the female passenger.