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

[stumbledin]

I cant believe this is still happening. There have been court cases about this for at least the past ten years which have always support women.
www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/easyjet-sue-luton-tel-aviv-discrimination-orthodox-melanie-wolfson-a9693641.html

Earlier cases:
2015 www.nytimes.com/2015/04/10/us/aboard-flights-conflicts-over-seat-assignments-and-religion.html
2017 www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/el-al-israeli-airline-orthodox-jewish-men-women-seats-flights-gender-segregation-a7804716.html
2018 airline says it will no longer accommodate Orthodox Jewish men who refuse to sit next to women
2020 www.dutchnews.nl/news/2020/07/klm-breached-discrimination-law-by-asking-woman-to-move-for-orthodox-jewish-man/

@jcurve

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.

This.

This man knew he might find himself sitting next to a woman and that his beliefs required him not to do so. It's his job, surely, to take appropriate precautions (by booking an extra seat) or to move himself if the seating arrangement wasn't acceptable to him. It's the arrogance of just assuming he can have the woman whisked away that is the issue here and the airline's pandering to that arrogance.

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

Out of curiosity I checked to see if the Mail had reported it. Most of their readers who have commented seem to have no difficulty understanding she was discriminated against- unlike some posters on here.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8672291/amp/British-Israeli-woman-sues-Easyjet-15-000-make-seats-twice.html

@FredaFrogspawn

Sex discrimination in this case isn’t deeply personal. It is wrong but it elicits anger and frustration, not deep, personal wounds. I’m not minimising it but refuse to see it equated with race discrimination in the same context. They are different.

Likewise, I am not at all minimising the hurt of experiences of racism, but tbf, when you make a statement like this you have no idea what personal, hurtful experiences any individual woman may have been subjected to directly because of her sex.

I don't think playing top trumps is helpful here.

It doesn’t trump another - it’s not a competition. I just wanted to point out that race discrimination goes deeper than one level because it excludes your entire family and heritage. They really aren’t the same thing, they aren’t equal. They’re different.

@FredaFrogspawn

Sex discrimination in this case isn’t deeply personal. It is wrong but it elicits anger and frustration, not deep, personal wounds. I’m not minimising it but refuse to see it equated with race discrimination in the same context. They are different.

You are speaking only for yourself here.

You are wrong in law.

And morally, ethically and philosophically you have no right to determine how any other woman should feel about this.

@FredaFrogspawn

It doesn’t trump another - it’s not a competition. I just wanted to point out that race discrimination goes deeper than one level because it excludes your entire family and heritage. They really aren’t the same thing, they aren’t equal. They’re different.

Top trump is exactly what you are doing.

I think it's really depressing that I'm meant to not be too upset about sex discrimination because it only affects the female members of my family.

Those saying it's really not as bad as racisim, would you be trying to minimize this Daddy's experience if she was black?

Lady! Wtf is wrong with my autocorrect today!

I’m not trying to minimise her experience. I’m saying they aren’t the same. And of course I can speak for myself not others.

I do recognise that I although I will experience sexism, I will never experience racism - but think it’s important to listen to those who have experienced it alongside sexism.

Sorry about the extra ‘I’ there.

I agree with @CatteStreet .
This exact thing happened to me on a flight to NY a few years ago.
Several orthodox Jewish men and boys were on the flight. They caused uproar as they refused to sit next to any women. There were women moving seats all over the plane. It's irked me ever since that I moved.
I didn't get a drink or anything else for my trouble.

@FredaFrogspawn

I’m not trying to minimise her experience. I’m saying they aren’t the same. And of course I can speak for myself not others.

I do recognise that I although I will experience sexism, I will never experience racism - but think it’s important to listen to those who have experienced it alongside sexism.

Your second paragraph is completely irrelevant in relation to what happened here. And you're still playing top trumps.

I apologise - I don’t mean to but think this is important.

@FredaFrogspawn

It doesn’t trump another - it’s not a competition. I just wanted to point out that race discrimination goes deeper than one level because it excludes your entire family and heritage. They really aren’t the same thing, they aren’t equal. They’re different.

So you're saying that women should be content with sex discrimination because their fathers, husbands and sons aren't affected by it?

And you're wondering why your argument isn't going down well on the feminism board?

I didn’t say women should be content with sex discrimination.

The men need to book seats with a spare seat if necessary if they don't want to sit next to a woman. I bet there are women who would struggle to sit so close next to a man due to trauma and I imagine that's what they would do.

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

What utter nonsense.

The only way she could be an opportunist is if she was given inside information pre flight that there would be men on the flight who will refuse to sit next to women - so she orchestrated it so that she could sit next to them.

The men orchestrated it due to male prejudice and entitlement. Nothing else.

Stop blaming women.

If the men's religion prevents them from respecting other people's civil rights, such as being treated like the expendable human in this situation, then why are they travelling in a public conveyance at all?

Religion can't be some kind of magic that abrogates everybody else's rights. Nor is it some kind of magic that can force everyone else to participate in it.

But on a practical level I still don't understand the question others have asked: why is the woman asked to move? Why isn't it the men who get moved? Serious, if dumb, question. I don't get it.

I think the experience if being treated as less than fully human can be extremely wounding and take many forms. It is the basis of sexism, racism, ableism, ageism etc and while they may all be different in how they manifest, the underlying structure is the same: the expression to a person that she is worth less than others because of an inborn or immutable characteristic. It is morally wrong and I don't think we can say one type of ism is worse than another, though I suppose we could compare discrete events (was the slave trade worse than foot binding type discussions that in my opinion are divisive, ahistorical and pointless). I believe there is a moral imperative not to discriminate or mistreat people based on their immutable characteristics, whatever they may be.

I think, Freda, that saying race discrimination goes deeper than sex discrimination as a general principle has been interpreted as playing top trumps. I'm an immigrant to where I live (albeit white, but my colouring is one associated with specific ethnic minorities in the country I live in and I have had all sorts of assumptions and overt xenopühobia thrown at me over my years here) so I have some degree of understanding of the issues (obviously nowhere near as much as someone non-white) and I think what cuts deeper is very, very individual to the person and the totality of their experience.

I also think that in a thread like this, suggesting that this woman should put up with this (you were not actually saying this, I get that, but that is the logical consequence of your position) because it wasn't personal and racism is - so she should have effectively top-trumped herself, iyswim - is going to be offensive to people.

I was lso going to say that I can't believe he wasn't the one expected to move. But then I thought actually, sadly, I can well believe it. Good luck to her with her case.

Bame women, suffering with the double whammy that they do, are perfectly entitled to decide what feels personally worse when it comes to discrimination, sex or race. (If a distinction is even possible, which I should imagine is often quite difficult).

The point is, the law regards them both equally, in terms of protected characteristics.

This woman was discriminated against on the basis of her sex. She was considered so lesser than, that a man wouldn't, couldn't even sit next to her.

No one, certainly not the airline, should even be contemplating a solution to this man's prejudice - other than sit down or get off.

But on a practical level I still don't understand the question others have asked: why is the woman asked to move? Why isn't it the men who get moved? Serious, if dumb, question. I don't get it.

Sexism. Patriarchy, innit.

But on a practical level I still don't understand the question others have asked: why is the woman asked to move? Why isn't it the men who get moved?

On a fairness level, I believe the men should have had to move (or being told to put up with it). On a practical level, it's probably easier to move one person to reach a solution that satisfies the parameters than several (as demonstrated by 4 people having to swap seats), as that would require finding more people who are willing to move (she was asked, not ordered, not that this was fair).

I disagree that the logical conclusion of my opinion is that the woman should put up with this.

I appreciate those who have taken the time to explain their thinking without attributing words to me which I have never expressed.

It’s also fine for white women to feel that a person’s race can be more damaging in terms of discrimination than their sex in many situations. I also think it is probably pretty clear when there is racism for the person who is experiencing it, even if it doesn’t seem clear to those of us who will never experience it.

But I did sidetrack from this issue for which I apologise and will shut up now.