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/

Why is everyone ignoring the fact that this lady experienced being asked to change seats twice, on two different flights?

On the first flight she was asked by the Haredi men to switch with a man further up and she refused. A flight attendant intervened and offered her a hot drink if she agreed to switch seats, so instead of telling the men to pipe down, EasyJet came down on the side of the men. She apparently complied to stop the flight being held up.

I wonder if the man had contacted the airline in advance and explained this issue, they would have just managed the seat allocations to ensure no women were in seats where he was. End of problem without massive scene and embarrassment to women.

Well no, it's not an end to the problem. EasyJet is a budget airline. If you want special arrangements, you pay for them in advance. This man could have done so by booking an extra seat - costly, but if being next to a female bothers him that much, then tough. Also, if there was just one such man on a flight, his 'needs' might be easy enough to accommodate, but what if there were several, as there might well be on certain routes? It would be very difficult to ensure that they were all seated next to a male, and why on earth should an airline - esp a budget airline - go to that trouble to accommodate someone's religious intolerance?

Plus, where do you draw the line with this? Can anyone just contact an airline, claim to be part of this or that religious group and demand special treatment on that account?

By the way, spoiler alert for those of you frothing at the mouth about these men: they do not represent the entire Orthodox Jewish community

The fact this is a minority has already been made.

Interesting choice of language there -"frothing at the mouth". I don't see that anywhere.

I wonder were the management at El Al, KLM or Israeli legislators "frothing at the mouth" when they decided this behaviour was unacceptable?

This man could have done so by booking an extra seat - costly, but if being next to a female bothers him that much, then tough

Not that costly - couple of hundred pounds at most.

EasyJet is a budget airline. If you want special arrangements, you pay for them in advance.

And then you'd have howls of "I'm being discriminated against [made to pay more] because of my religion".

Living in the Middle East I quite commonly am asked to switch seats to avoid a local woman being seated next to or across the aisle from a man. Once I was given a seat in business for my trouble. Usually the ME flights aren't loaded with men sitting next to women they arent related to but people switch places or planes change at the last minute.
Never has it been a man objecting though.
I think it's swings and roundabouts.
I'd ask politely crew if I could sit with my children or husband and have asked to be moved when my children and I were in a row with a falcon and it's handler and another time travelling with a baby on lap in aisle when the man in the window (middle seat empty ) was watching porn on a laptop and stroking himself.

@ProfessorSlocombe Yes, that’s correct. Everything is on timers so they don’t have to do it. They have to pre-tear toilet paper, and often they do not attend any other form of education than Shul (Torah School).

Trying to separate them via pre booking options doesn’t work. The point they’re making is to forcibly segregate the plane without having to make special provisions. This is about pushing their beliefs on others, and they do it to make a point. Flying to Tel Aviv in Economy is and probably always will be a nightmare worth every shekel of the upgrade. There is often a high degree of aggression and intimidation, and staff rely on passengers to do as asked by these men to avoid problems.

@ProfessorSlocombe

EasyJet is a budget airline. If you want special arrangements, you pay for them in advance.

And then you'd have howls of "I'm being discriminated against [made to pay more] because of my religion".

Not really. Anyone of any religion or none must pay extra if they want special seating arrangements on budget airlines. But I get your point.

Not really. Anyone of any religion or none must pay extra if they want special seating arrangements on budget airlines. But I get your point.

Does anyone recall a budget airline trying to charge extra for wheelchairs and front row seating ?

Eastie

I'm making this point since several posters have been asking "what would have happened if the woman was Black". Well some Black women would move, some wouldn't. Exactly the same as a woman of any other race. We are not some kind of special species who think and behave differently from White women.

I read that as turning the situation into one regarding racism specifically. Not sexism.

So instead of saying I've got a sexist man here, can you move because you're female. It would be, I've got a racist man, here can you move because you're black.

I didn't read it as what would a black woman think about being treated in a sexist way. I can't imagine anyone on this board saying that and making a distinction on that basis. The women here are very clear that sexism is based on sex.

@ProfessorSlocombe

Not really. Anyone of any religion or none must pay extra if they want special seating arrangements on budget airlines. But I get your point.

Does anyone recall a budget airline trying to charge extra for wheelchairs and front row seating ?

Do these requests involve discriminating against your fellow passengers on account of their sex? Plus, don't you have to provide evidence if you want special treatment on health grounds? What's stopping some misogynist saying 'Oh my religion forbids me sitting next to women so I demand to be seated next to a male"? Even if he was an athiest?

Flashes From the Archive of Oblivion

www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ryanair-facing-criticism-allowing-passenger-directing-racist-rant-woman-stay-n922721

European airline Ryanair is facing criticism after the flight crew on a plane bound for London failed to remove a man who was yelling racist remarks at another passenger.

The incident on a plane taking off from Barcelona, Spain, on Friday was recorded on video by another passenger, David Lawrence. "RACIST MAN REFUSES TO SIT NEXT TO ELDERLY BLACK WOMAN on Ryanair flight calling victim an UGLY BLACK BASTARD and Ryanair - DOES NOTHING!!!" Lawrence wrote on Facebook.

A flood of commenters on the video, which has been viewed nearly 5 million times since it was posted Friday, expressed outrage that the man was not kicked off the flight, and some called for Ryanair boycotts.

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?

Well, clearly we shouldn't. Barely a woman doesn't have some story to tell about sexually inappropriate conduct by men at some point in our lives. For many of us it gets far worse. #MeToo was a shocking insight into just how pervasive a problem this is. As a victim of rape in my teens, I've experienced one of the more extreme manifestations of masculine privilege at women's expense.

In terms of the thread, there is clearly a context and a legal precedent for this type of situation, and I do come down firmly on the side of the woman. It's always, always, the women who are expected to budge up and move over in order to make men more comfortable. By the second instance of it she must have been sick and tired of this, which I can't say doesn't have my sympathy.

Then I read the post by Eastie. She's had to put up with all the above by virtue of having been born female. Then there's a second and even more extreme layer of discrimination. On top of all the issues listed in the post above, she'll have had to face systemic and individual prejudice on account of being black. The racist, sexist epithet she encountered on that railway journey speaks succinctly (and hatefully) for itself.

Eastie, I'm very sorry you had to go through that. I also recognise the sex-based abuse I and others have received doesn't mean we don't have white privilege. FWIW, I do think it's a pity some black women feel they can't, or don't want to, engage in a feminism they see as predominantly white. Personally I think we need those voices more than ever.

There have been official airline policies of asking men to move for the crime of being sat next to kids on a plane that they aren't related to;

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_seating_sex_discrimination_controversy

I've seen discussions on here when such cases arise, and nobody was sympathetic to the male passengers. Nobody said that the parent booking the ticket should book extra seats to keep their kids safe. So to pretend that only women are subject to discrimination on a plane just isn't true.

For the record, I think the men in the case of the OP are idiots and should not be accommodated. If you don't like it, you move, or get off the plane.

@Eastie77

I don't understand why the passenger is suing EasyJet after the latest incident. According to the article, she was asked by two Orthodox men to change seats. She refused. Two female passengers agreed to switch seats with the two men sitting next to her.

What am I missing? I entirely understand her upset at being asked in the first place but what are the grounds for suing EasyJet in the above scenario? People ask other passengers to swap seats on planes all the time. She had the option to say no and did so. EJ did not try to force her to move and the men were not abusive. It seems she is annoyed the two women agreed to switch and the men got their own way. Personally I would not have agreed to move if I didn't want to but I wouldn't feel traumatised at being asked to accommodate someone's request.

I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish area (I am not Jewish). I have been aware since childhood that most men from that community will not sit next next to or engage with a woman who is not their wife. I once asked two Orthodox men in the park to stop smoking next to children's play area where it is banned. They completely ignored me and turned their backs. When a male park services attendant approached them they immediately acknowledged him and put their cigarettes out. Deeply unpleasant and infuriating but these men have every right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs.

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

Are you from L.A. Or NY? What’s deeply unpleasant and infuriating is your willingness to accept prejudice based on your gender. Those men have NO right to infringe on your human rights in pursuit of their religion.

Anyone being asked to move because of their sex - not their bad behaviour - should be offered an automatic upgrade. I would happily move seats on that basis.

@Eastie77

I don't understand why the passenger is suing EasyJet after the latest incident. According to the article, she was asked by two Orthodox men to change seats. She refused. Two female passengers agreed to switch seats with the two men sitting next to her.

What am I missing? I entirely understand her upset at being asked in the first place but what are the grounds for suing EasyJet in the above scenario? People ask other passengers to swap seats on planes all the time. She had the option to say no and did so. EJ did not try to force her to move and the men were not abusive. It seems she is annoyed the two women agreed to switch and the men got their own way. Personally I would not have agreed to move if I didn't want to but I wouldn't feel traumatised at being asked to accommodate someone's request.

I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish area (I am not Jewish). I have been aware since childhood that most men from that community will not sit next next to or engage with a woman who is not their wife. I once asked two Orthodox men in the park to stop smoking next to children's play area where it is banned. They completely ignored me and turned their backs. When a male park services attendant approached them they immediately acknowledged him and put their cigarettes out. Deeply unpleasant and infuriating but these men have every right to live in accordance with their religious beliefs.

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

This is some kind of internalised misogyny?

Never understand entitled dickheads like this dude. Why didn't HE move if it was such an issue. No need to inconvenience others just because you personally aren't happy.

Another option is..if it bothers you that much, pay for two seats, then you won't be stuck next to one of those horrible things, that we call women.

@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.

Sorry but I am impacted emotionally by sex discrimination more than racial discrimination against me.

I find sex discrimination deeply personal.

I am saddened by the comments on this thread, by women, minimising the impact of this sort of discrimination against women.

I can only conclude that they are so used to it, they've started to accept and embrace it as a survival strategy? It's deeply fucked up.

One would not expect an airline to tell a Muslim they must find their own Halal meal, nor a person with prostate cancer they couldn't have an aisle seat to ensure ready access to a lavatory

I think a closer analogy here would be
Muslim passenger books flight and does not specify needing halal meals.
Others (as fairly sure they will take a few halal meals just incase) have been taken already, so the passenger demands that the person sitting behind them has to give him theirs.

Even that though, rules out the misogyny side of it tbh. The man wants to be not next to a woman, fine, up to him. But HE moves to somewhere a woman is not, you don't expect everyone elses life to revolve around you.

I think the airline should have asked the man to swap seats not her, but I also would not take it at all personally if an ultra-orthodox man didn’t want to sit next to me. It’s not like they find women distasteful, it’s that (weirdly) they feel they might be tempted to have improper thoughts about women so avoid looking at female non-family members (depending on their level of Orthodoxy of course, this is just the extreme ones, Chabadniks for example do not have this problem). They won’t even look at ads with women for fear of their thoughts. Men, aye?

@Eastie77

"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"

Ah but we are not. What is clear from this thread is that as a Black woman I am not allowed to speak from my own experience of sexism and racism and describe what I felt was worse. By doing so I am apparently telling White women "to put up and shut up" with sexism as a PP suggested or I'm playing Oppression Trumps.

Heaven forbid a Black woman speak up and suggest that the racism we face is in anyway different. The White woman's experience of sexism is as bad as racism and that's that. Black women clearly need to STFU and stop complaining about our pesky issues. A man telling a woman he pays her less because she is a woman is exactly the same as someone calling a Black woman a wog. The time I was chased by a group of White men in a car screaming racist abuse is the same as my experiences of sexism. Ok.

To the 'BAME' women stating it is all the same - that's your experience. You don't speak for me.

Such a lovely thread in general though. It's like MN racist bingo. We've had the poster claiming White people who are a minority in some countries are victims of racism. Jewish men described as cunts. Seriously?

Incidentally there is a New York Times article about this very issue and one of the people interviewed is a Black woman who switched seats when asked in a similar situation. So, you know, it's not just White women who are inconvenienced and discriminated against in this way. I'm making this point since several posters have been asking "what would have happened if the woman was Black". Well some Black women would move, some wouldn't. Exactly the same as a woman of any other race. We are not some kind of special species who think and behave differently from White women. But we are treated differently because of our race on top of our sex. This doesn't mean we minimise the experiences of sexism White women face but it is not the same.

By the way, spoiler alert for those of you frothing at the mouth about these men: they do not represent the entire Orthodox Jewish community. Whilst many men do not engage with women they are not related to, many more do. I've had conversations with and sat next to Orthodox Jewish men on buses, a Rabbi took my daughter on a tour of a synagogue close to my parents home.
So can we stop with the name calling and generalisations about an entire community based on the dickish behaviour of some men on flights.

Sorry, but you're seeing racism where there is none. You're allowed to have your feelings about it as a BAME woman based on your experiences, so am I as a BAME person. You don't get to erase other peoples' lived experiences. You're engaging in exactly what you accuse others of.

Yes I would call these particular men on the plane (and those that engage in this behaviour) cunts. That's because what they are. Not because of being Jewish, but because they are self-absorbed and expect other people to run around to accommodate them.

@habibihabibi

Living in the Middle East I quite commonly am asked to switch seats to avoid a local woman being seated next to or across the aisle from a man. Once I was given a seat in business for my trouble. Usually the ME flights aren't loaded with men sitting next to women they arent related to but people switch places or planes change at the last minute. Never has it been a man objecting though. I think it's swings and roundabouts. I'd ask politely crew if I could sit with my children or husband and have asked to be moved when my children and I were in a row with a falcon and it's handler and another time travelling with a baby on lap in aisle when the man in the window (middle seat empty ) was watching porn on a laptop and stroking himself.

To be honest I don't have any more sympathy here than for these men. There's something rather unpleasant in the idea that the women who want you to move are too pure or delicate to be near a man but you aren't.

If one chooses to follow a religion which makes normal social interaction problematic I'm not sure why one wouldn't just stick to one's chosen religious rules rather than expect random strangers to adjust their normal behaviour, even to inconvenience themselves, to accommodate one's religious beliefs.

Does anyone recall a budget airline trying to charge extra for wheelchairs and front row seating?

Thomas cook tried this with my mother once years and years back. AND she had already paid for the legroom/front seats too (think they have to be same cost now if they need them rather than just want?). But apparently they double booked them so she was expected to move or book a different flight Ontop of this, she was told her walking aid MUST be placed in the hold instead of keeping it with her! She could just get it when she gets off, or can sit and wait for a staff member to bring her it.. Someone else did speak up and she was able to keep the thing that she needs to move independently, and did not end up moving seats despite the deathstares all round (as clearly it is a disabled womans fault that she is disabled and now that shes been asked to do something detrimental to her and has said that would be a big problem, it is her fault there has been a 5 min delay), but still.

Was ages back, and she did get an apology mind and a (low value) voucher, but thats not the point at all.