This is a comment by Random_Stranger on the post “Virgin Airlines: Men Can’t Sit Near Unaccompanied Minors“.
Oxyfrantz said in the original post:
“4% and 43% of child molesters are female”
Random_Stranger said:
“You know, someone will try to justify the airline’s policy with stats and others will try to discredit the stats, I just got to say SCREW THE STATS!
“The moment we accept one policy justifying discrimination on the basis of gender is the moment we accept all policies justifying discrimination on the basis of gender. If these airlines are permitted to cite a statistic and a parental complaint to establish a policy legitimizing bigotry and fear then they create a precedent encouraging future gender discrimination. How could anyone criticize them if they used a similar tactic to hire only female stewards or male pilots?
“This policy also marks a trend that is particularly insidious and foreboding. We’re witnessing a steady institutionalizing of a culture of fear of strange men which has materialized in separating men from women and men from children. Nobody benefits from this. Women and children are afraid to seek assistance from strange men even if in desperate need, men are afraid and discouraged to intervene in the life of a child, and boys in particular have no sense of what it means to grow into a positive and respected individual.
“Unless we all want to take a giant step backwards, then these policies cannot stand. Where is the massive boycott on this?”
Photo credit: Flickr / mac_ivan
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Fear of men is so often justified by statistics. I can’t see how it DOESN’T simply raise kids to fear men to the point as adults we have the women even more afraid of strange men, crossing the streets more vs walking by and giving this elevated sense of fear. Afraid of being raped, afraid of their kids being raped, it’s so bad that I hear from people that seeing men interact with kids and the automatic thought for some becomes suspicion of being a pedophile, all the while we have women asking us to help out more with the kids as fathers.
Gender based discrimination is alive n well n it seems we only seem to care about when women are discriminated against in most cases, will I live to see the day the government of Australia introduces a campaign to address discrimination of men and misandry?
“When we accept discrimination on the basis of one gender, we accept all gender discrimination.”
Not sure that is true – but accepting discrimination on the basis of one gender does allow people to build upon the idea that discrimination is acceptable against that one gender – and then when further discrimination occurs it just become accepted and the norm.
Discrimination is always seen in the negative pejorative sense – it can also mean positive advantage. In this case there are clear red flags that the discrimination negative. In other cases, such as dropping the gender bar at Augusta, it’s seen as positive.
It’s hard to find good words which sum up the negative discrimination in one go – but in many ways dogmatism and injustice do fit the bill. Also incivility has a strong usage and keen focus.
It scans quite differently when you say “The moment we accept one policy justifying incivility on the basis of gender is the moment we accept all policies justifying incivility on the basis of gender.” – it actually makes it gender neutral which is a bonus. P^)
People have fixed ideas on what “Discriminate” means – and different one’s on what it means to be “Uncivil”!
As a general rule people believe it’s not nice to be rude – so making them have to consider if they are being rude, in any way, gives time for the idea to sneak past the dogmatism that defends their conception of Discrimination.