There are a number of reasons that I no longer choose to do my flying with British Airways (BA).
Endless strike action due to their inability to work amicably with their own staff; fairer ticket prices elsewhere and better in-flight entertainment on other airlines. It is most definitely my least favourite airline and I’m not alone in my opinion.
However, chief amongst my reasons for avoiding this unfortunate airline is that they have a policy that specifically targets all men as potential paedophiles. Not some men, all men are considered suspect.
I’m a man and so that means British Airways considers me to be suspect and I take that personally.
This policy is in place, according to BA, in order to protect children from men who might sexually abuse them on flights and it requires men, any man, be moved away from a child who is flying unaccompanied by their parents. If the man refuses to move due to such a nasty supposition, then the police will be called and he will be ejected from the flight. Serious stuff.
One man recently complained about his treatment due to this policy and won his case in court. However, it was a battle and not the war. British Airways policy remains the same.
Another apparent victory regards an email campaign to BA which resulted in them agreeing to alter the wording of their policy so as to not appear to discriminate against men.
Text posted on antimisandry (post here but not available at the time of writing):
Dear [name removed]
Thank you for your email. I am sorry that you are unhappy with our response. I understand that you feel disappointed with our policy about seating for unaccompanied minors. Please also accept my sincere apologies for the delay in our response.
I can confirm that all feedback we have received relating to the unaccompanied minor seating policy has been carefully reviewed and has led to us reassessing the policy in full. The new policy for seating unaccompanied minors who travel with British Airways does not make any distinction between male and female passengers.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your feedback. Your business is invaluable to us and we appreciate that you have a choice when it comes to booking your flights. Thank you again for getting in touch and for giving me the opportunity to respond to your concerns.
Best regards
[name removed]
British Airways Customer Relations
However, this does not mean that the policy is not the same as before, nor does it mean that BA has accepted any wrongdoing, it just means that men are now targeted below the politically correct radar.
It is still men that will be moved and not women for the simple reason that women would not tolerate such hateful treatment and would make BA pay by not flying with them. Men, on the other hand, happily finance BA’s hatred with their ticket purchases.
Men have no clue of how to defend themselves and so the assault goes on with their willing assistance. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Apartheid for men – Stephen Fitzgerald
(clip from film Women Focus and Men are Disposable)
01m 39s
The main thing to note in the reporting of the case is that articles contain absolutely zero outrage as would be the case if the nature of women was so impugned. MP’s would be rattling off soundbites about institutional sexism and unacceptable discrimination and misogyny etc. However, in the case of men, no one in the media and no one in authority has anything to say about the matter.
We value your business, but we don’t value you
Note the part of BA’s email response above where it says “Your business is invaluable to us”. Well of course, this is true. As I’ve covered before regarding BA’s anti-male policy, it is largely men’s money that keeps the airline flying. So why is it that they feel so comfortable in enacting, publicising and legally defending a policy that victimizes its major customers? It would seem like business suicide, but it isn’t. Why not?
Well, it seems that it’s all about men’s own psychology: the worst enemy of men.
Angry Harry and Erin Pizzey on Male Psychology
(clip from film Intimacy)
10m 19s
For the children
Let’s look at this a different way. First let’s look at the policy itself.
I believe that British Airways has stated that the reason for singling out men in their policy is that men are more likely to be abusers than women. However, the vast majority of men are not abusers and we don’t know how many women sexually abuse because such abuse remains a taboo subject in our society and is inadequately investigated. However, I think we can safely assume that as with men, the vast majority of women are not abusers.
So, why has the issue of child sexual abuse, of all things, been taken to heart at British Airways? Why not kidnapping or theft or hijacking or terrorism?
Even if the BA policy was genuinely about the statistics, well, statistically, virtually all recent airline terrorists are men of middle eastern descent. Do BA have a policy to move these men away to seats further away from the cockpit? Would that fly? (pun intended)
Of course it wouldn’t. It would be unforgivable discrimination against the men’s religion, ethnicity or country of origin.
If BA did have such a policy however, at least they could point to real-world examples as a pathetic attempt to justify their discrimination. But with their seating policy against men, has there ever been a case of a man molesting a child on a plane? Or any other mode of transportation for that matter? I have searched long and hard for such cases without success.
“Given that some of these flights last up to 13 hours & are overnight, we take the responsibility of caring for these children, whose safety & security has been entrusted to us, extremely seriously”
BA Statement to Fox News, 2010.
Really? So why don‘t long-distance buses, coaches and trains enforce a “no sitting next to kids” rule for men? Perhaps because such fears are groundless?
So, we have a policy put in place, targeting men alone and ignoring women as paedophiles, that exists to prevent a problem that has never been shown to be even remotely likely to occur.
How can BA think it sensible to treat the entire female sex as safe for children and the entire male sex as dangerous and regard this lunacy as “caring” for children? This policy in fact creates potentially more danger for children due to its wilful ignorance of female abusers.
Female sexual abuse of children – Michele Elliott
(clip from film Child Abuse and Rape)
03m 13s
The plain and simple fact is that this British Airways policy is not in place to protect children. It is in place to malign men.
If it was about protecting children, no adult would be allowed near a child on a plane. However, not only is this impractical on a flight, of far more concern to BA is that it would anger women. Women would not ever, ever, in a million years, under any circumstances accept such treatment from an airline. And BA knows it. Any airline that even thought about daring to do such a thing would be out of business before they could cry: “It’s for the children!”
And it’s not just women that wouldn’t stand for it. Nobody with an ounce of self-respect would tolerate it.
If BA said black men could not sit next to children? Uproar, illegal, protests, boycotts, parliamentary questions, litigation, legislation, heavy fines, apologies, resignations, civil suits et al.
If red-haired men were not allowed to sit next to children? (see above)
If American men? (same again)
If Muslim men? (and again)
However, when all men are singled out for this hateful treatment, men go on happily buying tickets for BA flights.
Well, someone did once say that people get the government they deserve. It seems with British Airways, as long as men are happy to accept the hatred directed against them, indeed actually pay for this treatment every time they buy a ticket; well, then men also get the treatment they deserve. Rocket science, it is not.
All men are not potential abusers – Michele Elliott
(clip from film Child Abuse)
03m 04s
BA’s policy is a homage to Apartheid. It achieves nothing, absolutely nothing at all, besides putting the misplaced thought in our mind that men are inherently dangerous. It is a nonsense and a pretence that this for the children, when it is really against the men.
Someone at British Airways has decided to embody the hateful ideology of Feminism in the airline’s child protection policy and this is inexcusable misandry.
Feminism and hatred: A perfect match
(clips from film Origins and Winners of Feminism)
06m 55s
If this is a man
Now let’s look at men’s reaction (or lack thereof) to this discriminatory policy.
I have asked before why men have not simply refused to fly with BA because of this policy? If they did so, the policy would be toast within 24 hours and we’d be talking about other things. But men have not done this and so we have to ponder: what would actually lead to a man refusing to fly with an airline? How severe would discrimination have to be, before men finally took a stand and refused to tolerate it?
What if men had to submit their camera’s for scanning before and after flights to check that they hadn’t photographed children on board?
Would men react to that?
What if men had to sit in a special section of the cabin, separate from children. Perhaps at the back of the plane. Perhaps behind wire mesh.
Would men react to this?
What if men had to queue at different toilets to children in case they attempted to molest a child in the aisle?
What if men were required to take male-only flights to ensure that children were kept safe from their depravity?
What if men were made to wait on board while women and children disembarked first and were safely in the terminal before the men were released?
What if men had to travel in the hold of the aircraft along with the luggage for fear of what crimes they might commit against innocent children?
Would any of this get a rise out of men? Exactly when, if at all, would men finally say enough is enough?
The answer?
Let’s be brutally honest.
Like a lobster being cooked alive in water slowly brought to the boil, men would never say enough is enough. They would take it and go on taking it and then take it some more, because that is the male condition.
What a catalyst this could have been…
If men had behaved in what I would term a normal human fashion, the outcome could have been truly great. The fallout from the “Great Fall of BA” as it might have been called, would have sent shockwaves throught the nation and beyond. ALL businesses and Government agencies would have been forced to react to the simple awakening of men’s self-respect.
ALL anti-male polices and legislation would be reviewed and a great deal of it changed. No other business would want to go the way of BA and they would be taking full page adverts in The Times to demonstrate just how man-friendly they were. No Government or local council would want to be booted out-of-office and might do the same.
It would be a domino-effect with the one example of men’s pride leading to a flood of change throughout our society.
With almost no effort at all by men; with no activists, organisations, petitions, marches, placards, phonecalls, strikes, sit-ins, protest emails or court cases; men could still have wrought a phenomenal victory for men’s human rights.
And here’s the important bit. This easy win would have meant automatic wins on more difficult battlegrounds. In the areas where anti-male policy is entrenched and extremely harmful, where it is difficult to know how men might prevail, this could have blown it all away.
But, of course, it didn’t happen, and it is an unforgivable, needless and inexplicable failure.
If men can’t make a change when it is such an easy, slam-dunk case like the blatant misandry shown by British Airways. If they don’t even choose to phone a different number to book their flights, or click on different button in their browsers when they order tickets, then how the hell can men make a change with the really tough problems that they face, such as in education, health, domestic violence and the family court?
Change must come from within
Men affected by discrimination like this accept it because they believe it is about other men. They believe the rules are there to protect children from the amorphous others; the unquantifiable numbers of other men that are the problem.
No, it is not.
It is about every man.
It is about you.
That’s why BA should have been brought to its knees or even put out of business entirely for this hate crime against men.
It doesn’t need the existence of a National Organisation for Men to lobby government, or a Minister for Men to argue in Parliament, or a national Men’s Daily newspaper to send a petition to BA headquarters. This requires no organisational effort and no collaboration at all.
Why not? Well, do we need a national organisation to advise men not to step in dog mess? No, we don’t. Men avoid stepping in dog mess because it obviously makes sense.
For this same reason, one would think that men would obviously avoid buying BA tickets. Why would any man want to fly with an airline that is openly offensive to him by treating him as a likely paedophile?
If men did refuse to tolerate this, and voted with their feet as individuals, it would be, perhaps, the first clear and definitive proof-of-concept regarding the power of distributed activism for men’s rights (here and here).
However, this hasn’t happened because there is a problem.
As can readily be seen on reddit men’s rights, both Feminists and many non-feminists don’t really take men’s rights seriously for the simple reason that men themselves don’t take their rights seriously.
It’s not so much Feminists or Government or business interests that dismiss men and disempower men, as much as it is men themselves.
That’s why you will find men, even those affronted by British Airway’s complete disregard for men’s human rights, happily buying expensive BA tickets for their flights and happily moving to a seat away from children when ordered to do so.
Why wouldn’t a man move? After all, one cannot be offended if one lacks a sense of self-worth.
Related Video Links
(Some films not yet online)
I, for one, e-mailed BA about its hateful policy and cancelled my flight plans with them. People can vote with their feet, or in this case, their wallet. There are many other airlines available and on principle, I now seek alternative airlines to use.
Well done. You and I makes two people who made this easy choice.
If only it was two thousand…
This did happen to me on a BA flight, I was outraged & disgusted, but did not make a scene, as I did not want to scare the little girl who was alone next to me.
According to BA, ALL men as rapist & pedophiles.
No more BA for me.
British Airways changes ‘discriminatory’ seating policy for men
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7957982/British-Airways-changes-discriminatory-seating-policy-for-men.html
The airline has confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph it has altered its procedures to protect unaccompanied minors – the aviation industry term for children flying without a parent or guardian.
It follows the case of Mirko Fischer, a hedge fund manager who was told to move seats by cabin crew under an internal rule that prevented adult males sitting next to unaccompanied children.
Mr Fischer ended up sitting next to the boy on the BA flight from London to Luxembourg when he switched seats with his pregnant wife, so she could be by the window.
The 35-year-old told staff he believed the airline’s policy broke the Sex Discrimination Act and later said he felt he had been treated as a potential “child molester”.
He later won a compensation order at Slough County Court, in which BA admitted sex discrimination in his case and agreed to pay him costs of £2,161 and £750 in damages.
BA, which carried out a review of its policy following the case, now says “seating of unaccompanied minors is managed in a safe but non discriminatory manner”.
Mr Fischer, who lives in Luxembourg, said he was “absolutely delighted” by the policy change. He has donated his compensation money to Kidscape and Orphans in the Wild, two child protection charities.
Tom Otley, editor of Business Traveller magazine, also welcomed the ruling, but added: “The end of discrimination is good news but most business travellers usually want to sit as far away as possible from unaccompanied children so this is unlikely to have a big impact on where people sit on-board.”
Airlines are free to set their own seating policies regarding unaccompanied minors. Virgin Atlantic said it did not have a similar policy and easyJet said passengers were free to sit where they liked.
A spokesman for BA said: “We carry tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors every year and take great pride in the service that we provide to them and their parents.
“We have offered this service on all flights for many years for children aged between five and 11 years old, who are travelling alone.
“Given that some of these flights last up to 13 hours and are overnight, we take the responsibility of caring for these children, whose safety and security has been entrusted to us, extremely seriously.
“There is a specific seating department that has a range of guidelines to ensure that we place in an appropriate seat.
“On some services, this will be in a specially created Unaccompanied Minors zone within a short distance of the cabin crew in the galley.
“We have recently changed our internal advice to our seating and airport teams to ensure that the seating of unaccompanied minors is managed in a safe but non discriminatory manner.”
I will still NOT use BA.
PS: Qantas and Air New Zealand have the same Man hating rules as BA.
I would LOVE to know what BA mean by “safe but non-discriminatory”.
They need to be more explicit. Suppose a man has been “accidentally” placed next to an unaccompanied kid. How do they “deal” with this one? Do they ask the man to move, but in a nicer way than they used to? Do they ask the kid to move instead? Or do they invite the man to put a paper bag over his head when he’s moving?
Something sucks. Methinks we haven’t heard the end of this yet.
I stopped using BA over 15 years ago for FAR lesser reasons than this.
Just to elaborate a little on what I said yesterday, here are some possibilities.
1. They avoid seating women next to children (something they could easily do with men as well) to avoid embarrassing them by moving.
2. They are more discrete about moving women because it’s men who the whole Anglosphere currently mistrust/loathe.
3. At the very best women will be treated equally to men — and that means equally badly.
In short, that judge in that court did NOTHING to change the current ugly status quo.
Well, no surprises there. It’s ugly status quos that the legal profession most benefits from.
I hope you do not mind me posting these links, as <I believe that they are related.
Regards.
http://www.avoiceformen.com/2010/11/26/air-new-zealand-stands-on-its-sexist-policy/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yweg0jUh60Y