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So just read this today, figured interesting thing to discuss.

A man was flying on a plane out of Brisbane and his ticket placed him next to two unattended kids. He let them have the window seat, and as they were about to get going, a flight attendant came up to him and told him he had to change seats. When asked about it he was told that, by policy, a man is not allowed to sit next to unattended kids. He was forced to switch with a random woman in another seat.

I don't know about you but I find this a bit much. I can understand making sure the kids are safe, but not all men are pedophiles, and it's not like women can't be pedophiles. If they need to have a policy to protect the kids then have an attendant marked for the seat or don't sell the seat.

There's been a lot of truly ugly misogyny going around in the form of "men's rights activists." Most of their concerns are whining because people with vaginas don't obey their every word anymore.

Which makes me sad when something like this happens, because there should be some kind of respectable men's activist group that would be all over this ridiculousness. It is sexism pure and simple, if not veering towards misandry.

As I understand it, there have been a couple (and by that I mean about two) reports I've seen, in reference to this article, of incidents where children flying alone were molested. It's about the same number of grown women who got felt up by their skeevy seatmate. Before a policy like this is put in place, one that severely discriminates against a particular group, there ought to be scads of research showing this needs to be done. My guess is someone heard about it happening from their friend's gardener's chiropractor, and so banning all males from sitting next to kids was the next "logical" step.

Really the thing is, I can understand the need to protect unattended kids. They are alone, without parents, in a tight cabin full of strangers. To be honest they shouldn't have even sold the seat, they should have left it empty or assigned someone to watch over them.

The worst offense was how the attendant handled it. No one else on the flight knew this guy, so when she comes up and starts saying "You are not allow to sit next to unattended children, you have to switch with this woman." you are basically creating judgments in peoples heads. I can't even imagine how embarrassing it was for him the rest of that flight thinking that all his seat neighbors thought he was possibly a registered sex offender, all because they decided to put him next to some unattended kids.

this is bullshit, and feminism and smashing gender roles would help this not happen

"men's rights activists" are worse though

I often help my mother out around her school with things and I'm kinda tired of having people act like I'm going to kidnap/rape their kids just because I'm a big guy with a beard. I'm with ZenMonkey on this one: I really wish there was a legitimate Men's Rights Advocate group that tackled this kind of thing, instead of bitching about Affirmative Action and not being able to act like cavemen in public anymore.

ScytheRexx said:

Really the thing is, I can understand the need to protect unattended kids. They are alone, without parents, in a tight cabin full of strangers. To be honest they shouldn't have even sold the seat, they should have left it empty or assigned someone to watch over them.

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I flew solo at the dream ages for a pedophile, and I remember the flight attendants (maybe only one) coming to check on me pretty frequently. I think it's really just about that simple. Assign an attendant or two to patrol informally, and if there is someone dodgy sitting next to the kid, he/she certainly isn't going to try anything with that going on. (And let's not even talk about how many sex offenders just wouldn't even think about it in a relatively public place.)

Charlie Don't Surf said:

this is bullshit, and feminism and smashing gender roles would help this not happen

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It is amazing how many men either don't or refuse to understand that feminism benefits *all* genders. Not the guerrilla man-hating type, of course; as with anything, the extremists on both sides are batshit.

ZenMonkey said:

It is amazing how many men either don't or refuse to understand that feminism benefits *all* genders. Not the guerrilla man-hating type, of course; as with anything, the extremists on both sides are batshit.

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That is the problem with right wing, and "lame stream" media, who tend to roll out the fringe feminists for every related news story.

Actually, I think it's because all the real feminists are busy getting shit done and thus can't worry about cable news channels.

I really don't understand it. I mean, does Virgin really have so many more pedophiles than any other airline that they needed to institute this policy? If so, then I feel bad for them. I mean, the implications would be an absolute PR nightmare.

--Patrick

ZenMonkey said:

It is amazing how many men either don't or refuse to understand that feminism benefits *all* genders. Not the guerrilla man-hating type, of course; as with anything, the extremists on both sides are batshit.

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Calling it feminism is probably half the reason for it.