Unaccompanied minor children flying on British Airways cannot sit next to adult men, like Mirko Fischer, because of the risk of these frequent fliers doing disgusting sexual things to kids at 35,000 feet. Not only does the policy sound like it violates the U.K.’s Sex Discrimination Act by applying the seating policy to men but not women, but its origins are suspect.
While “men are responsible for the majority of child sexual abuse cases,” notes Tracy Clark-Flory, “you can’t broadly base public policy on that fact. Not unless you’re comfortable banning men from sitting or standing in close proximity to any unattended child. What’s more, strangers account for a minority of sexual abuse cases. If the airline policy were to accurately rely on sex-abuse stats, they would ban kids from sitting next to their own parents, relatives, family friends and casual acquaintances.”
Maybe we could just ban kids from airplanes all together? They’re always stealing my headphone jack.
buzzkill1974
Thank God. I hate sitting next to children period. Hopefully they will change the rule to give me a better buffer, like two seats away. Those little sh!ts are always kicking the back of my seat. Maybe they can sense my distaste.
Lamar
This is just absurd, child molestation is not as frequent as the media would have us believe and women account for a lot of child molestation too (not to the same degree as men however). Once again if we were to switch the sexes around this would be illegal but since this blatant discrimination is against men no-one does anything.
Blah
@Lamar: Yeah. Right. I agree that this law is absurd and women account for a ridiculously small percentage of sex offenders. But you are a moron.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Just how many cases of kiddie diddling occur on planes??? Its not some freak is going to be able to get a full on molest going on in a packed plane like he could in his Ford Econoline. One would think and hope that upon the first “get your hand off me” the incident would come to a sudden halt…………..
Seems like yet another lame attempt by the rightwing lunatics to indirectley portray all the Gays as wanting nothing more kiddie diddlers, while the vast majority of molesters are of the straight kind………
Jimmi
How I loathe sitting next to someone’s little brat or being in the general vicinity with them. I especially loathe their whiny baby voices, their squawking and their smelly diapers. I sit in First Class to avoid that.
Revemupman
“Not only does the policy sound like it violates the U.K.’s Sex Discrimination Act by applying the seating policy to men but not women, but its origins are suspect”.
ROFLMFAO, Just another ad to prove my agrument. Women are becoming social trend/norm, while men REMAIN IN DEVIANT STATUS!
When will you men learn?
The feminist movement is not for males at all. If your a male and you claim feminism your blind like Ray Charles. You might as well be dead like him too.
Revemupman
I already know the rules as a male in this society. If a kid calls for help I’ll never respond. If a women calls for help I’ll never respond. Cause you never know when your court date will be scheduled…….
jason
This reminds me of the ban on men donating blood if they’ve had sex with any man in the last 33 years.
There’s certainly an element of male phobia about it. My theory is that male phobia extends to male homophobia. That is, homophobia towards the male form of homosexuality.
We need to be wary of how modern institutions such as airlines and blood banks are couching their anti-male and anti-gay male attitudes in the cloak of “concern”.
jeffree
BA’s policy is “rubbish.” I would love to see how they’ve rationalized this & what scary incident caused them to invent this rule….
They should just put the kids in the overhead bins anyway 😛
“Unaccompanied minors” aren’t in daipers, though. I don’t know about BA but I *think* the standard here is that no child under7 can travel alone.
@Jason: It’s amazing how your circle of “friends” continues to expand. Nice work !
WTF?
I think the worst thing to be in this world, depite seemingly being a male-dominated one, is a man. Just take a closer glance at the subtle male-bashing that goes on in advertising, over the past decade especially. The next time you think about tuning out of the commericals, stop and watch them a little closer. You’ll be surprised at what you see. Men are morons good for little more than fixing stuff, men are perverts, men are violent, men are the embodiment of all the ills in the world…
Mike
This policy is not unique to BA, Qantas has the same policy.
Lamar
@Blah: Um, is this the point where I am actually suppose to care about the trash you are spewing???
Michael
This comes from a country where you can screw a 16yo old girl but boys aren’t “of age” until 18. They use AIDS as an excuse but, I’m guessing, don’t really care if 16yo girls catch the disease (sarcasm…)
William Day
@Michael: Umm, I have a feeling that your information is outdated. Britain has an equal age of consent: At 16, you’re good to go, male, female, gay, straight, whatever.
jason
Revemupman,
I do agree with you.
A lot of gay men don’t want to admit it – due to political correctness – but it’s true that women have been allowed to get away with demonizing not only men but also male sexuality in general. When male sexuality is demonized, it’s not only heterosexuality that is demonized but also the male homosexual interaction. Anything that falls under the “male” category, basically.
We in the GLBT community need to be very, very wary about this.
Jack
Um, Michael – Britain equalised the age of consent in January 2001. So nearly a decade ago.
Your attempt at Brit-bashing might be more effective if you got your facts right.
Revemupman
@Jason
I could give a flying f*** about political corectness. This is about the obvious facts I see within in males in this culture. We are being left behind in the social acceptence ladder. And until gay, straight and trans men realize this. We will never get true equality. We need to drop the feminist movement and focus on the issues surrounding males ONLY!
I’m sorry feminism, but somewhere along the way the movement has been perverted. Even my mother has said this and she was in the 1970s movement.
Hilarious
I got stuck next to a woman’s two loud and obnoxious kids who wouldn’t shut up or calm down the entire trip.
This is not something to fight against, it’s something to thank god for.
Why on Earth do you want to sit next to some brat who’ll probably be crying and will most likely make you sick for a week with their germ riddled paws.
gilber
this is a gender with great deal of genetic programing for passivity and submission to the females,it goes from courtship,maximizing “sodomitic” female”s pleasure by exchanging male sexuality for female one,high reproductive dependence,to being willing to like or enjoy what the females just think is nasty to do to each other.they have no qualms putting down their own sex and sexuality and praising and adopting the contrary group sexual organs as theirs,not those that belongs to them.the price of manhood is heavy and both kind of masculine males,homosexuals and pseudo-homosexuals, are programmed to be antagonistic to each other, one becomes androgynous and the other will mentally shy away from that.binding,absorption and excitation are very important factors in this game.if you understand the physical vs psychological programing many things will become clearer.
Revemupman
“Why on Earth do you want to sit next to some brat who’ll probably be crying and will most likely make you sick for a week with their germ riddled paws”.
Of course, in reality I think this rule is great for men! But I’m not shooting down the policy. I’m pointing out the obvious social stigma of males and their sexuality in the mainstream public.
If you accept this obvious discrimination then what next will men allow? This is the issue at hand. We are neglecting our own issues in order to help an obsolete one.
WAKE UP OR STAY ASLEEP!
megan
You can buy russian translations of any uk act at GSL Translations
ginger
Men are not banned from sitting next to all kids. Unaccompanied men are barred from sitting next to unaccompanied kids. A man travelling with his pals or wife could sit next to a kid flying alone and a lone man could sit next to a family with kids. The airline is not going to stop you from sitting next to your own kid. This article leaves out the wider context.