Separating men and children is discrimination, plane and simple

Can airlines have any justification for a policy of not seating male passengers next to unaccompanied children? It’s an old controversy, reignited this week by the case of firefighter Johnny McGirr, who blogged about his recent experience on a Virgin Australia flight.  After taking his seat next to two unaccompanied boys, McGirr was asked by a flight attendant to swap seats with a female passenger for the safety of the children. In the consequent media firestorm, Virgin Australia announced they would be reviewing the policy in the light of “feedback.”

The company insisted the policy was not intended to discriminate, which reveals a rather shaky grasp of the English language. A policy which allows – or even encourages – one gender to do something while forbidding the other to do likewise is discriminatory by definition. The real question is whether such discrimination could be necessary or justified.

Airlines have been here before. The policy first attracted headlines for British Airways back in 2001, and in 2010 the company abandoned the policy after a sex discrimination suit ruled it unlawful. Other airlines around the world, including Qantas and Air New Zealand, have faced complaints, claims or sporadic bursts of controversy over the years. Even fathers travelling with their own kids have been known to face embarrassment. In 2006 a certain Boris Johnson had to prove his paternity to British Airways staff before being permitted to sit next to his own children. (Yes, countless punchlines spring to mind, but it’s hardly the place.)

In any organisation serving young people, from the small playgroup to the largest multinational, child protection policy is rightly considered to be of paramount concern. It is true that over the decades there have been a handful of reported instances of children being sexually assaulted on board flights. Some of these did involve unaccompanied children being molested by the passenger sat next to them, but in others the child was accompanied by a parent at the time, and in most, the attacker had moved seats to get close to the child.

In other words, the number of recorded instances which would have been prevented by such a policy is a fraction of an already infinitesimal number. It is also impossible to quantify how many instances of molestation might have been prevented by an adult male seated next to unaccompanied children, rather than the empty seat which could tempt a predator. Rather more seriously, French pilots have warned about the risks of such policies leaving unaccompanied children without assistance, such as help with seatbelts or oxygen masks, immediately to hand in an emergency.

Child protection policies should be based on expert advice and evidence of best practice. It is a dubious policy that can be abandoned at the first whiff of negative publicity or customer discontent. The brief statement announcing Virgin Australia’s change of heart made no claims as to their previous policy being based on expert advice, instead saying it was based on “customer feedback.” Four days ago I emailed the company’s press office asking for clarification of the historical basis of the policy. So far they have declined to reply. I shall therefore take them at the word of their statement, and assume it is based not on expert risk assessment, but on the preferences of the parents who booked their children onto the plane.

Speaking as a father of two young boys, I can confirm that we parents can be highly irrational, paranoid and risk-averse when worrying about the welfare of our own. That doesn’t mean we should always be indulged in our paranoia or prejudice, particularly when it is actively harmful to society as a whole. The airlines’ policy is a salient crystallisation of the widespread and corrosive belief that adult males represent a significant danger to children. This myth shields us from the true nature of child abuse, a crime overwhelmingly committed by family members, trusted adults or professional carers – a significant minority of whom are female.  It also breeds cynical suspicion of men who wish to work with children, especially at pre-school and primary level. There is little dispute that such stigma contributes to the paltry proportion of male applicants for child-caring and teaching roles. This in turn reinforces social values which, from the earliest age, teach each generation that childcare is fundamentally women’s work.

I sympathise with men like Johnny McGirr who are publicly humiliated by air cabin crews enforcing an irrational policy, but their wounded pride is not really the issue here. Much more significant is that policies like these, and the toleration and indulgence of the prejudices behind them, drive a wedge of caution between men and children in our societies. Such attitudes deprive men of rewarding career opportunities, and deprive children of a less gender-rigid future, while at the most immediate level, they deprived a couple of young boys of the chance to have a spontaneous, unscripted chat with the real-life firefighting hero sat next to them on a plane. That, perhaps, is the biggest shame of all.

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• James Williams

  Stop being such an old cynic. Being older does not entitle you to be considered wiser. Incidentally, I’ve been married 26 years so I’m not far behind you in that regard. I was brought up in a Labour family, but I consider what freemy** says as an interesting and a worthwhile viewpoint that is not bigoted at all. Many ideological standpoints are already part of people’s psychological make up. Racism, sexism etc have all been around for thousands of years. I have witnessed and experienced modern feminists carrying out their brand of hatred against those who dare to challenge them. Most of them hang out in the university cities where there’s funding and willing recruits to perpetuate their prejudices. It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s there.

• SmokeyWest

  Several years ago I was flying to Germany on a chartered military flight, which provided transportation to servicemen and their wives. Some of the wives were unaccompanied by their husbands, who were already stationed abroad. One young African-American mother had three children with her; one was only a few months old and another was about two years of age. The oldest child was able to sit in his own seat, and the baby was held in the mothers arms; however, the two year old was too small to have her own seat, and the airlines policy only allowed the mother hold one child. It appeared that the poor woman would have to leave the plane and everyone was getting very upset as the plane was now late in its departure. No solution seemed to present itself, when the stewardess hit upon a clever solution. She asked me if I had children, which I did, and would I be willing to hold the two-year-old during the flight. I am very comfortable around children; being part of a family of eleven kids with numerous nieces and nephews. My concern was how the mother and daughter would react. The mother said it would be fine and the little girl said nothing. The plane took flight and the problem seemed to be solved. The flight was over 8 hours long and the little girl never said a word, but kept a very steady gaze at this white soldier upon whose lap she was sitting. The flight was largely uneventful, and the mother recovered her daughter and left. I never saw the family again, but I did bump into the stewardess as a restaurant in Madrid, Spain. We joked about the incident, but she expressed real gratitude for my willingness to help. She was dreading having to put the family off the plane and the stress it would have created for the young mother and her children.

  I am afraid that in our hyper-vigilante society such a solution would not be allowed. I think asking the man to move was an inexcusable act of discrimination. If the children expressed concern then it would be reasonable to request a move, but to force him to change seats because the airlines policy endorsed discrimination and stereotyping was inexcusable. When did common sense fall victim to unwarranted fear and prejudice in America.

• freemycatfish

  Just an interesting observation. I and several friends have been watching the manipulation of the comment voting system going on in this thread for sometime. UP votes are vanishing. Down votes are remaining. Free speech, it seems, is the property of the press. No change there then!