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.
Heteronormative patriarchy for men 
I think the suspicion that men are likely to be paedophiles is much more widespread than this article suggests. and it goes deep. I also predictably think feminism has a lot to answer for here. Remember the radfem2012 conference? They only allowed boys up to the age of 12. after that they were considered a threat to girls and women.
The label ‘paedophile’ is gendered in itself and all the discourse that supports it suggests paedophiles are sad, lonely perverted men. and when women have been prosecuted for child abuse, e.g. those women nursery workers a few years ago, it is always made out they were in some way ‘influenced’ by a man.
In my view lots of things need to change. One is the way feminists enable the demonisation of men with regards to their relations with women and children in general. Another is paternity rights and the extension of paternity leave. And another is our need to always call people gendered nasty names – ‘paedo’, ‘rapist’, ‘troll’. Names that you yourself call people on occasion.
[…] I for one am sick of things like this. […]
Thirty years ago such ignorance on the part of adult males might have been excused. And even eleven years ago – your example Ally, it might have been understandable. But given the attempts that governments around the world have recently made to prevent children being abused by male paedophiles, who as we all know too well, have been allowed to operate for years, almost unchallenged, I find it no surprise that airlines are recognising their duty to protect the most innocent of their passengers, despite the politically correct courts.
Any man travelling alone who finds he’s been seated next to a child, who doesn’t seek an alternative location in the plane is either arrogant beyond belief or deserves the very very mild embarassment of being asked to take a different seat by a member of the cabin crew who has the interests of child passengers ahead of the bruised egos of men. And quite rightly.
Furthermore, Boris Johnson made his remarks in 2006 long before he was London’s mayor, and following his over-reaction, British Airways defended their policy, saying it had been at the requests from customers, presumably those with children. And quite rightly so. Many parents have to send their children alone on international airlines and as a father Ally I’d have thought you’d have realised this obligation on airlines to ensure that those children are safely seated and protected.
“Any man travelling alone who finds he’s been seated next to a child, who doesn’t seek an alternative location in the plane is either arrogant beyond belief or deserves the very very mild embarassment of being asked to take a different seat by a member of the cabin crew who has the interests of child passengers ahead of the bruised egos of men. ”
Sorry, I don’t agree. Yes, the harm being caused to men by this policy is fairly minor, mainly embarassment. But it’s not obvious that it’s preventing *any* harm at all. As Ally writes, there are very few cases where children were abused which this policy would have prevented. In the relatively rare instances where children have been abused on planes, it hasn’t always been by the man sitting next to them. I don’t mean to dismiss the seriousness of child abuse, but the alleged problem this policy is meant to prevent seems to be a phantom.
Moreover, I fear that it adds to our social stereotypes about child abusers – that they’re always male and unknown to the child. If airlines (and other groups in society) spend all their time worrying about the abuse of unaccompanied children, might they miss the children being abused by their parents? (Taking the Boris Johnson example from the post: is there any reason to think that *just because* Johnson is his children’s father, he’s not necessarily going to abuse them?)
In the grand scheme of things, this policy is not a great injustice. But it is silly and unnecessary, as shown by the fact that British Airlines were not able to justify it when it was challenged in court. So thanks to Ally for writing this post.
(For what it’s worth, I’m not a father; but if I were, I hope I would have bigger concerns about my children than who they sit next to on planes.)
Any man travelling alone who finds he’s been seated next to a child, who doesn’t seek an alternative location in the plane is either arrogant beyond belief or deserves the very very mild embarassment of being asked to take a different seat by a member of the cabin crew who has the interests of child passengers ahead of the bruised egos of men. And quite rightly.
Bullshit.
Bullshit on the ground that you have managed to split all men traveling alone into two categories when you have absolutely no proof to back your categorization.
You say such men are either arrogant or deserve to be embarrassed.
Where do men that don’t care about sitting by a child fit into your grand divide?
Men that simply put aren’t arrogant and deserve as much respect as any other passenger on the flight. And yes respect for these men does take priority over presuming they are child molesters going on nothing more than “he’s male”.
You’re appealing to the “Won’t someone think of the children” instinct in order to justify presuming worst faith in men and trying to embarrass them into moving rather than actually doing something useful to help children.
[…] is Ally Fogg now suggesting that all men should be allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children on international flights, […]
For what my opinion is worth, such policies are based on the gender equivalent equivalent of racial profiling.
Imagine the firestorm if an airline had a policy of not seating black or Latino males next to young unaccompanied white women, and did so on the basis that:
a) the safety of women was of paramount concern; and
b) a statistical risk assessment of the male founded on black/Latino crime rates as a proportion of total crime.
If policies based on racial profiling are wrong how can policies based on gender profiling be right?
Or, If policies based on gender profiling are right, how can policies based on racial profiling be wrong?
Crime is not a demographically neutral activity. Now we can either pretend it is, and keep trying generic approaches to combatting it, or we can tell the truth and try tailored approaches to combatting it. I suppose what it comes down to in the end is whether we value innocent people’s right not to be discriminated against over innocent people’s rights not to be victimised.
[…] passenger’s intentions are questioned when he sits next to an unattended child on an airplane. Have a look at how “the man box” plays […]
[…] “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.” Discrimination, plane and simple – Heteronormative patriarchy for men […]