Men really must be beasts, after all. According to a story sweeping across Australia and New Zealand today, it turns out that Australia-based Qantas Airlines and Air New Zealand have been ordering any men who end up seated next to unaccompanied children to trade seats with a female passenger. Airline officials explain they are the temporary guardians of the children travelling alone, and the kids are safer next to women. The story broke after an incident last year bubbled up to the media, and airlines confirmed the policy is still in place.

The airlines have come under fire for the policy that critics say is political correctness gone mad after a man revealed he was ordered to change seats during a Qantas flight because he was sitting next to a young boy travelling alone. Auckland man Mark Worsley says an air steward approached him after take-off on the Christchurch to Auckland flight and told him to change seats with a women sitting two rows in front. The steward said it was the airline's policy that only women were allowed to sit next to unaccompanied children.

"At the time I was so gobsmacked that I moved. I was so embarrassed and just stewed on it for the entire flight." The 37-year-old shipping manager, who has 2-year-old twins, followed the incident up with the airline and was told Qantas wanted to err on the side of caution.

"I felt that it was totally discriminatory. Besides the point of what the hell was I going to do on a crowded flight." The incident, which happened a year ago, irked Mr Worsley so much that he recently contacted National Party political correctness eradicator Wayne Mapp. Dr. Mapp told the Herald the airlines' policy was an example of political correctness that had got out of hand.

The gawdawfully ludicrous assumption here, which speaks volumes about attitudes toward men in many "civilised" nations across the globe, is that even on a commercial airplane flight, they are going to quite possibly do something sinister to an unaccompanied child, such as make plans to meet later and attempt to have illegal sex, or get the child to surrender personal information so as to later be surveilled or tormented via e-mail. It's hardly as though sexual abuse by females is unknown, although it is under-reported.

Well, for the record, here's what I - a father of two kids myself - would do if I were seated next to an unaccompanied child on a plane. I'd get a sense of whether they were even interested in conversation, and then take it step by step, hoping to engage them for a while at least on some topic related to the actual world and actual life, as opposed to video games or other mediated experiences. Put them at ease a bit. And then hope they had a good book to read.

One potentially uplifting piece to this story: There is someone in New Zealand called The National Party political correctness eradicator, Dr. Wayne Mapp, an MP from North Shore with portfolio, who delivered this speech on the subject. I wonder if the national Republican Party in the U.S. might not want to create a similar position in their U.S. House or Senate caucus. Of course, before that happens, our boy W.'s gonna have to get serious on illegal immigration.

Jack Yan: This certainly is sexual discrimination—it’s far, far worse than saying, ‘Women can’t be pilots’. And you raise an excellent point, Matt: what if the male passenger were a pædophile? Surely other passengers would be alert enough to think, ‘Hey, this isn’t on,’ and intervene? Mapp or no Mapp, Mr. Worsley is well within his rights to sue—if the same thing happened to a woman, you can bet the liberal media would be jumping up and down—and up and down again..

TECHNORATI TAGS: ANTI-MALE, AIR NEW ZEALAND, QANTAS, NEW ZEALAND, NATIONAL PARTY, WAYNE MAPP

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Posted by Matt Rosenberg at November 28, 2005 10:43 PM