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Derision has greeted
the Air New Zealand and Qantas policy of separating unaccompanied child
passengers and men. The response is
deserved, because the separation is insulting and unnecessary to the point of
absurdity. The airlines are
prompted by concern about abuse of minors, but a crowded plane, with
attentive cabin crew and cheek-by-jowl passengers, is an unlikely venue for
molestation. If the risk is present of inappropriate momentary touching, so
is it in a supermarket queue, a church congregation, a bus, a classroom -- in
dozens of everyday situations encountered by children. Sensible parents
prepare for those situations by telling their children how to cope with the
uninvited advance, giving them the confidence to protest forcefully. Few
parents would not reinforce that message before they dispatched an
unaccompanied child on a flight, and ensure special attention for their child
from airline staff. The companies give the
impression of backing away from their duty of care by the drastic means of
removing potential abusers from potential victims. Concerns about liability
must lie behind this, with the airlines attempting to reduce the likelihood
of charges against them. But their concerns are extreme, and are seen as
such. The usual close attention cabin staff give to lone child passengers is
sufficient to offer a high level of protection from perverts and to satisfy
any court that due care was provided. On all of these
grounds, the Qantas-Air New Zealand separation policy is unnecessary, but it
is also objectionable because it feeds the hysteria that can so easily be
whipped up about child abuse. It assumes that all men, or a substantial
proportion of them, are potential abusers, a belief not borne out by
statistics or the workings of the communities in which we live. Cases of
child abuse by strangers in New Zealand can make spectacular headlines, but
it is comparatively rare. It is not inherent in the male psyche; it is the result
of severe personality disorder. To ignore these
realities, and assert that most men are potential or actual child abusers, is
damaging. It undermines male confidence and disrupts the natural workings of
society. That has been seen in the decline of male primary and pre-school
teachers and males' fear of being left alone with children. The airlines' ban
is another expression of this hysteria-driven discrimination. It is welcome,
therefore, that the Human Rights Commissioner is taking on the issue, although
his disposition does not point to a ruling against the airlines. The
companies will be more susceptible to public opinion, which, if letters to
the editor of The Press are anything to go by, is running strongly against
the separation policy; writers are either angry or derisory. Given the
dominance of Air New Zealand and Qantas in the region, that is unlikely to be
significantly reflected in bookings. But regard, and its associate loyalty,
are different. They will be eroded if the policy is persevered with. Another outcome is
possible. Perhaps the level of emotion the issue has engendered prefigures a
more vigorous reassertion of the natural male bond with children. That
certainly is needed, as New Zealand struggles with fatherless families,
fathers unsure of their place, and inadequate role models for boys. This
affair will help correct these gender problems because it has captured the
public's imagination and emphasised how far anti-male discrimination has gone
and how surreptitiously it can be extended. In fact, the healthy
rebalancing of the male's role is taking place on a wide front -- men giving
greater credence to their emotions, books on fathering, efforts to get more
male teachers into junior schools, the predicament of boys under the
microscope. But this movement needs
more support. For instance, there is no sign of the legislative initiatives,
supporting things like good fathering, to balance the gains that the women's
movement has made. The jibes about political correctness and feminist domination,
and the angry rants from maintenance-harassed fathers, need to be transformed
into a more effective engagement -- higher quality debate, research, personal
commitment and leadership. |
