Assuming this editorial in the Washington Times to be accurate, and there is no reason not to, count me as one person who will never be flying British Midland Airlines:
Should stewardesses flying to Saudi Arabia be required to wear head-to-toe coverings and walk behind men?
One airline thinks so. British Midland Airways is going to absurd and insulting lengths to patronize backward habits of the Middle East by forcing its female flight attendants to dress and behave in a stereotype of subservient Saudi women. When flight attendant Lisa Ashton stood up to the policy, she was fired.
BMI employees were informed of the policy in August 2005. In addition to wearing the traditional abaya, the policy stated that, “it is expected that female crew members walk behind their male counterparts in public areas such as the airport, no matter what rank.”
What sick behavior on the part of the executives of BM, cooperating with the medieval Saudi policies. Ms. Ashton is to be commended for standing up to these creeps. It would take a real reactionary like our Speaker of the House to go along with such misogynistic regulations. Come to think of it, considering her crazy conflicting statements of late regarding water boarding, she may need a new job soon. And she’s just the woman for BMI. As we all know, she doesn’t seem to have trouble wearing an abaya. [I'm not so sure she'd be happy walking behind men of lesser rank.-ed. Tell that to Prince Abdullah. Maybe he'd take her on as wife number 436.]
PS: There’s a Facebook site for those who would like to support Lisa Ashton and protest the Neanderthals at BMI>
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12 Comments
1. Ed Driscoll » Something Tells Me That Nancy’s Had Better Days:[...] well-known love of jet aviation, Roger L. Simon has an extremely viable suggestion for her potential post-congressional career. Filed under: Bobos In Paradise, Muggeridge’s Law, The Future and its Enemies, The Memory Hole, War [...]
May 14, 2009 - 11:10 pm 2. David Thomson:British Midland Airways has little to worry about. The feminists will remain mostly silent. Great Britain’s citizens are incapable of fighting back against the disintegration of the nation’s values and character. The country never formally institutionalized the First Amendment rights we enjoy in the United States. There’s just nothing one can really do effectively to halt the surrender to the Islamic radicals.
May 15, 2009 - 3:30 am 3. david foster:Several years ago, a Saudi prince flew to the U.S. and he, or someone on his staff, requested that no female air traffic controllers be involved in the handling of his flight.
The proper response to this request would have been “Do a 180 and get out of my airspace.”
But I’m pretty sure that it was, in fact, complied with.
May 15, 2009 - 6:38 am 4. Margie:feminism = epic fail
May 15, 2009 - 7:49 am 5. Lightnin' Hopkins:Sliding down the slippery slope and into the sea. Wearing wetsuits slathered in vaseline. Oh, England.
david: The Dallas Morning News reported at the time (April 27, 2002) that an advance group of Saudis made the request at three different airports in Texas en route to a meeting with the president in Crawford. All of the airport managers reluctantly complied. The fact that he was flying to meet the POTUS probably had a lot to do with the proper “up yours!” not being administered, although the White House denied knowledge of the requests and subsequent compliance at the time.
Still, I’m fairly sure Dubya wasn’t bowing down on the tarmac when Abdullah deplaned – just a gut feeling.
May 15, 2009 - 8:25 am 6. David Thomson:“The fact that he was flying to meet the POTUS probably…”
Baloney. This is merely another example of how discrimination against women is deemed of lesser importance than racial bigotry. Everyone should imagine the outcry and the likely response if “it is expected that black crew members walk behind their white counterparts in public areas such as the airport, no matter what rank.”
May 15, 2009 - 8:48 am 7. Lightnin' Hopkins:Substitute “probably” with “could have had” — the point being that the lone story I found in a quick search didn’t make any specific claim. I wasn’t justifying anything, merely pointing out what I found.
May 15, 2009 - 8:58 am 8. David Thomson:“I wasn’t justifying anything, merely pointing out what I found.”
I should not have emphasized your theory. It’s not really relevant regarding the point I’m making. The fact remains that this nonsense would not be occurring if we were to substitute racial discrimination for gender.
May 15, 2009 - 9:20 am 9. Hotel_2_Oscar:Roger…I love you man, but please don’t insult the Neanderthals…I’m pretty sure that they were a lot more progressive than either BMI or the Saudis.
KBO
May 15, 2009 - 10:19 am 10. SAL:Pelosi– send her home and leave her there– we do not need liars—
May 19, 2009 - 8:02 am 11. Victor Erimita:This is only one of the more visually blatant examples of how Europe and the U.S. have been whoring themselves for Saudi money for decades. Having bestowed upon a pre-medieval culture of primitive nomads the concept of the nation state (invented by more advanced cultures,) which gave them “rights” to a resource the uses for which were also doiscovered and employed by more advanced cultures, those more advanced cultures (us) have proceeded to transfer vast quantities fo our wealth to these primitives who have done nothing whatever to earn it, and who have used to it to wallow in decadence and export mysogyny in the form of Wahhabism. The preposterous spectacle of the Nancy Pelosis of the world, who imagine themselves enlightened in their eagerness to abase their own culture beneath the cruel and barbaric primitives of the Middle East, show to the seemingly few left on Earth with eyes to see the determination of the Left to commit cultural suicide.
Britain prohibits Michael Savage from visiting the country because he supposedly engages in hate speech, while allowing hate-filled mosques to multiply and flourish and sow the seeds of the destruction of the English culture.
But BMI isn’t even interested in political correctness. They are simply whoring for the Saudi petrodollar. Like so many of our own ex-Presidents, government poohbahs, corporate execs and professionals, who go to places like Saudi Arabia and humbly comply with, and even enable, their hate-generated repression, just to make a buck.
May 19, 2009 - 2:47 pm 12. Zack Abrams:I don’t think Pelosi is qualified to be a stewardess any more than she is a speaker or congressperson. She needs to go back to the Doctor who gave her an eye lift and get a brain lift. Maybe he could sew her lips shut so that she can;t make any more stupid allegations about the CIA or the Bush Administratiion.
May 26, 2009 - 9:21 am