India’s largest budget carrier, IndiGo, is the first airline to trial a feature that lets female passengers book seats next to other women to avoid sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with a man in a move designed to make flying more comfortable for female passengers, according to a CNBC report.
The airline’s booking process is fairly standard except for the seat map which highlights seats occupied by women with the color pink. This information is not visible to male passengers, according to the airline, CNBC reported. IndiGo did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch’s request for comment on the new feature.
My take is exactly that the suggested approach might not improve women’s safety overall. The “betterment of men”, as you put it, is the key ingredient to a sustainable solution on male sexual harassment and violence, and segregation is a patch that can come with unintended consequences that will undermine this process and directly hurt women.
We may not ignore the social and psychological consequences of such actions for men, as their mental wellbeing is directly related to the probability of committing assault, thereby again, directly affecting women.
I’m trying to make a point to counter the immediate knee-jerk approach, and call to collect evidence on the efficacy of such measures to promote women’s safety. Any policy should be driven by what actually works, not what we feel of it.
I urge you to stop assuming bad faith in everyone you disagree with, and to listen to people first. This is not Reddit, you don’t have to do this kind of rage commenting here.