More PC rubbish

I know i talked about political correctness last time but it seems like these things keep popping up. Besides, other than old drivers who cant see properly anymore, it seems to be the only thing that the media hasn't already done to death this week.

No booze, no bed hopping, please.

The gist of the article is that a lady wants to set up a travel service which caters exclusively for women, but she has to make some sort of application to be allowed to 'discriminate'. What utter rubbish.

The problem with this is that this so called 'anti-discrimination' law is a massive infringement upon personal freedom. Why should someone not have the freedom to create their own business, and to target this at the clientele of their own choice? Its not like the woman is treating men as second class citizens, she is just producing a product which is for women.

The situations get even more ridiculous as the article goes on. A primary school had to apply to the discrimination people (whoever they are) to employ a male handler to take care of a violent pupil, because the kid would have been a danger to any woman. Thankfully for common sense, the application was successful. However, a retirement village was not allowed to set an age limit (an entirely reasonable restriction, given that they are providing cheap housing and services for old people on the pension who may struggle, not early retirees who have plenty of money). To make it that much more inconsistently stupid, a lesbian party club was allowed to have a female only event (is it a surprise the gay community gets what it wants from a discrimination council?).

So why exactly are our freedoms of association/business being limited? The representative for the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission doesn't say (although the article doesn't say whether she was actually asked why or not). All she says is that "the exemption could not be granted as Ms Maitland had not provided any supporting evidence to make the limitation of a human right ''demonstrably justified'' as required by the charter"

So what human right would this be limiting anyway? The right to be involved in whatever you want, regardless of whether it is appropriate, and regardless of whether there is a similar or identical service that is available?

Obviously these laws are in place to prevent industry wide discrimination. However, when you think about it, this is a stupid idea for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Australian general and business public is neither as racist or sexist as some of these people would have you believe. Secondly, it would make absolutely no business sense. For example, if all travel companies banned men, they would be cutting out probably 95% of the market (given that many women want to travel with a male be it friend, family etc). Companies would then create businesses which did cater for men in attempt to gain a huge dominance of the market, thus providing men with a means to travel and destroying the discrimination in the process.

I can't really think how to end this to be honest. I had thought of a really good conclusion while i was writing the bit above but i forgot it. All ill say is that yet again the PC lobby has taken over something and screwed with our rights. Clearly there is ample services out there to cater for men who want to travel, and there would be regardless of these laws. The only rights being infringed upon are the rights of a woman who wants to produce a product which is not currently available, and for a very niche market.

Discrimination laws which infringe upon our rights, when they're meant to protect them. Now THATS irony for you (Alanis Morisette, take a hint).




On a side note, i wonder why insurance companies haven't been called to task for discriminating against drivers because of their sex, age and car (specifically young males with 3-door cars). I would've thought that is a genuine case of industry wide discrimination (since its applied to all across the board with no appeal), especially given it's compulsory to have insurance.