[LINK] "Porter passenger says she was asked to move for another passenger’s religious accommodation"

[rfmcdonald]

The extent of the misogyny described by the Toronto Star's Holly Honderich, developed to the point that the man in question refused to talk to the woman whose existence offended him, staggers me. If these people have such problems with being near women, should they perhaps not book their tickets accordingly?

A passenger aboard a Porter flight on Monday said that she was asked to change seats to accommodate another passenger who she says would not sit beside a woman for religious reasons.

Christine Flynn, executive chef for iQ Food Co. in Toronto’s financial district, said that she was buckled in her seat, awaiting takeoff on a flight from Newark back home to Toronto, when a man wearing traditional Orthodox Jewish garb walked down the aisle to his assigned seat beside her.

Looking “bewildered,” Flynn said that the man “swivelled around to the gentleman across the aisle . . . and just said ‘change,’ ” without acknowledging her.

Porter spokesperson Brad Cicero confirmed that Flynn was asked by an airline attendant if she would be willing to move but would not say the reason the request was made. Cicero also maintained “she was not ever put in the position of being told to move.”

[. . .]

“If this man had made eye contact with me, if he said ‘I’m very sorry but because of my religion I’m forbidden’ . . . I would have absolutely moved, I would have had no problem with that, but to not be included in the conversation, to take away my words and my right to choose . . . this is the 21st century,” she said.