Sexism: Yet Another Reason Not to Buy Airline Tickets

Airline bully Louis Godeaux admits he prevented a customer from boarding the flight for which she'd paid just because he "didn't like her attitude":

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/woman-allegedly-prevented-from-boarding-flight-because-tsa-didnt-like-her-attitude/

"Is that even legal?" the customer asks.

Maybe we do need a law: Once a business has accepted money, especially if the business has collected information about the customer in the process of taking the person's money, employees of that business are obligated to complete the transaction to the satisfaction of the customer. Any display of personal emotional reactions to the customer should be recognized as grounds for the immediate and permanent termination of employment, without benefits.

Words like "attitude" are a red flag. What, exactly, does "attitude" mean? It has no objective meaning; its appearance is proof that whatever the speaker is saying is subjective, emotional, and inadmissible as evidence. The only objective idea in the dictionary definition of "attitude" is a physical position. Employees have no right to comment on customers' physical position. There might be some justification for an employer's listening to a customer's complaint about an employee's physical position, but when this kind of hatespew comes out of an employee, the employer should be legally required to respond with "We abjectly apologize to any customers who have had to watch or listen to this employee's display of his/her emotional problems. We hope Your Graces are satisfied with the 'attitude' displayed by this employee as s/he is dragged out of the building, feet first, by the police."

What do emotionally healthy employees do with their feelings about employees? They have two options: (1) They can remind themselves that their salary, and the lifestyle benefits it allows them to enjoy, come directly from the customer, so their "attitude" toward the customer needs consistently to communicate gratitude; or (2) They can decide that their salary isn't worth putting up with the amount of dissatisfaction they feel with their job, and quit.

And, because a male employee's unhealthy "attitude" toward a female customer probably reflects the sexist expectation that women should be "deferential to men," this story should offend all women readers. The airline should definitely be required to subject its male employees to some retraining, with specific attention to enforcing the message that male employees need to be particularly deferential and grateful to female customers.