Discrimination Or More To The Story?

[Glados]

Link

The man in the story was shopping for books for his grandchildren and stopped to take a phone call. He was asked to leave the store and told that men without children cannot be in the children's section.

If the man's story is accurate then I agree that this is discrimination. Fathers and grandfathers should not be banned from shopping for children's gifts because society fears men who are near children. When my husband shops for gifts for the girls he certainly doesn't take them with him. A store should not have a policy that applies to men and not women.

However, I do wonder if the issue was more to do with the fact that he was hanging out in the children's section on a cell phone. With smart phones, it is possible that someone thought that he was taking photos or videos. Still doesn't justify the "no men without children" ban, though. The employee may have just needed an excuse to get him out of there due to complaints or suspicions and chose the wrong thing to say.

Either way, I have never been a fan of suspicious behavior being used as an excuse to ban or remove anyone. I used to be terribly shy and always looked nervous in public. A few times I had store employees follow me around and badger me but I was never asked to leave. If people are concerned then they should have watched him and the children more closely until they could determine what was happening. Or, they could have just asked him.

[bara]

Im going to have to go with both discrimination and more to the story.

I do believe there is a little more, but I dont get the feeling that this man is lying. What I think is missing is what the woman said when she complained.

[Amanita]

This just proves that fear of "perverts" is out of control. I've heard of single women and groups of cosplayers who were doing a photoshoot being kicked out of public parks by the police, threatened with arrest for "being a danger to children". Parks, not playgrounds.

I think it's ridiculous how paranoid people are, afraid that every man anywhere near a child must be some sort of pervert.

[Nekojin]

I'm voting for, "a little of column A, a little of column B." I'd want to hear more before I started throwing spotty fruit.

[Ginger Tea]

Link

The man in the story was shopping for books for his grandchildren and stopped to take a phone call. He was asked to leave the store and told that men without children cannot be in the children's section.

Although he was recieving a phone call, what if he made a call to ask his son/daughter what his grandchiild was after book wise?

"That book with the polar bear on it, is it <this book with a polar bear> <that book with a polar bear> or <some other book with a polar bear>?"

with the price of lego starwars vs lego, no child is the recipent of lego starwars if you ask me, least not the larger display modles (not the USC range), so I would kick up a fuss if the local TrU impemented a similar rule, I want to walk in pay RRP and walk out with whatever I want, not be forced to shop online pay extra for P&P and wait for the boxes to arrive (guantied it would be direct from lego not tru dot com if it came to that) that or get some random female co worker to shop for me just cos I don't have a vagina and thus less of a threat to the general population.

Although I do get the "he might have been filming teh children elebenty" angle to an extent, one of my old flip phones had a swivel camera for video calls I was texting away with the thing held upright and if the camera was facing out, it could easiily be taking candid photos of whomever was infront of me.
having this knowledge, I always had it facing me and also covered the area with my finger so even if it was facing out it would see nothing but my finger darkening the lense.

[kibbles]

Discriminatory, ignorant, and classless of the so-called store IMO. I remember reading a story where someone phoned a male daycare worker and asked him why does he work there?!! "ummm..I like having money to buy food"

How ignorant and dim witted does society have to be, I almost want to believe that there is more to the story because people cannot be this stupid right?

[Andara Bledin]

Apparently, Barnes & Noble has made an apology today for his treatment, noting that it is not their policy to eject lone shoppers from any section of their stores.

Article at MSNBC

Unfortunately, most of the articles are rather poorly written, and while many claim that he was considering legal action, none of them make clear whether this was before or after the apology from the chain, which apparently came late in the day (based on the time of the update of the article linked).

^-.-^

[fireheart17]

This just proves that fear of "perverts" is out of control. I've heard of single women and groups of cosplayers who were doing a photoshoot being kicked out of public parks by the police, threatened with arrest for "being a danger to children". Parks, not playgrounds.

I think it's ridiculous how paranoid people are, afraid that every man anywhere near a child must be some sort of pervert.

I see this sooo much at the pool that I'm training at, and the pool where I did my weekly swims.

The pool where I did my swimming practice has "family" change rooms where you can take your opposite-sex child into a cubicle and change their swimsuit/swim nappy/both there. Doesn't stop some mothers from taking their little girl or boy into the women's showers though -.- (the last time I was there, this woman started throwing a hissy fit because the women's facilities did not have change tables and the like and her child had done a poo in her swim nappy)

The pool where I do my training has a viewing area where parents can change their kids and generally they are changed there. I have yet to see the policy on parents taking their opposite-sex child in, but the consensus is that if the child is younger than six, he/she can go in with mum/dad to the respective parents change rooms, but once they're older, they need to be accompanied by a parent of the same sex as them.

[Ginger Tea]

The pool where I do my training has a viewing area where parents can change their kids and generally they are changed there. I have yet to see the policy on parents taking their opposite-sex child in, but the consensus is that if the child is younger than six, he/she can go in with mum/dad to the respective parents change rooms, but once they're older, they need to be accompanied by a parent of the same sex as them.

Which kinda scuppers single parents, but having said that a 6+ yo should be more than capable of getting changed unsupervised, but YMMV, it's been decades since I was 6.

[Amanita]

I was talking about this with a friend last night, and she says that all this paranoia with regards to child molesters is actually making her less likely to assist a child who appears to be in trouble, ie- wandering around a mall parking lot with no adult in sight, wandering aimlessly around the mall, looking lost. She says that she would be afraid to be seen talking to a strange child, or trying to lead them any place, even if she's asking "Do you need help, do you know where your grownups are?" or trying to lead the child out of the middle of the parking lot- if she went and got security to do it, by the time she found a security guard and got back out there, the child could have wandered off or worse. But she is afraid of some hysterical parent accusing her of something, just for trying to help.

[Ginger Tea]

In America you have Megans law, we did or talked about implementing a similar thing called Sarah's law after one child, thing is when the two girls from Soham dissapeared, I forget their names, it went nationwide very quickly, hell my mum living near Manchester knew of it before I did and I was in Cambridge for the folk festival that weekend and Soham from what I can tell aint too far.

Point is, iir a fair few parents with stroppy kids their age were called in to police even if they were in the middle of Wales, because, well they could have got that far I guess.
Every time a kid has a strop with their parents, all they have to do is bleat out "You're not my Dad." and who knows what kind of smack down could befall the dad just cos jr didn't get what he wanted.

[wraiths_crono]

I read this one as being more discrimination, mostly due to his name I can speculate due to his name and the location where it happened at. People in that part of town can be a little more suspicious towards anything not white and rich looking, heck ive had cops follow me there because my truck doesn't look 'new' enough to be there as well as a friend that was caught DWM (Driving While Mexican) in a Mercedes car.

[fireheart17]

Which kinda scuppers single parents, but having said that a 6+ yo should be more than capable of getting changed unsupervised, but YMMV, it's been decades since I was 6.

Generally most of the older kids who have the opposite-sex parent with them will get changed out in the "Viewing" area. (We have a viewing area where parents can stay, or they can sit out in the benches by the pool.)

[smileyeagle1021]

Which kinda scuppers single parents, but having said that a 6+ yo should be more than capable of getting changed unsupervised, but YMMV, it's been decades since I was 6.

or same sex couples raising kids...

but, I agree, in a public setting, 6 is old enough to defend themselves (they only have to defend themselves long enough to draw attention, perverts fear getting caught, and putting up a fight makes it not worth the risk for many of them). My mum's advice when I changed, if someone does something inappropriate, punch them in the nuts and scream like hell (I assume there is something equally effective for women). But you know the most important thing from that, despite going to the pool regularly when I was younger (like once a week, year round... gotta love indoor pools), I never once experienced nor witnessed someone doing anything inappropriate.

[jackfaire]

It also happens when your feeling nostalgic and shopping for books you read when you were a teen because you wanted to re read them and your local library doesn't have them.

People see guy shopping for LJ Smith books and jump to "preying on teen girls"