It looks like a lot of women are being frisked at airports these days, and it ain’t pretty, reports Newsday.
Rhonda Gaynier was flying home to New York from Florida in mid-October when she was asked to step aside for some additional searching. Apparently, she got more than she expected than a normal screening. In front of other passengers, a security guard used an open hand to touch under her arms, her shoulders, across her bra strap, and between her breasts. “I was almost in tears. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. It’s one of the worst experiences I’ve had to endure.” said Gaynier.
The frisk was the result of a new government directive that airport screeners carry out more frequently and more thoroughly to search for explosives. The new policy was put into effect by the Transportation Security Administration on Sept. 22, after 90 people were killed in two plane crashes in Russia believed to have been caused by Chechen women who carried explosives on board.
Sommer Gentry, a graduate student who commutes twice a month from her home in Baltimore, said she now takes Amtrak, rather than submit herself to the invasive airport search. Gentry said she has actually had several upsetting encounters with the screeners.
"I will go to great lengths to avoid flying now, because patdowns make me feel dirty and ashamed," she said. "It just gets worse every time. Now I'm afraid."
The new TSA rules say screeners can select passengers for patdowns based on "visual observations," even if they do not set off metal detectors. Other passengers are selected randomly by a computer, which was Gaynier's case. In addition, other passengers may get marked because of "passenger behavior," such as frequently buying one-way tickets or paying in cash.
The rules also make sure to note that passengers can ask to be checked in private and by a screener of their same gender (both of Gentry and Gaynier’s patdowns were by women) and that screeners must only use the backs of their hands when touching sensitive places. Oh, okay -- that changes everything! Turn your hand and violation is out the door! Sigh.
Gaynier has filed a complaint with the TSA and is exploring taking some legal action. "Post-9/11, we have all come to accept a certain level of inconvenience and intrusion, I will tolerate that.” she says. “But you want to touch my body, you better have a damn good reason, and they don't."
But they do! Touching your boobs could save people’s lives! If we are going to “accept a certain level of inconvenience and intrusion,” is this going to have to be a part of it? Should we be questioning the fact that these plane crashes occured in another country, and that two Chechen women may have been responsible -- so now various women in this country are subject to searches? Has homeland security become a sexist structure? Should we be surprised?
What do y’all think?
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
I normaly read this site to get a laugth. Being male and all it is funny to see how woman look at the things we do. But that is just sick. Men are messed up when it comes to pervertion. Which i guess is all they could be, but ya, lets not go there.
I think that america needs to look at these kind of things. Why are we adding laws to the books? because we are afarid of a bomb or a plane, wait is superman going to come eat me now. Why dont we band every thing that ever did any good. Even better, lets just get over it and move on. I think the best this that came out of 911 was America going out and showing we are not week. But then look at what we do at home. We are just putting on a nice little war fighting motif. Really America is weeker now then ever.
This act, just shows that we americas are becomeing more and more afraid, and what do we, in this case men, do stupid things. We need to get over fear, and become a right mined socity again.
When we step back and look at airport security as a whole, it's pretty obvious that it's more theater designed to make passengers feel safe than actual measures to provide a reasonable degree of security. Most of the measures that would significantly increase security (moving detectors and security checkers out to the gates like they are in Europe, using new, area-based sensitive explosive detectors) cost significant amounts of money and are therefore considered infeasible, because those costs would have to be borne by the airports and franchisees who lease concessions in them.
So if you look at it from that perspective, they're trying to make the theater look more plausible by patting down passengers, and so these women are being made uncomfortable for no real gains. That sucks.
At the same time, I sense a bit of a double standard here. I get patted down all the time -- at shows, at the airport (although I've been lucky to not be spot-searched too many times), going into clubs, and so on -- and you know, a lot of guards don't shy away from my "sensitive parts". San Francisco being a city packed full of buff gay men, it's entirely possible that sometimes that could cross the line into harrassment (although mostly bouncers just seem harrassed and overworked), but you know, oh well, I'm pretty used to it.
I think our society still has a double standard when it comes to what constitutes acceptable physical contact for men and women. What constitutes acceptable levels of public physical contact for men? For women?