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| Sunday, 30 April 2006 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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The wry side:
Insecurity check as women travellers get the once-over by Louise Evans They insist it's random. Like hell. Sole women travellers are always being stopped, scanned and manhandled by security at domestic airports while suspicious-looking men of middle-age appearance are allowed to wander through. Is it because sole women travellers fit the suicide bomber stereotype: on a mission, in a desperate hurry and carrying too much baggage? Thinking back to September 11 when the world order changed and the war on terror became something even the Queen talked about - and to the subsequent events that followed in Madrid, London and Bali - not one of those bombers was a woman. Female suicide bombers have exploded into history in Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Israel, Turkey. There were the famous Chechen Black Widows, but the reason they were famous was because they were rare. Women may be underwired (more on that later) but they're not hardwired to blow themselves to smithereens so they can go to heaven to meet their maker and enjoy an afterlife being indulged by a minimum of 70 virgins. While the television story-line in Desperate Housewives, where a bored young wife has an affair with the teenage gardener, is a nice fantasy, even a lip-smacking reality, tell the average woman that you're sending 70 male virgins around for the night and all she'll be thinking about is how much mess they are going to make. Five would be fine; OK 10, 20 tops. Suffice to say the sole woman traveller isn't a big security risk, not since they stopped us taking nail files on board planes. Now all we girls can use to poke the bloke in the next seat who's taking up too much leg room is a plastic fork. Taking weapons of mass destruction on board, such as a tennis racquet, is, however, fine, provided it's in bubble wrap. Ever seen what Lleyton Hewitt does with a tennis racquet for fun or in anger? And what about the weapons already on board, such as those sharp pointy coathangers snooty business-class hosties use to stow the jackets of smug businessmen who are rorting shareholder or taxpayer funds to collect gold frequent flyer points? No bomb checks for them. But beware the sole woman traveller who tries to smuggle a pair of eyebrow tweezers through security in the bottom of her handbag. I could do more damage with the underwire in my bra, but let's not go there. The real reason security guards stop and search sole women travellers is because they are blokes and they are bored. They randomly choose women because while they are poking you with that silly wand trying to detect bomb-making chemicals, they are relieving their own private gloom with some random chitchat: "Where are you flying today, ma'am." None of your bloody business. But don't get bolshie about these routinely random bomb checks on the least likely people to cause trouble on a flight because you'll immediately be surrounded by four more very bored security no-necks who want to take you into their little room for a quiet chat and a nice frisk. These rooms are straight out of the Guantanamo Bay guide book. The smirking men in uniform smell as though they haven't worn deodorant since they grew underarm hair and there are rolls of electrical cords that could easily be attached to your pink bits. If you don't submit, you are advised: "You won't be travelling today, ma'am." So you have to breathe through the pain as they tip everything out of your handbag and let the tampons roll across the table, pull your computer apart so the cords are hanging out like a dead octopus, and make you take off your shoes and your jacket. Two hours after you were standing in your bathroom rushing to get ready, you're back in the same state, standing in public in a state of undress and distress, being touched up by a man wielding a ridiculous little stick. The only chemicals those wands are likely to pick up on sole women travellers are deodorant, dishwashing detergent and baby vomit. But that doesn't stop them poking your shoulders and hips and legs and the inside of your wallet. Meanwhile, a party of wheat sales executives get waved through en route to Baghdad, bags bulging with kickbacks. You think you've won when all the tests come up negative and the security guard announces: "Ma'am, you're free to go." But as you repack and redress, you notice his roving eye has caught another random suspect, another sole woman traveller. The charade continues. Courtesy The Australian. |
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