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Sexism in airport radiation scanning: pilots exempt, flight attendants not

Unions representing both groups are advising their members not to go through the scanners because of concerns about radiation exposure. The dose per scan is trivial, but radiation exposure is cumulative.

(USA) TSA Sexism: Pilots’ Junk Off-Limits; Flight Attendants’ Fair Game, Big Think, Lindsay Beyerstein on November 22, 2010, Pilots who shun full body scans are exempt from the TSA’s new “enhanced” body searches. Flight attendants are not. Their respective unions complained about the searches, but only pilots got an exemption.

Flight attendants and pilots go through the same FBI background checks and fingerprinting. Over 95% of pilots are men and three quarters of flight attendants are women. The fact that pilots are exempt from junk-touching and flight attendants aren’t seems like a sexist double standard.

Unions representing both groups are advising their members not to go through the scanners because of concerns about radiation exposure. The dose per scan is trivial, but radiation exposure is cumulative. The unions argue that people who fly for a living are already bombarded with significantly more radiation than the average person. It’s not clear that scanning anyone is making us safer, but it seems especially gratuitous to scan pre-screened professionals. Do TSA screeners have to get scanned when they go to work?

TSA Sexism: Pilots’ Junk Off-Limits; Flight Attendants’ Fair Game | Focal Point | Big Think

November 23, 2010 - Posted by Christina MacPherson | civil liberties, USA | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, nuclear spin, radiation, radioactive