Females only

pragmatic1

Whats the story with houses/flats being advertised as females only. Is that not seen as gender discrimination under the law. If the same properties were advertised as whites only or something equally ridiculous there would be uproar.

Poor Craythur

Females are seen as less destructive, I guess. In a landlord's market, the landlord can pick and choose! These days however...

Galvasean

Judging by most the girls that went to my college and the state of their houses... Less destructive my tailpipe!

There are males only ones as well

pragmatic1

Poor Craythur wrote: »

Females are seen as less destructive, I guess. In a landlord's market, the landlord can pick and choose! These days however...

Yeah but how is this allowed with all the equality legislation.

pragmatic1

bluewolf wrote: »

There are males only ones as well

I've never seen an advertisement for males only in my life.

Slydice

pragmatic1 wrote: »

I've never seen an advertisement for males only in my life.

well, now you have:
http://www.daft.ie/searchsharing.daft?id=606559&search=1

. Very Nice Nice!!! Large SINGLE room,,,,, Suit Prof WORKING Full Time!! MALE only

(bolding by me)

Balmed Out

maybe theres an owner occupier renting out rooms and prefer not to live with the opposite sex.

The_Morrigan

I don't think it has anything to do with them being cleaner, I've lived with plenty of filthy creatures and personally I will never live with a woman again. It could just be a personal preference of the advertiser to live with females.
Advertisers look for a variety of things for example, pet friendly, quiet/non-party house/gay friendly/no couples/non-smoking/child friendly etc.

The person placing the ad has the right to ask for what they want if they own the property. When I was advertising my spare room I didn't allow couples, purely because there wouldn't be enough room for three people to live harmoniously in the apartment and I didn't allow pets, as my management company forbids them.

pragmatic1

pragmatic1 wrote: »

I've never seen an advertisement for males only in my life.

You're not looking very hard, I found some this evening

Otis Driftwood

Because maybe there are only females living in the house and they wouldnt be comfortable having some random bloke moving in.


Ive also seen ads for houses stating english speaking only.Its up to the tenants to decide who they live with.

What about having up no rent allowance,does that discriminate against the unemployed?

paky

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Whats the story with houses/flats being advertised as females only. Is that not seen as gender discrimination under the law. If the same properties were advertised as whites only or something equally ridiculous there would be uproar.

on another note, whats the story with ''the womens'' mini marathon? gender discrimination seems to be only ok when its men that are excluded!

paky

paky wrote: »

on another note, whats the story with ''the womens'' mini marathon? gender discrimination seems to be only ok when its men that are excluded!

There's a MENS ONLY one as well

If ye're going to rant would you at least make sense

Galvasean

Otis Driftwood wrote: »

Because maybe there are only females living in the house and they wouldnt be comfortable having some random bloke moving in.

I experienced a lot of this when looking for a place to live when going to college. Many unoccupied houses were 'females only'. In fact the house I eventually got the landlord stated that this was his first time renting to boys and he was only having us as no one else (female presumably) had applied.

pragmatic1

Otis Driftwood wrote: »

Because maybe there are only females living in the house and they wouldnt be comfortable having some random bloke moving in.


Ive also seen ads for houses stating english speaking only.Its up to the tenants to decide who they live with.

What about having up no rent allowance,does that discriminate against the unemployed?

Yeah I understand why people would have a preference but I thought equality legislation would cover renting property. If a black man asked to see a property and the owner said sorry white only would he have no recourse.

pragmatic1

Slydice wrote: »

well, now you have:
http://www.daft.ie/searchsharing.daft?id=606559&search=1

(bolding by me)

First time I've ever seen that.

theg81der

Some people have preferences over who they live with. Like I only want to live with friendly talkative crazy people - preferably women.

Mrmoe

Taken from the equality authority website.

http://www.equality.ie/index.asp?locID=3&docID=-1

The Employment Equality Act, 1998 and the Equal Status Act, 2000 outlaw discrimination in employment, vocational training, advertising, collective agreements, the provision of goods and services and other opportunities to which the public generally have access on nine distinct grounds.These are:

• gender;
• civil status;
• family status;
• age;
• disability;
• race;
• sexual orientation;
• religious belief; and
• membership of the Traveller Community.

Discrimination is described in the Act as the treatment of a person in a less favourable way than another person is, has been or would be treated on any of the above grounds

I guess you would have to argue that renting/accomadation is regarded as provision of a service. Honestly, I would hope they are looking at bigger issues or cases than ones like this, others have a higher priority.

Panthro

I seen a "females only" advert for a room in Galway once, called it anyways and asked to view. She showed me around the place, I brought my then current housemate along with me and she said straight up to the the girl showing the room that I was one of the tidiest lads she had ever lived with.
Got the room and stayed there over a year, quite happily with 4 wimminz. Think its better to have a mix personally.

The_Morrigan

Mrmoe wrote: »

Taken from the equality authority website.

http://www.equality.ie/index.asp?locID=3&docID=-1

The Employment Equality Act, 1998 and the Equal Status Act, 2000 outlaw discrimination in employment, vocational training, advertising, collective agreements, the provision of goods and services and other opportunities to which the public generally have access on nine distinct grounds.These are:
gender;
civil status;
family status;
age;
disability;
race;
sexual orientation;
religious belief; and
membership of the Traveller Community.
Discrimination is described in the Act as the treatment of a person in a less favourable way than another person is, has been or would be treated on any of the above grounds

I guess you would have to argue that renting/accomadation is regarded as provision of a service. Honestly, I would hope they are looking at bigger issues or cases than ones like this, others have a higher priority.

and further to that this would depend greatly on whether it was a business (landlord renting out the premises) or a personal arrangement which is what owner occupiers are - you are not a tenant if you partake in a rent a room scheme, you are a licensee only and you have no rights under any of the tenancies laws - you are in this persons home at their discretion.

parker kent

pragmatic1 wrote: »

First time I've ever seen that.

I've seen loads of ads like that any time I've ever looked at Daft.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Women are seen as easier to deal with:

For landlords

less messy or at least messy in a different way - Messy girls are messy in that their bedrooms are a sea of clothes. Messy guys are messy in that there's stubbed out cigarettes in leftover takeaways in the living room for days on end

Guys more likely to damage stuff usually, all that testosterone flying around.

Girls easier to push around/intimidate

For flatmates:

all of the above and

guys don't tend to feel as sexually intimidated by girls ie care about girls perving on them but girls do care about being perved upon. And a lot of girls have weird hang ups about guys seeing them without make up. So guys take either gender. girls want girls.

Hence you see exponentially more "female only" than "men only"

All the above generalisations are exactly that, though I honestly don't think they're baseless generalisations

Count Duckula

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Yeah I understand why people would have a preference but I thought equality legislation would cover renting property. If a black man asked to see a property and the owner said sorry white only would he have no recourse.

It's not the same though, is it? There are more differences between men and women than there are between blacks and whites or people of other ethnic backgrounds.

Now, personally I don't think there are that many differences between men and women that would make renting a flat together insurmountable, but at the same time I can understand that many people are more comfortable living with people of their own gender.

That is very different to saying to someone they can't move in with you because of the colour of their skin.

Personally, if we're going to take this out of context, I think a group of devout Catholics would be perfectly within their rights to say they only want other Catholics to move in, and no atheists / Muslims / Hindus. We're talking about people's homes after all - the single most personal and important place they have. They need to be comfortable there and with the people there, and if that means excluding certain sets of people they wouldn't be comfortable around, so be it. It's their prerogative.

donfers

parker kent wrote: »

I've seen loads of ads like that any time I've ever looked at Daft.

Have you? good for you, if you want to start a thread about male only accommodation ads then feel free



I have absolutely zero doubt that the numbers of flats looking for females only far outweigh those looking for males only...I have rented numerous times in numerous countries, i recall seeing a male only ad once, however on numerous occassions there were flats in an area and at a price that i would have been happy to take and then i get to the end of the ad and it says females only or girls/ladies only

it's the landlords perogative to live with who he/she chooses with, in any case i don't want to live with people who discriminate like that (men or women), it's just yet another example of lazy unimaginative fearful labelling and ugly gender stereotyping, oh what if the guy tries to come on to me, oh no, oh what if the guy is an untidy pig, oh no

I think people should just live their lives, don't pre-live it in your mind and deny yourself opportunities/experiences because of myopic gender-based generalisations

Excessive caution or second-guessing of people makes for incredibly boring almost paralysed people in my view and no matter how fab their flat is don't want to live with them (or be their tenant) so i tend to view it now as a good personality filter

Kimia

I think that this thread is absolutely ridiculous tbh. It's so disappointing to poke your head into the GL, usually a great place with really enjoyable and thought-provoking threads, and then you come across yet another rant about discrimination which is literally cobbled together and held up with a string. I cannot believe that usually logical people think that a (what appears to be the case in most cases) female owner occupier wanting to live with another female is discrimination. So I don't find black men attractive, god I'm such a racist. :mad:

Galvasean

Kimia wrote: »

I cannot believe that usually logical people think that a (what appears to be the case in most cases) female owner occupier wanting to live with another female is discrimination.

I'm perfectly cool with those cases and I completely understand why they would want to do so. However, I am irked by cases such as when I was looking for a house to rent while going to the college where we could not rent (empty, as in sharing with no one else) houses as they simply have a 'no boys' policy. As I said before, even the landlord we ended up renting from made it clear that we were only being taken on as tenants as a last resort, since the house was usually for girls only. That just seems unnecessary to me.

donfers

Kimia wrote: »

I think that this thread is absolutely ridiculous tbh. It's so disappointing to poke your head into the GL, usually a great place with really enjoyable and thought-provoking threads, and then you come across yet another rant about discrimination which is literally cobbled together and held up with a string. I cannot believe that usually logical people think that a (what appears to be the case in most cases) female owner occupier wanting to live with another female is discrimination. So I don't find black men attractive, god I'm such a racist. :mad:

who said anything about female owner occupier? seek offense and ye shall find

I don't care if it is a guy or a gal asking for females only

i don't care if it is a guy or a gal asking for males only

i just don't like that kind of mindset, i respect their right to do it but i still don't like it


but if this thread isn't of high enough standard then apologies, must try harder boys and girls

Sid_Justice

should have made the thread male only bro'

Kimia

Galvasean wrote: »

I'm perfectly cool with those cases and I completely understand why they would want to do so. However, I am irked by cases such as when I was looking for a house to rent while going to the college where we could not rent (empty, as in sharing with no one else) houses as they simply have a 'no boys' policy. As I said before, even the landlord we ended up renting from made it clear that we were only being taken on as tenants as a last resort, since the house was usually for girls only. That just seems unnecessary to me.

Agree with you 100%. It's just the hunting for discrimination when there's none that annoys me, which certain folks do in this forum at times. It's just unnecessary.

Galvasean

Kimia wrote: »

Agree with you 100%. It's just the hunting for discrimination when there's none that annoys me, which certain folks do in this forum at times. It's just unnecessary.

I think it's more of a 'tar with same brush' mentality - mistaking one for another.

donfers

of course it is discrimination, that's precisely what it is but it's acceptable to discriminate in certain situations and not others, we all discriminate all the time, discriminating based on gender with regard to who you rent your apartment out to is deemed to be ok while discriminating based on gender in terms of employing someone is not

but i agree that sometimes we are all guilty of hunting for discrimination, we all want to take the moral high ground and play the innocent

for example i would view the hunky dory ad drama as hunting for discrimination whereas others would perceive it as a genuine attempt to combat sexism in advertising

no one person or poster or forum has a monopoly on deciding what constitutes genuine discrimination or when we are ethically obliged to complain/protest......the only ridiculous thing is to suggest one knows where the line begins and ends

Mrmoe

Kimia wrote: »

Agree with you 100%. It's just the hunting for discrimination when there's none that annoys me, which certain folks do in this forum at times. It's just unnecessary.

In fairness, it probably is discrimination but all discrimination isn't necessarily bad or not beneficial. I would say a lot of guys would have been frustrated by ads like those so I can see where the annoyance comes from. I have had similar experiences when looking for places to rent for college. It is one thing that never bothered me though and I would be happy to live with it as long as I had a choice or other options.

Yahew

Kimia wrote: »

Agree with you 100%. It's just the hunting for discrimination when there's none that annoys me, which certain folks do in this forum at times. It's just unnecessary.

The question was - why is it legal under equality legislation. Apparently it shouldn't be.

Compare this to Britain and the Gay chaps who tried to get into the Christian owned B&B - a B&B which was also their private house ( as far as I know).

Whats the difference between a B&B and a rented lodgings. One is mostly short term ( but not always) the other long term ( but not always); one provides food always, the other rarely - but it can happen i.e. old style digs.

In reality they are pretty much the same thing - rented accommodation in a shared house.The food is a slight, and not universal, difference. Thats it.

A dispassionate intelligent alien would be utterly amused at the furore over the Gay B&B thing were he to look at daft.ie or earyroomate.co.uk.

of course it is discrimination under the law - so to answer the OP - the equality legislation is, as you might have guessed already, not what it says it is. It says dont discriminate against gender, or sexual orientation but it means certain types of gender; certain types of orientation.

Yahew

donfers wrote: »

of course it is discrimination, that's precisely what it is but it's acceptable to discriminate in certain situations and not others, we all discriminate all the time, discriminating based on gender with regard to who you rent your apartment out to is deemed to be ok while discriminating based on gender in terms of employing someone is not

but i agree that sometimes we are all guilty of hunting for discrimination, we all want to take the moral high ground and play the innocent

for example i would view the hunky dory ad drama as hunting for discrimination whereas others would perceive it as a genuine attempt to combat sexism in advertising

no one person or poster or forum has a monopoly on deciding what constitutes genuine discrimination or when we are ethically obliged to complain/protest......the only ridiculous thing is to suggest one knows where the line begins and ends

That makes the law an ass. If a female landlady feels that men are more troublesome than women, or feel more threatened by men in her house then why is it that acceptable, when discriminating against travellers would not be, were she to feel uncomfortable with that on the same criteria?

donfers

Yahew wrote: »

That makes the law an ass. If a female landlady feels that men are more troublesome than women, or feel less comfortable with men in her house then why is it that acceptable, when discriminating against travellers would not be, were she to feel uncomfortable with that?

well as i said i personally don't like it but it is deemed to be ok to discriminate in certain situations and not others

Yahew

donfers wrote: »

well as i said i personally don't like it but it is deemed to be ok to discriminate in certain situations and not others

no, thats not what the law says. nobody has taken a case.

whatdoicare

Just, in my own experience as a female, it's nothing to do with cleanliness or discrimination - it's more to do with safety.
If a guy moves into a house with a girl/s, there is that danger aspect to it.

I lived in a house before (when I was young and stupid) and never even thought to check if there were locks on the bedroom doors- until one night one of the fellas innocently burst into my room in the middle of the night looking for a loan of one of my course books.

At first I thought nothing of it and was just embarrassed as I was only in my vest and panties but then the more I thought of it the more freaked out I got - the roommate was the size of a rugby player (I'm 5ft 2 in heels) and I was on my own in the house with him, as my roommate who shared the room with me was gone for the weekend and the other two lads were out for the night.

If he had other intentions (I'm not saying all guys are rapists or ruled by their hormones - just, in a worse case scenario situation - and they do happen) he could have done anything to me and I would have been totally helpless! It turned out that no one came home until the Sunday night and this happened on a Friday! Luckily for me he was only a bit clueless (and was freaking out about an exam coming up) and it never occurred to him that he'd need to knock but it still scared me enough to demand the landlord put a lock on my door and I started making arrangements to move after the summer.

It all boils down to feeling safe in your home and for girls it mostly means living in a house with other girls - at least if a girl attacked me I'd have a fighting chance and you can never really tell what's going on in someones head- so most will not take the chance.

I hope some of this makes sense.......

Yahew

still illegal.

TouchingVirus

whatdoicare wrote: »

Just, in my own experience as a female, it's nothing to do with cleanliness or discrimination - it's more to do with safety.
If a guy moves into a house with a girl/s, there is that danger aspect to it.

I lived in a house before (when I was young and stupid) and never even thought to check if there were locks on the bedroom doors- until one night one of the fellas innocently burst into my room in the middle of the night looking for a loan of one of my course books.

At first I thought nothing of it and was just embarrassed as I was only in my vest and panties but then the more I thought of it the more freaked out I got - the roommate was the size of a rugby player (I'm 5ft 2 in heels) and I was on my own in the house with him, as my roommate who shared the room with me was gone for the weekend and the other two lads were out for the night.

If he had other intentions (I'm not saying all guys are rapists or ruled by their hormones - just, in a worse case scenario situation - and they do happen) he could have done anything to me and I would have been totally helpless! It turned out that no one came home until the Sunday night and this happened on a Friday! Luckily for me he was only a bit clueless (and was freaking out about an exam coming up) and it never occurred to him that he'd need to knock but it still scared me enough to demand the landlord put a lock on my door and I started making arrangements to move after the summer.

It all boils down to feeling safe in your home and for girls it mostly means living in a house with other girls - at least if a girl attacked me I'd have a fighting chance and you can never really tell what's going on in someones head- so most will not take the chance.

I hope some of this makes sense.......

I'm actually slightly offended at the idea that you can live with a guy and let one incident where he came into your room unannounced put you into guys-are-rapists mode. Your post reads as if to imply men are apes, driven by the desire to sex women up no matter where, when or whether the women want sex or not. I know you threw in the disclaimer but it still doesn't change your post. You claim naivety, that you were young and foolish to live with a guy and never think he might rape you. All in all, fairly woeful viewpoint to have IMO, though you're not alone in that one I'm sure.

The house I'm living in now has 3 lads and one girl and I'll tell you the girl doesn't feel in the least bit intimidated by any of us and we're all bigger than her. There are no locks on any of the doors and dare I say she might not be able to fight us off if our hormones manage to get the better of us...:rolleyes:

There are some generalisations that are far more involved in the preferences in my experience - girls are more tidy, with girls you know what you're getting, boys have parties and go wild, they'll screw you over with bills or damages if they move out etc etc.

When advertising a room or rooms in an occupied house the occupier(s) have preferences and that's fair enough. I'll admit that when we advertised a room in this house I was called by people who could barely speak English and told them the room was unavailable. I really don't have the inclination to try to forge a housemate relationship with somebody who won't get the current tenants sense of humour, mannerisms and lots of other stuff that the language barrier created. Was it discriminatory? Maybe. Would I do it again? Yes. Would I consider myself a racist? No.

However, I do take Galvasean's point and can see myself agreeing with him that houses where there are no occupiers to have preferences should not be restricted to race, gender, employment status (e.g. professionals only) etc.

sam34

please leave the modding to the mods

if you have a problem with a post or a thread please report it rather than complaining about in on- thread.

Agent Smith

heres a question


Can you say "Irish only?" in an Ad

Scanlas The 2nd

The_Morrigan wrote: »

I don't think it has anything to do with them being cleaner, I've lived with plenty of filthy creatures and personally I will never live with a woman again. It could just be a personal preference of the advertiser to live with females.
Advertisers look for a variety of things for example, pet friendly, quiet/non-party house/gay friendly/no couples/non-smoking/child friendly etc.

The person placing the ad has the right to ask for what they want if they own the property. When I was advertising my spare room I didn't allow couples, purely because there wouldn't be enough room for three people to live harmoniously in the apartment and I didn't allow pets, as my management company forbids them.

I think that's fine but you have to be consistent and be ok with "no black people" as a requirement.

Scanlas The 2nd

Count Duckula wrote: »

It's not the same though, is it? There are more differences between men and women than there are between blacks and whites or people of other ethnic backgrounds.

Now, personally I don't think there are that many differences between men and women that would make renting a flat together insurmountable, but at the same time I can understand that many people are more comfortable living with people of their own gender.

That is very different to saying to someone they can't move in with you because of the colour of their skin.

Personally, if we're going to take this out of context, I think a group of devout Catholics would be perfectly within their rights to say they only want other Catholics to move in, and no atheists / Muslims / Hindus. We're talking about people's homes after all - the single most personal and important place they have. They need to be comfortable there and with the people there, and if that means excluding certain sets of people they wouldn't be comfortable around, so be it. It's their prerogative.

But what if someone is uncomfortable around black people which I'm sure many are, surely they should have the right to feel comfortable in their homes.

The_Morrigan

Yahew wrote: »

still illegal.

Now you lot have made me dig out my equality notes from college:rolleyes:

Article 40 - "All citizens shall, as human persons, be held equal before the law"

That's lovely all nice and clear, however my lecture notes & text books go on to discuss the fact that this does not mean that all persons will be treated alike or equally and the state is allowed to discriminate with regards to differences of capacity, physical, moral and social function.
There are two legal exemptions from equality:
1 - Discrimination must be based on human characteristics.
2 - Where the inequality may be justified on other grounds.

When it comes to renting out your home or a room in your home, the second provision will be a major factor. You are not just picking a female only or male only house mate, but you are associating all the usual characteristics that goes with their gender and basing your choice on those. So if you were brought to court on inequality charges you will not be found in breach of the equality act when the court is shown all the information that the advertiser had to hand that the reader of the ad didn't.

The_Morrigan

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

I think that's fine but you have to be consistent and be ok with "no black people" as a requirement.

eh what?

MIN2511

Agent Smith wrote: »

heres a question


Can you say "Irish only?" in an Ad

You can say 'English speakers only'

Scanlas The 2nd

The_Morrigan wrote: »

eh what?

If someone believes a person is should be allowed to screen for their personal preferences then if they are being consistent they must believe that it is ok to screen for whites only.

Why would it be ok to say you don't want to live with a female but not ok to say you don't want to live with a black person?

Scanlas The 2nd

MIN2511 wrote: »

You can say 'English speakers only'

Can you say "Irish speakers only"?

syklops

MIN2511 wrote: »

You can say 'English speakers only'

Yeah, but if you are not an English speaker, you can do some courses, and become an English speaker. Thats like saying its discriminatory to say "Must have 5 years experience in a similar role", or saying that a Doctor's position that says "Must have a medical degree" is discriminatory to those of us with out medical degrees.

I think the thread has begun to descend into ridiculousness at this stage.

Equality is really only in its infancy, and what would be wonderful is if equality laws along with most other laws left some room for common sense. Unfortunately, due in part to some very out of touch judges who cant think out side of the box, and can only make decisions based on a rule book that was written decades ago, there cant be any common sense. Some judges then try to err on the side of caution and the result is the current situation where its ok to have female only gyms, but not ok to have men only gyms.

I personally would love a male only gym, as the enjoyment I get from watching Czech women work out is far outweighed by my own body hang ups(and the 20-odd extra kilos I pack).

While I do think that men and women are fundamentally different in their approaches to some things, on a personal level, for the most part they are the same. So I cant understand why a womans group or equality group cant understand that the reasons for having a men only gym is the same as having a womens only gym, and leave it at that.

Until Man, Society and, Law and Governance develop more, I say to my fellow man, try not to get bogged down in petty arguments with women, black people, immigrants, homosexuals, or any other minority, and if you have to discriminate, which we all do anyway, try to do it for the right reasons.

For example, we are hiring 2 new members for our team. Its an international team and the 2 people will be based on the other side of the world, The choices we had were Indian and Australian candidates. The candidates were all of a similar technical level, but I voted for the Australians. I discriminated against the indians. Why? Its not because I dont like India, or Indians, its just that I will need to work and play with these people for long periods of time, and feel I would get on with someone better if they came from a similar culture. So an Auzzie, whose interests include beer and barbecues, will fit in better with our team(most of whom are american and also like beer and barbecues), better than someone who does not.

I also admit to being sexist against men in that I only date/sleep with women, sexist towards women, in that all my favourite celebrity chefs are men, ageist to females under the age of 17 and over the age of 40 as I do not go for those age brackets, and racist towards Germans, because if I had the choice of German beer and Czech beer, on the face of it, I would choose the Czech beer.

The_Morrigan

Scanlas The 2nd wrote: »

If someone believes a person is should be allowed to screen for their personal preferences then if they are being consistent they must believe that it is ok to screen for whites only.

Why would it be ok to say you don't want to live with a female but not ok to say you don't want to live with a black person?

If they have justifiable reasons to do so, then yes they have the right to choose any preference.

Emme

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Whats the story with houses/flats being advertised as females only. Is that not seen as gender discrimination under the law. If the same properties were advertised as whites only or something equally ridiculous there would be uproar.

Because if a guy moved into a house where there were already 3 females they'd be all over him every night, he'd get no rest and he wouldn't get any peace either because they'd be fighting over him!:D:D:D