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Post by High Priestess on Apr 28, 2017 18:51:41 GMT
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Post by Mabel on May 16, 2017 17:37:28 GMT
Really great blog post. As a host I think I have a pretty strong set of house rules which are very clearly posted before, during and after the reservation. I feel they're all very common-sense and reasonable, without burdening the guest. None of my rules are for reasons of accommodating any unusual eccentricities on my part, social or cultural biases or spiritual beliefs. My rules are purely based on what is needed for me to be able to host year-around with all of us getting along easily and cooperating to navigate the small apartment swimmingly, and it seems to work for all. I check in with random guests from time to time about whether it all feels excessively restrictive or if it feels ok... and it seems that only in two or three cases over five years has the guest expressed that I have too many rules. I call them "house rules" and not "requests". Airbnb first coined the term "house rules" and for myself, the term is more honest, clear, accurate and potentially binding in cases of dispute, than the term "requests".
Deborah I am sorry that the blog commenter made such crazy and ugly accusations against you, and I was really baffled by where they could have been coming from on that. Seemed that the person had some personal experience that really triggered them emotionally. Then recently I saw a listing in my city of an older female host who had review after review of her listing, complaining about being lectured to about veganism every day by the host, as well as shocking numbers of rules, (which the host states in her listing as "requests" and mentions that she prefers the term "requests" because it sounds more kind or whatever... blah blah blah"). She is honest in her reviews of guests about her veganism-campaigning with her guests, and the outrage she feels and expresses towards their animal destroying lifestyles. She also makes full disclosure in her listing description about all this. She also goes into detail about the reason that guests must tell her when they will be back in at night, and contact her with any change of plans, is not for her own feeling of safety but so that she will not have to worry about their safety which will impose upon her peace of mind. The reviews about her include the words "crazy" and "kooky" etc. Anyway, nuff said - you get the idea. So it's possible that if a person has had an experience with a host like this, that they may associate any female host who has exhaustive house rules, with the kinds of "yuk" emotional and control issues of this kind of host. But I think that your blog troll was a host herself? Then it may be coming from another view point. Who knows?
Either way, I don't particularly notice that the bias is against women primarily but that may just be my experience. The only time I can say that I noticed that a guest's attitude was gender biased with me was with a couple of male doctors from a particular culture not accustomed to respecting female authority. This was a blatant case of gender-based disregard, which was of course not tolerated by me as host, costing them considerable financial loss in the end.
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Post by High Priestess on May 16, 2017 23:05:07 GMT
Thanks Grace --
I really don't know what was the problem of that hateful commenter, but I do believe that people need to be responsible enough to be able to distinguish between someone who is ---as you pointed out, harassing others with her house rules --, versus someone who's being disrespected and bullied by renters who refuse to respect the house rules. There's an enormous difference there and to put everyone in the same pot, isn't something we would accept in other areas where we see prejudice-- eg, you have a bad experience with a person of a certain religion being fanatical, and then assume everyone else with that religion is fanatical and treat them all with hate. No, we wouldn't tolerate someone who did that, or spend much time examining their thinking to try to empathize with where they went wrong. We'd just tell them to stop with the hate & prejudice.
I think that it's hard to compare how women with "strict" house rules get treated, compared to men, unless we hear about male hosts/landlords in that situation and have enough info to compare. I wasn't implying that the guest/renter would even be aware of their attitude towards women, or their expecations of women compared to men. In fact I think it's more likely that the expectations in that regard would be unconscious as opposed to conscious. So it's not so much a matter of a guests' attitude towards women but rather differing expectations or reactions towards women hosts who may be doing the same thing as male hosts.
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