I Should Have Cancelled Airbnb Long Ago

Airbnb has listings in illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land. That simple fact goes against my belief in the BDS Movement* in support of Palestine. But did that get me to stop using the easy apartment renting travel app with its aesthetically pleasing user interface? No. But, I’ll tell you what did…

Our Airbnb host in Edinburgh — I’ll call him Sean, because that’s his name — left me a not so positive review as such:

Friendly group. Could work on there (sic) communication a little bit better. A touch nippy. Complaint about the front room being noisy and an issue with the WiFi... no issues with WiFi( user error )and yes its a city centre location so there is outside noise but certainly not excessive as I live in the flat myself so I can vouch for this. I would recommend them though, they were clean and tidy.

I was furious.

So I wrote to Airbnb to have the review removed. 

They wouldn't. No explanation given.

So I appealed, arguing that policing a woman's tone rather than the substance of her feedback is misogyny and giving them a primer on the term nippy sweetie. 

The review violates Airbnb's nondiscrimination policy by containing language that demeans and insults based on sex/gender. Two specific phrases make this case. First, the (male) host describes my group as needing to "work on their communication." Flagging a woman's communication style as deficient, rather than engaging with the substance of her feedback, is a textbook microaggression rooted in gender bias. It implies that a woman who speaks up about problems is somehow lacking in social skills, rather than simply being an informed guest exercising her right to communicate with her host. He would not have written this about a male guest. 

Second, and more overtly, the host uses the word "nippy." This is not an innocent word choice. In Scottish usage, "nippy sweetie" is a gendered slur referring to an abrasive woman who annoys people just by talking. The use of "nippy" in this context is not ambiguous: it is a gendered insult directed at me (a woman) for speaking up. A male guest who flagged WiFi problems and noise would not be called nippy. 

These two phrases together — criticizing my communication and calling me nippy — constitute discriminatory language that demeans and insults on the basis of sex, in direct violation of Airbnb's nondiscrimination policy. The review should be removed on this basis alone. 

I raised legitimate concerns during my stay politely and in good faith, as my communications demonstrate. Rather than assessing me as a guest — I was clean, tidy, and caused no problems, as the host himself acknowledges — he chose to attack my character and my voice. The critique is not about anything I did, but about the fact that I spoke up at all. 

I attach screenshots of my communication with the host once again as proof. Thank you.

Airbnb still refused. Still no explanation.

So I told them I didn't feel safe on their platform if they were going to allow misogynistic attacks to stand, and I shut down my account. My husband did the same. And other friends and relatives are following suit. 

What’s really baffling is that the bar for Airbnb was so low — I wasn't asking for him to be penalized or for compensation of any kind. I was simply asking for a misogynistic attack to be removed from my profile.

By removing it, they may have kept my business — although due to their indirect support of genocide, it was really past time for me to go anyway. By not removing it, they not only lost my business but others. 

Guess nippy-ness comes in handy sometimes. 

The next day, I had therapy, and we unpacked what exactly about this bothered me so much. Predictably, it traced back to childhood. That familiar feeling of being responsible for keeping all the adults around me calm and happy — my mom, who became a wife and mother in her teens and carried so much of her own trauma, my stepfather who was angry about his life and let everyone around him absorb it. There's a little version of me that still believes it's her job to make sure no one is displeased. So when this stranger decided he was unhappy with my communication, she got activated.

Childhood trauma: the gift that keeps giving.

My therapist helped me name what was actually happening — he was unhappy that a person (ahem, woman) pointed out problems with his place, so instead of addressing the problems, he went after her character. Classic deflection. 

And then a billion-dollar company backed him up.

Can men stop running the world now?

*Curious about the BDS Movement? Click here.