All-male flatting groups are struggling to find a place to live next year. A few have blamed their bad luck on gender discrimination – with stereotypes continuing to haunt boys on the lookout for flats.
“It’s the most demoralising thing: turning up to a flat viewing as a group of guys and seeing girls there. You might as well not even bother looking round the flat as it's as good as gone,” said second-year Tom, whose group is on their 15th flat application. “We’re not a breatha group, either. We all have good grades and good references, and are altogether pretty calm guys.” Another Queen St hopeful, Max, has felt the brunt of this unspoken rule: “We applied for five flats on Queen and got none, girl groups got them all.”
Mike, a hopeful second year, was told by a prospective landlord that she would “only sign us if we have girls in the flat.” He said “she didn’t even ring our current landlord to see how we are with flats, she just assumed we’d be bad tenants because we’re guys.” Another student, Joel, has had a similar experience. “We’ve had landlords tell us that they only accept girls. Other landlords have had to ask owners to make exceptions when accepting a group of guys.”
It is illegal in New Zealand to discriminate on the basis of sex, and property managers know this. One informed us bluntly: “You can’t choose a tenant based on what gender they are.” Another told Critic Te Ārohi that bad stereotypes continue to make landlords reluctant to move forward with all-male flats. They admitted that they haven’t had many bad experiences with male flats, but added that “there are groups of guys who don’t do themselves any favours, where they have treated the property badly and not taken responsibility for it… leaving behind a perception with some owners and landlords.”
Joel admitted that the reputation was “partially fair, but it’s a harmful generalisation and effectively gender discrimination. The fact that landlords will email us and not even entertain a viewing is discriminatory.” One male student, though, told Critic Te Ārohi: “I think it’s warranted. If I was a landlord and could choose, I would obviously choose girls. Is that sexist, though?”
Where do we draw the line between landlords simply exercising their discretion and actually discriminating against males? “I don’t know if I’d go as far to say it’s sexist, but it definitely is just the landlords buying into stereotypes about guys,” said Tom. “I’m not sure what the issue is,” said another student (who wished to remain anonymous). “We’ve applied for so many flats and we’ve all got pretty decent CVs, we hand them in with applications, yarn to the agent and then, fuck, no reply. [But] all our chick mates just walk in, say they’re interested and apply. No clue what the issue is but I’m low-key starting to think it’s something to do with us being male.”