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What Do You Think?

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Kb3

Just wondering what everyone thought of this.

I was recently on a short haul flight with my family. When we got our boarding passes we realised that we only had two seats together, the rest all being singles. We put our older child the furthest away, my husband took the set of seats together with our middle one and I took our youngest who is three back to our seats hoping that someone would see that she was too little to be seated by herself, and help us out by moving.

The plane had one aisle with three seats on either side. My three year old and I had been assigned the middle seat on either side of the aisle. All four other seats were already occupied by three men and one woman. I politely asked if anyone would mind moving, naturally gravitating to the woman and assuming that she would understand. I was told by the two aisle seaters, the woman and her husband, that they had specifically paid for them and that they couldn't move. The woman seemed quite nervous and put out, and insisted that she could not move. The two men by the window did not make eye contact.

Not wanting to make a big deal about it I went to the back of the plane and explained the situation to the stewards and waited to see if they could find us seats together.

They could not accommodate us, so I asked my little one if she would sit by herself, which she surprisingly agreed to. We made our way back to our original seats and there she sat for the duration of the short flight like a little trooper, me keeping a sharp eye on her. For her bravery the stewards rewarded her with chocolate biscuits and a set of wings. No doubt she felt this was a very satisfactory arrangement!

The woman sat next to her and gave her a tissue for her hands when she finished the biscuits and looked after her well enough, but I could tell she felt quite agitated by the situation (fidgeting, rubbing her feet and fingers together). Poor thing, I don't think she gave herself a moment's peace for the whole flight. The men on either side of us ignored what was going on entirely.

We landed ahead of schedule and got off the plane. My little one was fine for the whole flight and in fact, was sound asleep when we arrived. No harm, no foul.

As we walked to get our luggage, another woman approached me and in indignant terms basically told me how badly she thought everyone had acted, in particular singling out the woman who hadn't moved. I just told her that it was ok and that I thought that maybe some of the passengers hadn't been well enough to help us out.

What made me write about this was not what happened with the seating, but what happened with my and the other passengers reaction to the woman not moving. Even though there were three other people who could have moved, everyone seemed to believe that the person who was most at fault had been her! To the point that someone expressed happiness that she had been knocked in the head by someone else's luggage on the way off the plane!

WE CAN BE SO HARD ON WOMEN!!!! I mean obviously not all of us, or all the time, but the default seems to be for people to expect women to suck things up and sacrifice in a lot of situations.Three able bodied men ignore the problem, and the one who is vilified is the woman who had an obvious nervous disorder, who probably had booked that seat weeks in advance specifically. Even I was guilty at first in assuming that she would be the one who moved.

It just made me think about how many not very nice to downright bad situations I have found myself in because I was expected to defer and how guilty I felt when I didn't. How much better would my life have been if I had looked after myself like those three men did and not worried about what other people thought? Of course I'm not saying to not help other people out if I am able or want to, but just not to feel guilty when I can't.

Just saying....
 
I agree people shouldn't have just singled out the woman. The men in the situation acted just as poorly as the woman. Whatever happened to chivalry for the men's part?And why don't we expect it anymore?

I am glad to hear that your three year old was fine and there was no harm.
 
Da eff? Seriously? Three men completely ignored a toddler that was separated from her parents (even if only by an aisle. That aisle can be a canyon to a small kid). And kudos for acknowledging that it is unfair to be particularly critical of the woman, I am happy that you did not fall into the same bias expectations. Such a weird story. Stewardesses are usually all over that kind of situation. Good for your kid behaving so well though.
 
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