But not everyone reacts to threats the same way you (or I) would. You have to leave some space for that.
Didn’t he already do that to himself four times?
Yes, please tip your servers and bartenders. I’ll be here all week. 
And yet females are still being taught to be meek and don’t make waves. We get verbally trod over, told “not to worry our pretty little heads” and are expected to find penis and male masturbation jokes and situations funny and just deal, okay?
Why didn’t she say something? No idea. Maybe she was horrified. Maybe she got talked over. Maybe she was mortified. Maybe the males just laughed and told her to deal.
What?!? Some guy across the aisle told her to be a good little cupcake and just let her seatmate jerk off four times? Absurd.
Again, you can’t have it both ways. I believe in equal rights for women. I disclaim the idea that they are delicate flowers who cannot advocate for themselves, especially in a controlled situation with such an obvious violation of propriety and law.
I would have thought that the idea that women are too terrified to say anything would be attributed to incorrect right wingers.
You do understand that feminism can change over the course of 40 years, right? Women are not a monolith with one singular thought pattern or way of acting and reacting. We all have different ways of reacting when confronted with clearly unhinged people. Some of us have suffered too much physical and mental abuse over the years to be able to confront this kind of situation, even though we also call ourselves feminists.
Of course. But has this change repudiated the idea that women are just as capable as men in every way? The remainder of your comment suggests an agreement with the opposition in the 1970s, that in some way women are different. Perhaps you don’t use the same reasons, but they are pretty similar.
And it belies common experience. Women complain all of the time. There is even a word for it: “Karens.” If you want to say that this particular woman was previously abused and therefore emotionally unable to raise her complaint, well, you’re reading a hell of a lot into the story without evidence.
Who knew that one could use a dude cranking it off in pubic in a confined space as a gotcha argument against feminism?
To the contrary…I am supporting feminism!
“Women complain all of the time”. All women? All of the time? I’m trying to say that you’re suggestion that women all think and act in one way is not borne out by the facts. Feminism is a lot more nuanced than you think, even feminism in the 70’s.
What I am saying is that if someone whips his penis out in the seat next to you in flight, a reasonable person should either tell him to stop it and/or report him to the flight attendants. You are the one making a man/woman distinction which is contrary to any tenet of feminism I know.
A similar scenario happened to my girlfriend back in University while she was taking a bus back home for the weekend to visit her parents. She was reading a book when noticed out of the corner of her eye that the guy beside her kept fidgiting with his hands… then she realized that it wasn’t all hands.
She was a pretty outspoken girl and her dad a police detective …but she told me she was paralyzed in her shock. She was horrified and grossed out, but trapped in her seat and too proud to let the guy get a reaction from her. And yes, she had some doubt that people would believe her if he denied it. She really didn’t know what to do, except not to look or make eye contact with him and continue pretending to read her book.
When the bus stopped at the next town for a break, she approached the driver and reported it. The police were there in minutes, pulled him off the bus, and arrested him.
After hearing about this, I was not very happy (and neither was her father) and thought that I would have beaten the guy senseless… but would I have?
I don’t want to be preachy, but here’s definitely a contrast between what we think we would do in these situations and what decisions we actually make in while experiencing them in real time.
How would you feel if that was your mother sitting next to that guy? Sitting there terrified, frozen, afraid to provoke someone who’s obviously unstable? Still the height of hilarity?
Do you have a link for this? Every instance I’ve heard of recently of a passenger getting taped up has involved them either assaulting other passengers or crew or other out of control behavior. Not “rude comments.”
No, no. I never have a cite or link.
Wouldn’t know how to post it if I did.
I may have heard the details wrong.
I just have an image of a man taped to a seat, in my head.
Well, sure. Masturbation and penises are always hilarious.
Momma’s been gone for quite a while now, but your question put my memories of her on the front burner of my mind. Several smart remarks would be her reaction, all of them some version of, “Put that thing away!” Done with her very best Mom stare. She could peel paint from the walls with her Mom stare. Later, in the safety of her own home, she might give in to a panic moment or two, but years later it would be “one of those stories.”
I very much enjoyed the walk down Memory Lane with Momma. Thank you for that.
Now, my Grandmother would have stood up, announced to everyone on the plane what this man was doing, and then she would have cussed him out until his ears blistered.
~VOW
Never met grandma, but if my (now deceased) mom had been there, this guy woulda had a nice hot cup of coffee in his lap.
I’m really wondering where it is that women this past few decades have been taught they have to be so meek that they must remain silent when some guy whips his dick out and starts spanking the monkey on a freaking airplane. I admit that my circle of acquaintance is limited, but who teaches such things where? This is really rather extremely removed from so much understandable misogyny/harrassment/inequitable treatment that undoubtedly occurs. Just someone please explain to me the series of events and influences in their family/schools/churches/friends that makes an adult woman feel there is NOTHING she can do the first 3 times some guy beats off on an airplane. I’m not sure my 6 yr old granddaughter would stand for it.
Are we going to simply resort to the ever helpful chestnut that “we don’t know how she had been traumatized in the past”?
Why not? Women can either be treated like equals and left to their own defences when faced with sexual predators or they can be treated like lesser than and be protected?
Why can’t women be treated like equals and also be treated like humans who other humans would help regardless of what genitals they have? The whole idea of “be a nice little princess and I’ll protect you otherwise you’re on your own” certainly has nothing to do with equal rights. It’s the thought process from people who have this very backwards idea that to make women equal means men have to be brought down to their level when in reality, it’s lifting women up to the men’s level.
Anyway I knew when I saw the thread title that it would degenerate into jokes and misogyny and I wasn’t disappointed. Well no, actually I was.
There are no end of stressful, involuntary, and traumatic situations in which just about anybody could find themselves.
And there are a nearly infinite number of possible reactions to those situations – most of which we cannot individually predict.
And that cuts across just about any demographic line.
Please stop with the insane notion that there’s an anti-feminist thread in the offing here.
From the article:
I’m pretty okay with how she acted in this situation. I am unequivocally horrified at how he acted.