Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Fragile masculinity at the airport


Just a little rant about my travels from this past weekend. My family and I were headed to New York for a Christening ceremony. As my family and I were standing in the airport security line, a man from a separate security line thought it was a great idea to go ahead and cut the line. This happened directly in front of me, as if he was more important than everyone else. He was not late for his flight, he just felt that he could do that without asking anyone around him politely if it was okay. Everyone looked around at one another awkwardly, as my father started mumbling about how disrespectful that was. As I looked at the man, I laughed and said “hey, it’s always more respectful to ask everyone around you before you just go ahead to cut the line”. He turned around in disgust, and raised his voice at me stating” I did nothing wrong! I’m allowed to cut the line. These women working are not doing a great job doing it. I work in the music industry. I travel 15 times a month. I do this all the time”. As a woman, I felt that his behavior at 6am at the airport was way out of line. I’m usually not the one to start conflict, this man became aggressive towards me, calling me a Bit*h on his way into the security detector. Before I could say anything, I looked up him as I gathered my items from the other side of security. Still lingering, he spoke out again “listen beautiful, listen I ain’t wrong”. Reflecting on this situation, this man exemplified fragile masculinity. This man could not take constructive criticism from others and justified his position of power in life through his music career. Just because one works in the music industry, doesn’t mean that career is better than everyone else’s. Demonstrating his version of “manliness” through his aggressive behavior had left TSA agents to remove his from the scene.

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