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The Man Who Held Up The Queue

It may seem like no big deal. We’re all waiting to board the flight and the queue is long. The queue is always long when boarding an airplane. This is nothing new.

Except today it is. The queue is not only long, it’s not moving. Why boarding a flight is so difficult for us humans, I’ll ever understand. Still, patience (which I severely lack) is required. We all stand in our spots, waiting for the queue to move onto the flight.

It doesn’t. Necks (including mine) start to crane. What’s the hold up? I turn around and look up to my husband because he must surely see something I don’t. He stares above the heads of the line in front of us, so I join him. Standing on my tip toes (as if that’s going to work, honey) I try to see above heads. Of course I can’t see above the heads in front of me. I’m 5’2”. Turning around again, this time I see his face. Not the face of my husband, but the face of the man holding up the queue. Bright pink. Almost shockingly bright pink. Is he okay? Several people are talking at once, but I can’t hear anything specific. This time, I lean out of the queue and see the whole scene.

Oh, dear man. Oh, dear dear man. A woman, presumably his wife, is crouching down to collapse a stroller. She has a baby on her chest, facing out to the rest of us beaming. Oblivious to dad’s sorry state, the baby coos and giggles.

Dad didn’t know how to collapse the stroller. He must have tried several times, and finally giving up, his wife took over. One man who didn’t know how to collapse the stroller for his own baby held up the entire line trying to board a plane. Buddy, I’d be embarrassed, too.

There’s a video making the rounds on social media of a mime at a dolphin show. He’s part of the entertainment before the dolphins do their thing. The video focuses on him as he removes a baby bag from a young mother’s shoulder and moves it to the father’s. She’s holding the baby and, also holding the large baby bag while dad was empty-handed. The mime chose this moment to show the crowd—including the men, especially the men—“Really, fella? You’re not going to help at all?” and that got a laugh from the crowd. The mime then gestured, palms out and shoulders scrunched as if to say, “Buddy, not cool,” and the crowd laughed louder. I would have shaken my long pointed finger at him, “Do better, dad.”

For men, white men in particular—you have it hard these days—the power shift came out of nowhere. Women are so angry and are hitting back with words you’ve traditionally used on us. We’re showing our anger and oh, we know you see and feel it. Gone are the “I can’t even offer a hug at work?” days, and welcome in the, “Are you sure you can handle both your work and homelife?” questions. Along with the, “You’re a big, strong, strappy man. You don’t need any painkillers for this,” a sentiment thrown at women for as long as I can remember, y’all are starting to get antsy. “She can’t say that to me, can she, this doctor?” Oh yes, she can. Male doctors have always assumed we can “handle the pain” so we did. Time for the lot of you to man up.

It’s about to get a lot worse for men. Angry women are willing to belittle and shame, interrupt and dox. Fellas, it’s not going to be pretty. And, we’re just getting started.

Maybe start by learning how to collapse your kid’s stroller. Next time you won’t be so ashamed that you’re holding up the entire line of people wanted to fly home.

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