A travel influencer and former “head of family content at The Points Guy U.K.” claims to be subverting the patriarchy by flying business class while her husband and kids head back to economy class.
Amid the cacophony of boarding passengers, my husband waved at me, leading our two boys, ages 5 and 7, towards Economy while I turned left into Business Class. A flight attendant cast a surprised glance, undoubtedly questioning why I was sitting apart from my family.
… it was about my boys witnessing their mom confidently relishing a different space on the plane, thereby understanding that traditional norms and expectations should not confine a woman’s place. I want them to grow up understanding that women, too, can independently “turn left” onto a plane. And can do so alone.
Here’s her argument:
- She’s challenging social norms and expectations by being the woman up front with men in back
- She’s showing her sons “that women are as deserving of economic privileges as men.” (And, perhaps, that she doesn’t want to spend time with them, and that they’re not as important as she is?)
- This forced her husband to take on a non-traditional parenting role
This is the most sophisticated justification of traveling in a premium cabin while leaving spouse and family in back argument that I’ve seen. She certainly turns the usual narrative on its head, where the husband or boyfriend is the jerk taking the upgrade or paying a premium for his own comfort.
It appears that this woman uses points for her premium cabin travel. Maybe she just needs to earn more points, or to properly engage her husband as a ‘player 2’ to leverage her points-earning, so she can give the same experiences to her family that she takes for herself?
Ultimately though it seems to me that if this woman wants to take her critical theory seriously, then she has to answer for perpetuating inequality not just across society but even within her own family. She’s reinforcing class divides even as she thinks she’s breaking down gender ones!
Many feminists believe that their struggle is inextricable from the fight for socialism yet here she’s engaged in capitalist marketing programs (points-earning) to enable her own conspicuous consumption. Then again, even Air Koryo has business class.
I really hate as a society where we are heading.
Joke, right???
@richard
I really wish it was a joke.
Society today is going down the toilet. That broad isn’t doing anything except prove to everyone that her family will always come in 2nd place
@Steve Smith,
It also a look at me moment.
Once I had someone next to me in First like this whose family was all in the back. Multiple small kids stuck with dad somewhere in the back with separated seats. She kept saying, as if I cared, how she was an elite and deserves this upgrade and doesn’t want to deal with it, etc.
I told her great, she can have the comfort of knowing if the plane goes down, and her kids are back there screaming for Mommy, their final thoughts will be how their mother doesn’t love them and abandoned them.
Poor excuse of a mother
Looks like she could use a treadmill and travels with a seat belt extender
I understand her point, especially if her kids had read/heard about the more common, reversed, situation and were getting ideas that such things were normal.
The worrd “woman” sure appears a lot.
Let’s change that.
A person boarding a flight went to the assigned J seat. That person’s kid and spouse, having no upgrades went to Coach.
See how that story is? It’s a little shorter. It doesn’t bring up gender of the person. It makes references to the upgrades without victim blaming.
I’ll go sit in my hot tub now and reflect on how people judge others unmercifully.
Pax did nothing wrong. Don’t blame the pax.
E
@ethad but the point of her post is she is a woman doing this. Gender is definitely needed to be mentioned.
I advance Vegetarianism by eating a huge T Bone steak while my wife has a salad
It just means they’re poor. If I’m flying with kids, I don’t bother with playing with upgrades. I just buy whatever tickets for the family or charter.
She is creating inequality. If they don’t have enough points then take turns.
This is what Elon was talking about when he mentioned the woke mind virus.
Yawn – the desperation for attention of these ‘influencers’ on top of trying to get it through this kind of woke BS. Why is it BS? I’ll tell you:
1. Nobody cares about your family or how you teach your kids lessons
2. If she bought the ticket and sat there, then it proves nothing. If her husband bought it and she sat there then she is still a dependent of the patriarchy.
3. You really think a 5 year year old understands turning left on a plane or the social significance of a man or woman doing it?
4. If this is how she has the teach her kids that lesson on social justice, instead of all of their parents actions all the time it’s simply pathetic (pathetic that she thinks she made some groundbreaking show to her children and that this is so large on the scale of things that it warranted an article).
5. If anything, this should have been a simple lesson to her kids about sharing, but of course someone has to be the victim overcoming some awful injustice that they have suffered – clearly her life is so terrible that that on a family trip of four only one of them could fly J.
6. Next she’ll say a certain race should just be able to turn left as form of reparations.
6. I could go on….
So sick of these people who think they are so special telling their stories like they have done something great. 30 years ago my dad always let my mom take the upgrades when we traveled – should he be getting some medal from women everywhere?
If the 80’s was the ME generation, these people are the I generation. It’s all I I I I I I I….all the self proclaimed whatevers. The most pathetic of all is that people actually pay attention to them.
Let’s try to keep the articles relevant to traveling and not lame attempts to turn travel into some idiotic social message.
The hilariously vitriolic reactions to this post demonstrate why she was right to do exactly what she did. Bravo!
@Tony, white knight to the rescue!
I bet you pay for onlyfans
Another case of someone who had children that should have not had them. I would have been embarrassed if this story got out in the public that I did this to my children but instead this person celebrates it.
Really what was the point of feminist? And I my thoughts was it’s point else thing and waste of people valuable time.
@ RMF
“Let’s try to keep the articles relevant to traveling and not lame attempts to turn travel into some idiotic social message.”
No, let Gary incite the incels (such a shame that Chad’s vile sexist remarks has been commentary deleted) to trigger the click bait….;)
This article could be next:
For her next social experiment to help advance social justice, the mother will randomly select one of her two kids, aged 5 and 7, to fly by themselves in Business Class. A five or seven-year-old kid traveling solo in Busines Class will help demonstrate to her husband that little boys are not confined to be or do certain things. Her husband expressed his excitement when they landed. Furthermore, the other brother sitting in coach appreciated the full attention of sitting between their mommy and daddy during the flight.
It was about the other passengers witnessing a kid confidently relishing a different space on the plane, understanding that traditional norms and expectations should not confine a kid’s place. The mother wants people to grow up understanding that kids, too, can independently “turn left” onto a plane. And can do so alone.
Ah, reverse discrimination: the cure for all past discrimination. Whether it’s mommy or daddy taking the upgrade alone, what a strange lesson to teach the kids that when the family can’t afford for everyone to have a treat, it’s ok to always enjoy it yourself while everyone else watches. At a national level, economies function best under capitalism; within a family, it has to be socialist.
Seems like what I would expect from TPG.
Here’s two things about me:
1. I read TPG, OMAAT, SimpleWings, GeneralAviation, and many other resources.
2. I don’t often post. I like hearing what my fellow travelers say. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I don’t. It’s about the discourse.
Now in this case overnight there are half a screenfulls of responses. Some blame the lady. Some blame her not just for this but for her actions. Some say she treats/schools her childen badly. None address her spouse or whether/what he had to say.
Suck it up, buttercup. She had points. She used them. You have points (you’re reading TPG/Wing/SF/OMAAT…). One day those will be gone, just like travel agents in the early 1990s. Would you like to demonstrate that you are smarter than everyone because YOU would have used that upgrade differentl?
Go for it. You’ll teach nobody anything and the end result won’t change.
But hey, so many people PILING ON THIS WOMAN. I can only assume it’s because she is a woman. She did nothing unethical or wrong
Next time you’re tempted to not-give-up your seat remember, you’re a special person who went out of their way on a semi-anonymous public forum to explain how awesome you are.
My name is my name. I’ll support anyone exercising their rights be it civil, criminal, mileage rewards, etc. I hope some of you out there will speak up in support of freedom to behave fairly and equitably (and legaly).
I checked out pictures of her husband. He’s exactly the kind of manlet you’d think he is.
Next installment: Jabba The Feminist Gets a Live-In Boyfriend.
@Ehud Gavron Yeah it’s totally because she’s a woman and not the fact she’s a look at me. Her reasoning is Bs and just a way to make it look like she’s doing God’s work.
Hey @Tom, I don’t know what you mean. Haven’t seen any pictures nor care. She’a a FF with points and I decilne to shame how SHE chose to use HER points. If she was a guy I’d say I decline to shame how HE chooses to use HIS points.
The gist is… what was done here…was it wrong? I think not. Could there have been a FAIR WAY of doing better? 15 posters above me haven’t said so. Want to stepup and take that challenge?
So this WOMAN used HER points. If you think there was a more equitable “solution” to a problem that never existed.. please share.
“Many feminists believe that their struggle is inextricable from the fight for socialism yet here she’s engaged in capitalist marketing programs (points-earning) to enable her own conspicuous consumption. Then again, even Air Koryo has business class.”
Gary, I had to reread her post several times before I was able to detect her socialist / anti capitalist tendencies. You did a great job exposing her secret agenda. Even if she didn’t say anything about it, you knew!
Seems like she is doing pretty well despite the evil patriarchy holding her down. It’s always so strange when successful female humans complain about the evil patriarchy but they are living large from a tyrannical system
The quote:
“…successful female humans…”
The welcome:
Welcome to View From The Wing, a forum for humans who fly in aircraft to opine.
The facts:
You’ll note that definitionally that makes us all humans.
Around half (a bit more) are female humans.
Opinion:
Successful I assume you meant as “someone who has acquired enough affinity credits, points, cash, whatever” to have a F/A/P seat on a particular flight.
The quote continues:
“…but they are living large from a tyrannical system…”
Is there any way you could possibly say that she’s a scumbag wench who somehow gamed the system to get herself an upper-crust seat and threw husband and kids under the bus in the process?
WHY DO I CARE
I’m a guy. I’m for equal rights, be they Constitutional or egalitarian, or just fair. I don’t care if some guy had an F/A/P seat and his wife sat in Y with the kids or if the kids had the points and mommy and daddy (or two mommies or two daddies or whatever) sat in the back.
What I care about is they are treated equally amongst all other travelers on that same flying wing we’re viewing from and opining on.
I guess that makes me the minority here. I don’t care the sex of the person. I don’t care if she is “successful”. I don’t care about who sat in the back. THIS ISN’T EVEN NEWS LET ALONE A THING.
Enjoy your nothing-burgers. I like mine with meat.
Two observations: (1) It’s clear who wears the pants in the family (2) The marriage is doomed to failure just as surely as the ones where the man always takes the F seat.
When men do this they are flayed but when women to it… it’s a woke lesson?
I have boarded planes for > 4 decades and not once have I seen fit to make a social media post much less have the hybris to promote flying F as some type of laudable lesson. Of course she is free to use her points as she likes and to use her freedom of speech to promote woke causes. But don’t expect anyone to buy what she’s shoveling.
Going on a family trip together and then abandoning the family for a better seat? If I can’t upgrade everybody, I don’t upgrade myself.
What a self entitled b..tch! And a poor excuse for a mother. Social justice experiment my ass! I would never leave my wife and daughter alone in economy while taking an upgrade.
PS: “JoJo” you are a joke.
My condolences to the wife and daughter of CMorgan. Their husband (resp. father) spends time trolling internet comments using misogynistic language and demonstrating wanton ignorance of the “Website” field. Hint: it’s for your personal website, not “vftw”.
@Alisom mIsOgYnIsTiC
I don’t know why but I picture you with a pride flag
As a gesture of allyship, I do have a PRIDE flag on my balcony, which faces the Pacific Ocean, because my home is on The Strand in Manhattan Beach, Calif. and has a market value between $15MM and $20MM, because I had a successful career in civil law at one of the most prestigious firms in the country.
I don’t know why but I picture you wearing a red hat in Oklahoma where a home like mine costs $500k because it’s surrounded by uneducated racists.
@ Alison
You could have stopped at California. Enough said.
Alison you are the “woke” troll from CA. I treat my wife like the queen she is. She is a real woman! As for my daughter she is growing up as a woman who understands the dangers of feminism and appreciates the traditional roles of women an men while understanding the need for both de Ed to respect each other, something you obviously have no clue about. Go back to waving your rainbow flag and supporting your “woke “ causes. We are all doing just fine.
PS my wife is next to me as I write this laughing at your sarcasm.
OMG! people what they’re thing on there head.
This person should reserve use of upgrades for when traveling alone as, I am making the assumption, that is how they earned the points. (If the entire family contributed to earning the points then this person is a problem.)
When traveling with their family, the entire family should travel in the same cabin. Always. I’d argue that anyone who earns lots of points and takes family on long-haul vacations can afford to buy premium seats for the entire family.
Can’t wait for her kids to make TikToks of leaving her in a nursing home! What an awful mother.