I boarded my flight from Paris to Sydney, sad to leave my husband and children behind but happy to be going home.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
The man assigned to the seat next to me was clearly unhappy about everything.
An older, bulky French gentleman, he huffed and puffed as he sat down and made it clear, under his breath in French, he was angry to be seated next to a woman.
His only words to me: "Don't talk to me".
"I promise I won't," I replied.
Two hours later, when I returned from a trip to the bathroom, he sat up and shouted furiously in English at me: "I will kill you. I will kill you".
Other passengers witnessed it.
I'm a woman in my 50s who has travelled a lot and I have a very thick skin.
But the man next to me put me in fear of my life.
The flight attendants on Air France, however, refused to move me.
The other passengers looked the other way. I spent the next eight hours scared and very upset.
On reflection, what really upset me was that no one offered to help.
The flight crew had the greatest responsibility in dealing with the issue.
But changing the manifest log clearly put them off moving me – even though there were spare seats in the same flight class.
The other passengers who witnessed his behaviour did nothing either, despite their shocked looks.
And that made me wonder what I would have done in the same scenario.
I also thought about how this man might have affected a young woman who was off on her first backpacking trip.
Women don't need "protecting". But we are too often put in a position where men use their physical power to intimidate us.
What I want to understand is why most of us don't speak up about it or take it further when it happens.
Women are trained, regardless of how many degrees they have acquired, to please people.
That's why, in hindsight, I didn't want to make a fuss about sitting next to a man who had threatened me with death.
It's ironic really. I'm a feminist who works, in part, on educating young people about ethical bystander behaviour.
Translation? Doing the right thing when you see someone else being treated badly.
Yet we all struggle at that moment when it comes to doing the right thing. We juggle with our thoughts.
Should I step in? Am I interfering? Will this create problems for me?
The same thing used to happen with domestic violence in the town I grew up in.
It was seen as a matter between husband and wife – even though everyone knew the bloke next door had downed 10 schooners on his way home and had a bunch of fives in his pocket for the missus.
I certainly don't have the answers to when it's appropriate to step in – or step up, as my teenage sons would put it. But I think it's a subject we all need to think about a lot more.
I wonder about the bystander effect often when I'm in a taxi and the driver starts saying hateful things about Muslims or gay men.
Why don't I speak out? Is it misplaced politeness, a sense that nothing will be achieved or simply cowardice?
Looking the other way is very easy to do. I do it myself. But what does it cost other people? Thinking on that is my New Year's resolution.
