News stories about airlines with women in tears becoming a trend?
Maybe as the summer travel season begins, these stories start to spread. But I have notice that there have been several stories, most recently the autistic toddler that was removed from an American Eagle flight in RDU. The story quotes the mother as “at that point I just broke down”. Other recent stories mentioning women crying in the face of airlines are this one (AA) and this one(US). Why are the media focusing on the women in these stories “breaking down” or using cliche lines like, “at this point I was in tears”? It’s basically putting a travel disruption on the same level as a death in the family or a large natural disaster. This isn’t to point out that crying is out of place in an airport (although one may make that argument, along with general outlandish behavior), but that the news media are using it as a symbol of “just how bad things are out there”.