Serah Nathan, a woman from Australia, has stirred up a massive controversy after accusing workers at the Sydney Airport of slut-shaming her, allegedly over her choice of clothing for the day. The Melbourne woman was wearing a crop top and track pants.
While details are still blurry and are coming out slowly, many have expressed their disgust with the airport’s workers, drawing some rather unpleasant comparisons to them on social media, and even going as far as to shame them back on various points.
The incident was provoked by the fact that the 33-year-old writer was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap, all whole wearing clothes that the accused workers have reportedly described as inappropriate.
Two Jetstar Airways employees approached the woman and told her that she was acting inappropriately, pointing out the fact that children were looking on.
However, she was not willing to be degraded like that and fired back immediately.
The situation eventually devolved into a scandal involving a supervisor for the two workers, with some onlookers supporting the woman and expressing their disgust and disappointment with the way the airport workers were handling the situation.
Nathan, who is half Sri Lankan, thinks her origins played a role in the situation.
She wrote on social media: “Today I got publicly slut-shamed by two @JetstarAirways employees, whilst wearing this outfit! My partner and I saw no children in the immediate vicinity and were bewildered at both this request and its relevance to how I was seated. She reiterated there were children around and added, ‘You’re disrespecting the parents here by straddling your boyfriend.”
Strangely enough, while Jetstar did respond to the controversy, they claimed to have been disappointed by the attitude shown by their online customer service representatives, implying that the whole story was nothing more than a social media blunder.
There was no mention of the two employees who started the whole controversy, nor of their supervisor, who reportedly defended their actions and reiterated that the woman was in the wrong all along.
Jetstar Airways stated: “We apologize to Serah for the manner in which her query was handled by our online customer service representative which fell well short of the standards we expect.”
Some commenters online have criticized Nathan for straddling her boyfriend in public and for wearing something like this to board a flight. Those voices say her behavior was not beyond reproach.
Nathan has pointed out that she could not even see children in her vicinity at all.
“I doubt you’ll be able to board your flight dressed like that.”
Today I got publicly slut-shamed by two @JetstarAirways employees, whilst wearing this outfit! ??♀️
Play by play in tweets to follow. (1/4)
cc. @Mamamia @pedestriandaily pic.twitter.com/QKg4Zk1N9W— Serah Nathan (@serahann) November 3, 2019
