This Man's Misogynistic Rant In A Bagel Shop Is Terrifying For All Women
In the workplace, on the street, online, and in this bagel shop — toxic masculinity is terrifyingly widespread
A viral video posted to Twitter shows a man going on a terrifying, misogynistic rant — and it’s a perfect example of how women encounter toxic masculinity everywhere, from the workplace to the internet to a local bagel shop.
In the video, the man, who has not been named by police, can be seen screaming at female employees and patrons in the shop. He’s asked by Olivia Bradley, the woman who recorded the incident and posted it online, why he thinks it’s OK to “degrade women.”
“Degrade — why is it OK for women to say, ‘Oh you’re five feet on dating sites, you should be dead,” the man shouts back, throwing his newspaper violently onto the floor. “That’s OK?”
People in the shop start to point out that no one there has said anything to the man about his height, and he continues.
“Women in general have said it on dating sites. You think I’m making that shit up,” he says. “Everywhere I go I get the same fucking smirk with the biting lip.”
Another customer tries to deescalate things saying, “Dude, calm down,” to which he shouts, “Shut your mouth. You’re not God or my father or my boss.”
The man’s tone, demeanor, and message are all pretty alarming. But what a lot of people are overlooking is how his behavior perfectly illustrates a frightening combination of toxic masculinity and misogyny that women encounter regularly, if not quite to this extreme. Women who watch the video find themselves nodding along, because nothing about this man’s behavior is surprising or new. The way he thinks he’s entitled to women and their time, and that nothing (not his entitlement or his bitterness or his rage) is standing in the way of him getting the women he “deserves” except his height — that’s an attitude all women are familiar with because it’s terrifyingly widespread.
In the video, the situation continues to escalate. People try to get the man to stop screaming, but he only gets louder and more violent, threatening to fight another customer until someone tackles him to the ground. Police were called, and ultimately, no one was hurt. But this situation could have been far worse, and no one could have predicted whether the man’s behavior was an indication that he could be actually violent, particularly toward women, either in the bagel shop or elsewhere in his life.
His rage levels are truly scary.
Though police did respond to the store, they didn’t arrest the man, which makes the situation even scarier for women. That guy is still in the world, carrying that bitterness and entitlement and hate around with him, and we still don’t know if he’ll act on it.
“Definitely something else was happening in his life made him snap like this,” Bradley told Buzzfeed. “I really do hope he’s OK, but his actions weren’t acceptable and that’s that.”
