Prejudices in place on the ground are not entirely absent on the flights too.

"I have no doubt that some confrontations in the passenger cabin involve perceived sex, age, ethnicity and/or size as factors in how and when complaining crew or complaining passengers go about behaving against some other passengers in the cabin..... It is ostrich-like behavior to bury the head in the sand as if prejudices in play on the ground are entirely absent on planes in flight too."

If this woman were a high-ranked male relative of an Emirati or other GCC big whig, would this incident have gone on like it did? Unlikely.