Women, tired of squeezing themselves into small spaces while men unfold themselves comfortably on public transport, have taken up arms against manspreading in the past few years.
The seated posture has been banned on public transport in cities from Madrid to Boston, New York City (where two men have even been arrested for the act) to Philadelphia and Seattle. Paris is the latest to campaign against it.
Manspreading – the act of opening legs too wide and taking up too much space, particularly on public transport – even became accepted into the Oxford dictionary in 2015.
Tom Hanks accused
The Council of Paris has called manspreading a āpernicious form of violence against womenā, admitting that sharing public space is often ānot in favour of womenā.
In Madrid, the leader of the anti-manspreading group Mujeres en Lucha (Women At War), Alejandra de la Fuente, says: āWomen have always been told to occupy the least amount of space possibly, and men havenāt.ā
Men are fighting back. Forrest Gump and Sleepless In Seattle actor Tom Hanks, who was accused of manspreading on the New York City subway, told The Late Late Show With James Corden that while, yes, he was taking up some extra space (he was splayed across a double seat with one leg crossed over the other, ankle on knee), the ātrain was half emptyā¦ there was plenty of roomā.
Men ājust adjustingā for body size
While there are both ācreepyā guys on the subway and those āhogging two seatsā, Mr Hanks says, āI donāt think Iām a particularly creepy guyā. “I was not manspreading,ā he calmly told Mr Corden. āI was just enjoying a pleasant ride on the number 2 train.”
Some science has even been released to explain menās predicament. According to data scientist Mark Skinner and EconoMonitor writer Ash Bennington, men are just adjusting for their body proportions, especially their āhigh shoulder-to-hip ratioā.
āProportionally, a man needs to secure more seat space using his legs than a woman would need to, in order for the man to maintain enough room to sit up in his seat,ā writes Mr Bennington.
Other anti-social public transport behaviours
Some of the research the duo points to shows that the average manās shoulders are 28 percent wider than his hips, while the average womanās shoulders are only three percent wider. Sitting with legs together is therefore a physical impossibility, they say, as āhis torso likely wonāt fit on the top half of the seatā.
Mr Skinner even claims that manspreading is a manās attempt to āavoid collisionsā in aisles on crowded trains. Hereās the science behind that argument: manspreading to a 30-degree angle apparently allows the male passenger to reduce the distance his knees protrude into the aisle by 3.1 inches.
It is worth noting that, while manspreading is hitting the headlines, it is not the only antisocial behaviour being targeted. Madrid is also targeting thoughtless passengers who put their feet on seats and listen to loud music on headphones while, in Boston, people carrying large, heavy backpacks are being asked to take them off when boarding the train to avoid banging into people.
My view on #manspreading
You should practice common courtesy throughout the day, wherever you are: do as you would be done by. Manspreading can be chauvinistic – but women putting large handbags to bag the spare seat next to them on a busy train are being just as rude. Few people would be brave enough to ask you to close your legs so if you must stretch out, be gentlemanly by apologising as you do so to the people sitting nearby. As the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority says in its anti-manspreading video campaign: āCourtesy counts.ā