What are you, a frog?
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After 27 years don’t you think it’s time for a change?
Before we all settled on the name manspreading, I used to prefer the alternate word “lava balls”. It is such a overt attempt at dominating the physical space. (put the same person in a smaller movie theater seat with armrests, do they not fit because their legs are too wide? Put a laptop in their lap, does it fall through without thighs to support it?)
But I do want to comment on my opposite peeve. Sitting on a subway car seat with your legs crossed above the knee tends to make the let flair out so far that the foot nearly touches the pole. That winds up hindering passage through the car.
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Why is this not just the default response once a reasonable request has been ignored? If someone’s bag is in your seat, you move it and sit down. If someone’s knee is in your way, you sit down in your seat and let them handle their part of the arrangement. If someone’s blocking a doorway and won’t move to let you out, you push past them.
Is this really a revelation for people, instead of just normal and expected train/bus behaviour?
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Interesting. Should the people filing suite on Uber do the same, buck up and call a cab company?
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Why use the word manspreading? Are women not capable of taking more than their fair share of space?
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They are much less likely to do so, actually.
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Just telling the truth; though yes standing would be what I do when seats get few. Guess I just couldn’t resist the urge to be snarky.
I just don’t like that people really get offended about manspreading; especially when there are plenty of seats. Why should I be uncomfortable, when there is plenty of room?
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Sitting this way in a private setting, or where space is abundant is not really an issue. I personally think its rude to brazenly spread your legs for all to see your crotch, but maybe I am old fashioned in this.
That being said, any sitting position that takes up more than the allotted sitting space for your person on a crowded public transportation vehicle is just outright rude to those around you. manspreading, is only one such issue. People who sit like this on a crowded bus or train are as guilty of being fairly obtuse as manspreaders…
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I would think the general consensus would be women are less likely to spread themselves out like that having been taught as kids to “sit like a lady”.
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Right, which is what I said, with much less detail! 
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Sounds like you need to ride Big Red (aka The Grope Line)
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That and the lack of anatomy.
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I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have an issue with my knee joints (arthritis?) and if they stay in one position for longer than a couple of minutes they begin to ache terribly. So I change my sitting position on a regular basis, and, yes, sit like your picture.
The difference, though, is that I don’t do this when it would impede someone else or when the train/bus is completely full. In those cases, I stand and stretch my knees while standing.
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Attempt to move goal posts. 5 yard penalty. 4th down.
9 times out of 10 there is not this mythical extra room you speak of. The issue comes down to idiots not paying attention that they are A. Manspreading and B. That maybe three stops ago there was room but there is clearly not now.
Also, what right do you feel you have to take up extra space than you actually need?
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Ok well how about this.
Why can’t the person standing just take the pain/inconvenience of standing?
Same logic, right?
I am not defending able bodied people being rude, but if one has a medical issue that causes pain, I am inclined to cut them a break.
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So in your case: Two seats available taken up by one manspreader. Second person should just stand then because manspreader was there first and he deserves the right to take up both seats?
So we are to assume all manspreaders have a condition that requires them to sit like uneducated monkeys?
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Speaking as an official man, I just want to say:
- I have never man-spread
- I don’t understand why anyone would do it
- It’s pure ostentatious selfishness
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The trick to using seatless trains is to let go, rise above the situation, and use the other meatbags as cushioning. Putting down roots is for trees.
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That probably tends to be the reason far more often than how most women are socialized to ‘sit properly,’ methinks.
That said, people who are so self-absorbed as to be utterly oblivious to their surroundings and therefore have no consideration for other sharing the same public space are highly annoying, regardless to gender.
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