BART, MUNI, and AC Transit riders are fully aware that seats are sacred commodities. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been forced to stand on BART because some lady has all her shopping bags taking up extra seats, some kid didn’t want to put his backpack on the ground, or some jackass decided he needed to sit with his legs splayed. And of course, there’s a term for that last one: When a man occupies two seats, with his legs wide open in a ‘V’ formation, that’s called "manspreading."
Manspreading seems to be an ever-growing problem in New York. Activists are shaming guilty men through photos on social media, inspiring the MTA to begin a campaign to eliminate this ‘epidemic.’ New public service ads will feature posters depicting a figure sitting with legs open and the tagline: “Dude, stop the spread, please. It’s a space issue.” This "manspreading" crusade isn’t anything new, but there’s been a renewed interest as of late — across both coasts.
The #manspreading movement has made its way to San Francisco. MUNI officials will survey riders for their thoughts on this phenomenon and various other issues regarding transit improvements. This comes after activists took it upon themselves to shame male culprits by posting photos to their Twitter and Facebook.
There’s one problem here, though: men aren’t the only offenders. Sure, some dudes seem to need to sit with a slightly wide legged stance, but they’re not the sole seat hoggers. If we’re going to shame one, we should shame all people guilty of this greedy act. Equal opportunity shaming, I always say. How about we tell women to stop “ladysplaying” or the kids to stop “adolescentflopping?” Or why not create gender ambiguous hashtags that convey the same thing? We could play off and create a new “Occupy” movement: #OccupyOnlyOneSeat, #OccupySmallSpace, #OccupyThinkTiny or keeping it even simpler, #NoRudeRiders or just #DontBeABARTHole and #DontBeAMUNIHole.
Rudeness is a trait found in people male and female, young or old and seat hogging is one etiquette breach that doesn’t discriminate.
Photo of some serious #ladyspreading from the NYC subway by @Ali94/Twitter
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