‘Manspreading’ on New York Subways Is Target of New M.T.A. Campaign
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/nyregion/MTA-targets-manspreading-on-new-york-city-subways.html?_r=0
By Emma C. Fitzsimmons, December 20, 2014
(See website for a video.)
It is the bane of many female subway riders. It is a scourge tracked on blogs and on Twitter.
And it has a name almost as distasteful as the practice itself.
It is manspreading, the lay-it-all-out sitting style that more than a few men see as their inalienable underground right.
Now
passengers who consider such inelegant male posture as infringing on
their sensibilities — not to mention their share of subway space — have a
new ally: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Taking
on manspreading for the first time, the authority is set to unveil
public service ads that encourage men to share a little less of
themselves in the city’s ever-crowded subways cars.
The
targets of the campaign, those men who spread their legs wide, into a
sort of V-shaped slouch, effectively occupying two, sometimes even
three, seats are not hard to find. Whether they will heed the new ads is
another question.
Riding
the F train from Brooklyn to Manhattan on a recent afternoon, Fabio
Panceiro, 20, was unapologetic about sitting with his legs spread apart.
Manspreading in action. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority will address the practice as part a new ad campaign.
“I’m not going to cross my legs like ladies do,” he said. “I’m going to sit how I want to sit.”
And
what if Mr. Panceiro, an administrative assistant from Los Angeles, saw
posters on the train asking him to close his legs? “I’d just laugh at
the ad and hope that someone graffitis over it,” he said.
For
Ke
lley Rae O’Donnell, an actress who confronts manspreaders and tweets
photos of them, her solitary shaming campaign now has the high-powered
help of the transportation authority, whose ads will be plastered inside
subway cars.
“It
drives me crazy,” she said of men who spread their legs. “I find myself
glaring at them because it just seems so inconsiderate in this really
crowded city.”
When
Ms. O’Donnell, who lives in Brooklyn and is in her 30s, asks men to
move, she said, they rarely seem chastened: “I usually get grumbling or a
complete refusal.”
Kelley Rae O’Donnell, who confronts manspreaders and posts their photos online, captured an image of one on a train this month.
The
new ads — aimed at curbing rude behavior like manspreading and wearing
large backpacks on crowded trains — are set to go up in the subways next
month. They will all carry the slogan, “Courtesy Counts: Manners Make a
Better Ride.”
One
of the posters is likely to be especially welcome to women — as well as
to men who frown on manspreading: “Dude... Stop the Spread, Please”
reads the caption next to an image of riders forced to stand as a man
nearby sits so that he takes up two seats.
The
campaign is the latest in a long line of courtesy-themed crusades by
the authority going back to at least the 1940s. One such ad urged women
annoyed by impolite male riders to, “Hit Him Again Lady, We Don’t Like
Door-Blockers Either.”
The
new ads come as more riders are crowding onto the subways than at any
time in recent history. In 2014, the system logged as many as 6.1
million riders on a single day, up from just under 5.1 million riders on
the busiest day a decade ago. The city’s population, meanwhile, has
swelled to more than 8.4 million people, pushing everyone closer and
closer.
With crime no longer rampant on the subway, the campaign is the latest sign that other unwelcome behavior is getting attention.
Several blogs
regularly highlight instances of manspreading where knees stretch
several feet apart. On some sites, images of large objects like the Death Star
from “Star Wars” have been added with Photoshop into the space between
the splayed legs. While there are women who take up more than their
share of space, the offenders are usually men.
One admitted manspreader, John Hubbard, sat with his legs wide apart on an F train as it traveled through Manhattan recently.
“It’s more comfortable,” he said with a shrug.
Mr.
Hubbard, 45, an engineer who lives in New Jersey, said he might move
his leg, but not for just anyone. For an older person, he would. And for
an attractive woman, he said, he definitely would.
Sherod
Luscombe shook his head when he saw two men sitting with their legs
spread on another train, taking up three seats between them. Mr.
Luscombe, 58, a clinical social worker, said he thought the men should
move, but he was not about to confront them.
Ms. O’Donnell has little trouble finding subjects to photograph as part of her campaign.
“I’m not going to say, ‘Bro, there is a lady standing up right there. Cross your legs, young man,’ ” he said.
Women
have theories about why some men sit this way. Some believe it is just a
matter of comfort and may not even be intentional. Others consider it
an assertion of power, or worse.
Bridget
Ellsworth, a 28-year-old music teacher, views manspreading as sexual
harassment because some men engage in it near her even when the subway
car is not packed.
“They could move over and spread out their legs all they want,” she said, “but they’re squeezing next to me and doing it.”
For
men who think that sitting with their legs spread is socially
acceptable, manners experts say it is not. Peter Post, the author of the
book “Essential Manners for Men” and great-grandson of etiquette guru
Emily Post, said the proper way for men to sit is with their legs
parallel rather than in a V-shape.
“I’m baffled by people who do that kind of thing, who take other people’s space,” he said.
Olof
Hansson, a director of the Manhattan men’s spa John Allan’s, put it
more succinctly. “A true gentleman doesn’t sit on the subway, he
stands.”
As
for men who may worry that crossing their legs could hurt their
virility, doctors say there is nothing to fear. A half-hour train ride
with legs crossed might raise testicular temperatures, but not long
enough to do any harm, said Dr. Marc Goldstein, director of the center
for male reproductive medicine and microsurgery at NewYork-Presbyterian
Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Philadelphia has a new etiquette campaign, too, with posters that say, “Dude It’s Rude... Two Seats — Really?”
But
Kristin Geiger, a spokeswoman for the Southeastern Pennsylvania
Transportation Authority, said the campaign in the City of Brotherly
Love is aimed at passengers with bags on seats, not people spreading
their legs too far apart. Manspreading, she said, may be a “localized”
problem in New York. “I don’t know of any complaints that have come
through customer service about manspreading,” she said. Transit
officials in Chicago and Washington said the phenomenon is not a major
concern for riders in those cities either.
In
New York, the transportation authority went back and forth about what
tone to take when tackling the topic, said Paul Fleuranges, the
authority’s senior director for corporate and internal communications.
Officials knew it could be ripe for parody on late night television and
did not want their approach to be too snarky. But Mr. Fleuranges said he
knew that the ads had to speak directly to the spreaders.
“I had them add the dude part,” he said, “because I think, ‘Dude, really?’ "