Man spreading

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Manspreading, here on the Stockholm subway .

Manspreading is a suitcase word made up of man (English for: 'man') and -spreading (English verb to spread , German ' spreizen '). The term describes the behavior of men to sit with their legs apart in public places.

phenomenon

The debate about the bulky posture of men in public, especially on public transport , began in 2013 with a campaign on Tumblr . A year later the phenomenon was referred to with the suitcase word manspreading . A campaign by the New York City Transportation Company MTA popularized the term in late 2014. OxfordDictionaries.com has listed the word since 2015.

Reviews and social impact

Journalists Ash Bennington and Mark Skinner argue that the splayed sitting posture is a natural consequence of the male physique. The Telegraph calls this claim chauvinism. Furthermore, sports scientist Ina Hunger and social scientist and gender researcher Paul Scheibelhofer argue that manspreading is acquired or learned behavior. Many female passengers on public transport perceive manspreading as an unpleasant intrusion into their privacy, to which they are exposed almost every day, while men in Germany are often not familiar with the term manspreading alone.

Tanya Vacharkulksemsuk from the University of Berkeley in California showed in a study that men with spread legs and arms are generally more attractive to their counterparts. She found this out from photographs, with 87% of female evaluators finding it more attractive when men sat with their legs apart. On the other hand, it tended to be perceived as unattractive when women sit like this. In contrast, a cross-legged sitting posture is often viewed as more feminine in a positive sense.

Response from carriers

United States

The New York-based rail company Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has decided, following complaints, to put up advertising notices that should indicate that space should be kept to a minimum. In 2014, transportation officials in Chicago and Washington, DC did not generally find any complaints about manspreading. Since then , signs have been put up not only in New York, but also in Philadelphia and Seattle , Washington . In 2016, Chicago also started a corresponding advertising campaign. Los Angeles and San Francisco have fined $ 100 since 2016 from those who claim a second seat despite being asked to release.

Canada

In Toronto in 2014, a representative of the Toronto Transit Commission said she was unaware of complaints about manspreading. But as early as January 2015, voices were raised calling for a procedure like the one in New York, which led to a counter-campaign.

Austria

In November 2019, Wiener Linien started the fight against the phenomenon with social media postings such as “Be a man of honor and keep your legs zam!” . The company's spokesman, Christoph Heshmatpour, stated that 500,000 people were reached on Facebook alone and 16,000 direct reactions were counted on Twitter . In the discussion that has been initiated, three fronts are in balance: participants who think the post is “great”, those who are upset about it and a group who makes fun of the second group. Also, in counter-campaigns with the slogan “Owa with da Toschen, otherwise there's going to the Goschn!” , Violence against women who had the she-bagging as an occasion was called for.

Spain

Man spreading in buses has been banned in Madrid since 2017. The feminist group Microrrelatos Feministas considers the sitting position to interfere with the freedom of the person sitting next to you. So they started an online petition that more than 12,000 people signed. The left-wing party Podemos wants to develop the suggestion even further and also ban manspreading in underground trains.

Japan

In Japan there were campaigns against the phenomenon as early as the 1970s.

reception

In 2016, an exhibition was held in New York City in the branch of the New York Transit Museum in Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan . She showed international examples of campaigns against bad behavior on public transport since the 1940s. Posters opposing manspreading were also on display.

criticism

She-bagging, on the London Underground .

The term has been criticized as sexist because of its stereotyping of the male gender . It was also criticized that similar behaviors, which are primarily caused by women, are mostly ignored by the “manspreading” campaigns. One of these behaviors, which is primarily based on the female gender, would be what is known as "she-bagging", for example. "She-bagging" is about a person depositing their bags on the seats and thus taking up space.

Web links

Commons : Manspreading  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Amy Cuddy: Your body speaks for you: work from within, convince, radiate . Mosaik Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-641-17460-6 ( google.ch [accessed on May 11, 2017]).
  2. ↑ Manspreading: how New York City's MTA popularized a word without saying it. December 12, 2015, accessed October 24, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Ash Bennington, Mark Skinner: Manspreading: The Myth & The Math (Dude) , accessed January 16, 2016.
  4. ↑ Manspreading: When men use science to excuse chauvinism . In: The Telegraph . ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed May 11, 2017]).
  5. ↑ Why man spreading is a bigger problem than many think . In: Vice . May 26, 2017 ( vice.com [accessed April 27, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Peter Weissenburger: The phenomenon of man spreading: legs wide . In: The daily newspaper: taz . January 30, 2016, ISSN  0931-9085 ( taz.de [accessed April 27, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Florentin Schumacher: Manspreading: Spread out! In: FAZ.NET . January 1, 2018, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 27, 2018]).
  8. ↑ Franziska Pohl: Manspreading: an appeal. In: Franziska Pohl. April 27, 2018. Retrieved April 27, 2018 .
  9. ↑ Olga Khazan: When Manspreading Is Sexy . In: The Atlantic . ( theatlantic.com [accessed May 29, 2017]).
  10. ^ David H. Barlow, E. Joyce Reynolds, W. Stewart Agras: Gender Identity Change in a Transsexual . In: Archives of General Psychiatry . tape 28 , no. 4 , April 1973, ISSN  0003-990X , pp. 571 , doi : 10.1001 / archpsyc.1973.01750340089014 .
  11. ↑ Emma G. Fitzgimmons: A Scourge Is Spreading. MTA's Cure? Dude, close your legs. . In: The New York Times (online edition).
  12. ^ Emma G. Fitzsimmons: 'Manspreading' on New York Subways Is Target of New MTA Campaign . In: The New York Times . December 20, 2014, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed May 29, 2017]).
  13. ^ One body, one seat: Seattle's campaign against the 'manspreading' scourge. In: reuters.com. January 17, 2015, accessed July 23, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Nail Clipping On The Metra ?! New Campaign Asks For Manners On Train. (No longer available online.) In: dnainfo.com. July 11, 2016, archived from the original on September 22, 2017 ; accessed on July 23, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dnainfo.com
  15. ↑ Alex Dobuzinskis: California mass transit cracks down on 'seat hogs' and 'manspreaders'. In: ca.news.yahoo.com. April 21, 2016, accessed July 23, 2017 .
  16. ↑ Anti-'manspreading' campaign called sexist. Retrieved May 29, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Rahul Gupta: TOinTRANSIT: TTC riders want an end to 'man-spreading' -. In: insidetoronto.com. December 31, 2014, accessed July 23, 2017 .
  18. ↑ "Manspreading" -Posting "very successful" , ORF online Vienna on November 7, 2019
  19. ↑ sk: "Manspreading": Men are no longer allowed to sit like this in Madrid. In: Huffington Post. June 11, 2017. Retrieved July 22, 2017 .
  20. ^ Johnny: How Mass Transit Has Combated Manspreading. In: spoon-tamago.com. December 25, 2014, accessed July 23, 2017 .
  21. ↑ By Associated Press: 'Manspreading' illustrated: Exhibit studies subway etiquette. In: dailymail.co.uk. April 1, 2016, accessed July 23, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Is the 'manspreading' campaign just prejudice against big guys? In: Telegraph.co.uk . ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed May 8, 2017]).
  23. ↑ Why should 'manspreading' be just for men? In: The Guardian . August 28, 2015, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed May 9, 2017]).
  24. ↑ Young: 'Manspreading'? But women hog subway space, too . In: Newsday . ( newsday.com [accessed May 8, 2017]).