Manspreading, ie, men sitting with their legs spread in a public setting, has become a Serious Issue to hardcore feminists, as explained over at National Review, which pulls the relevant complaints from feminists. If you manspread, you’re a part of the evil patriarchy, you’re exhibiting male dominance, blah blah blah. They always need something to complain about.
Manspreading arrests: the long arm of the law just invaded our personal space
As two men are arrested for ‘manspreading’ on the New York metro, Joel Snape argues that we should all take a bit of responsibility rather than making anti-social behaviour illegalBad news, tall men with a poor sense of boundaries: the NYPD have had enough of your nonsense. Yes, after op–eds in the New York Times (£), a popular crowdshaming Tumblr campaign and a series of public service ads from the Metropolitan Transport Authority, ‘manspreading’, or ‘sitting with your legs slightly too far apart’, as it used to be known, has apparently become a criminal offence.
According to a recent report from the Police Reform Organising Project, at least two men have been arrested and charged on grounds of the M–word, “presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders”. Rather than simply throwing out the charges, the judge issued an order that only guarantees that the men won’t suffer further repercussions if they avoid getting arrested again in the near future. It’s all part of a numbers driven crackdown on subway behaviour that’s also seen arrests for break dancing, walking between the cars and – collective air punch – people putting their feet on the seats. Nobody’s been arrested for playing dubstep on audio–leaking headphones yet, but it’s surely only a matter of time.
The two men were arrested in NYC. Think about that. Arrested for sitting with your legs spread out, taking up more than one seat. People can be fined $50 for taking up more than one seat if it interferes with the comfort of other passengers.
No, the main problem with arresting people for anti–social behaviour is that anti-social behaviour shouldn’t be illegal in the first place.
Criminal acts have clear boundaries, as in the case of murder, tax evasion, or torrenting episodes of Game Of Thrones; sitting with your legs too wide on a subway seat does not. Every commuter instinctively knows the difference between a man who’s tall enough to need a bit of extra room and someone who’s just being an arse, but in order to effectively prosecute it you’d need some sort of complex formula to determine guilt, which included variables like limb–length, testicular size, the number of other commuters on the train during the time of the offence and the always important willingness–to–be–accommodating–when–the–carriage–gets–crowded matrix.
What the feminists are attempting to do is make behaviour they do not like illegal. Men sit with their legs spread, when they aren’t crossed. Some sit with their legs spread more than others, and men will spread out when they can. It’s comfortable for us. That’s the way we roll. It’s not dominance, we aren’t trying to show how big are balls are, nor anything else the wacky feminists screech about.
That said, there is a time an place for everything. Going for the ultra-spread on the subway is a no no. But, there shouldn’t be any penalties, any more than people being on crowded public transportation taking up too much space.
There are lots of great comments at the article. Here’s my favorite
Manspreading will land you in jail but looting and rioting will gain you the respect of 47% of the American population. Makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense in Liberal World.
[…] Katherine Timpf, writing in the National Review with her tongue firmly planted in-cheek (hat tip to William Teach at Pirate’s Cove), points out the connection being made. And yes, it’s a bit of an unholy alliance, between […]
I knew I a guy once a while back that literally had rhino balls…. How could he not manspread?? I couldn’t imagine the pain of having to cross his legs or just have them straight.
On another note, I don’t think tax evasion should be considered a crime either. It’s more of a social contract debt, which by the way, under no circumstance does anyone owe anyone else, including the state, any obligation without consent or contract.
That’s why I believe even the term social contract is flawed because the word contract assumes both parties consent, but a social contract does not have consent of both parties and therefore violates natural contract law.
So if someone hasn’t paid their “debt to society” on purpose. That is not a crime. It’s more of a religious belief because it’s make believe world. You don’t owe anyone anything unless you agreed to it through a legitimate contract where both parties consent or you caused damage in some way and owe for reparations.
Not to add more food for the flames, this also reminds me of seat belt laws, or mandatory insurance laws, or anything else that does not directly deal with the violation of another person’s life and liberties.
Why can’t we just stick with real crimes with real victims. This artificial and make believe world is annoying and destructive.
Teach the men paid for one seat. They also are not allowed to lay down and take up more than one seat.
This is the way it is on airlines also. One person one seat
And they are not arrested they are ticketed the same as fare evasion or spitting or littering.
child abusers cheer arresting people for not sitting the way the child abusers want …. a sick freaking world
Teach et al,
Feminist InsanityConservative Bigotry Leads To Arrests For “Manspreadingâ€The Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP) document is an absolute treasure trove description of the state abusing and controlling its citizens. It’s long and thorough but worth reading.
Here is the total evidence in the document about the feminist war on men, the “manspreading” incidents, that have set off a firestorm on the right.
This is the basis for how many articles in the right wing echo chamber condemning women? Do you really think the midnight arrest of 2 Latino men was driven by feminist ire? Really?
How can any decent human read the entire PROP document and conclude that it supports the notion that feminists are attacking men? A decent person might conclude that a ticket for ‘manspreading’ is not doing the work of feminists, but is actually just another arrow in the quiver to keep minorities in line. Did you not read the document you cited?
But it’s obvious that Teach, like the odious jimhoft, rarely reads the nonsense he passes along.
Stunningly disgusting work on your part.
Desserttrash still hasn’t learned to read, and is a sick, freaking denizen.
Jeffery,
I think this wiki entry might help explain…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manspreading
Manspreading, or man-sitting, is the practice of sitting in public transport with legs wide apart, thereby covering more than one seat.[1][2] Both this posture and usage of the term, ‘manspreading’ has caused some internet criticism, and debates in the USA, UK, Turkey and Canada.[3][4] The term first appeared in public debate when a feminist anti-manspreading campaign was started on the social media website Tumblr in 2013; the validity of the term has been questioned.[5][6]
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in the New York metropolitan area and Sound Transit of Seattle have instituted poster campaigns encouraging respectful posture when other passengers have to stand due to crowding on buses and trains. Transport officials in cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., however, have denied that it is a significant problem.[1][4] The MTA campaign will carry slogans like “Dude, stop the spread please!”.[7] In some cases, people who find manspreading offensive have taken to photographing manspreading, and posting those images on the Internet.[1]
So, I am guessing the reason this is the basis for how many articles in the right wing echo chamber are condemning women is because, again, the term first appeared in public debate when a feminist anti-manspreading campaign was started on the social media website Tumblr in 2013.
Does that explain it…. I don’t think bashing those who started this whole mess should get off the hook just because the government has taken it on and now men in fancy uniforms, cool hats and shiny badges are enforcing it now.
This is what government has become… a method to commit violence against your neighbor without getting your own hands dirty over silly pet peeves.
So when is government going to actually be concerned with real crime and real victims issues???
And lastly…. not that I’m a conservative, nor would they want me representing the conservative uniform, but why does the Republicans and Conservatives always get labeled as minority haters?? Where in this report does it indicate that?
Keep minorities in line?? I’m not a Republican, but where in their platform does it say that they want to keep minorities in line?? It’s crazy that you accuse one group of people of extracting their own perception of the facts and then you follow it with your own?? Do you not see the hypocrisy in this behavior??
I love debating with you, man, but let’s debate… keep these silly back and forth this out of it. Atleast the title was reflecting the founders of “manspreading”.
Until now, I hadn’t even heard this term…. thank God I live in Iowa where people are not insane…. hahaha
We’re Midwestern neighbors… Missouri here. I have business associates in Iowa City.
The only authenticated use of gov’t force to enforce anti-manspreading was against two Latinos at midnight. It seems reasonable to assume this was not a man against woman issue at the time.
Someone dug through 24 pages, with a hundred examples of police mistreatment of citizens, mostly of minorities, to find one example where the police nailed a couple of guys for “manspreading”. They left out the part about it being Latinos, about it being after midnight, and added that it was because of feminists. Dishonest scholarship.
It’s a non-issue hyped by the right to bash feminists.
Please read the rest of the PROP article to be outraged over the real issue.
Why are Republicans and conservatives thought to hate minorities? Ask the minorities. Perhaps one reason is that conservatives somewhere read a 24 page report on the repeated abuse of minorities by the police and took away from it that the important point was that two men were arrested for sitting on the subway. And they wouldn’t even tell that 3 sentence story honestly. But ask some Black men why they don’t trust conservatives.
LOLOLOL…coming from you…..priceless.
“…conservatives somewhere read a 24 page report on the repeated abuse of minorities by the police…” But liberals never read, and don’t care about the much more prevalent abuse of minorities by other minorities. Those black live don’t matter- it doesn’t fit the narrative.
j,
So you approve of officers of the state oppressing citizens? Good to know. It’s why we fight so hard to keep conservatives out of power.