it's stuff like this that makes me feel I need a point and laugh tag

[james_davis_nicoll]

Manspreading! A biological need!

I didn't see comments but if they are there, they won't be good.

Comments

[kraig]

The top-rated ones are about what you'd expect.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

There is no difference in the world between the sitting with your knees straight forward you had to do every day in school and being forced to cross your legs like a (gasp) lady. Why, if you can't show off your manbulge, people might doubt your right to take up space at all.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

And what of the female manspreaders, eh?

http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/james_nicoll/5045564/90949/90949_600.jpg

[hot-soup.livejournal.com]

Ha! Nice callback to a recent post :)

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Is that an award category now?

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Being comparatively rare, they should be preserved.

In aspic, for choice.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

I initially misread the link tag as "Mansplaining! A biological need!" which was funny for a related, but not identical, reason.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

As did I.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I had no idea CAFE had charitable status.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention that.

https://nowtoronto.com/news/mens-rights-group-used-feminists-names-on-charity-application/

Not sure how many people know this, but the dude who's been heavily involved with CAFE, Justin Trottier, also used to run the Canadian branch of the Centre For Inquiry (CFI), an atheist/skeptic org, and his family's pretty intertwined in that scene in Canada.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Smaller male genitals need greater access to the atmosphere. It's science!

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Perhaps something can be done with a portable CPAP apparatus? Of course, the breathing mask will require some reconfiguration.

[sesmo.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the comments. So far these two are my favorite:

"Spreading my legs is not a metaphor, my TESTICLES are not a metaphor, they are there."

"Men have a high center of gravity, broad shoulders, and narrow hips. Because of this we'll tip over if we sit with our legs together."

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Indeed, I'm always having to shout "TIMBER!" four or five times per faculty meeting. All the male faculty members toppling over every few minutes, it's no wonder we never get anything done.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Mansplains the gummit, that's fer shure. ;)

Love, c.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

"Men have a high center of gravity, broad shoulders, and narrow hips. Because of this we'll tip over if we sit with our legs together."

...this is so stupid it's somehow become just adorable. :3 Poor Weeble-men! So easily tipped over by cruel gravity!! And if you flip them on their backs they just lie their waving their arms and legs, they can't even get up! SCIENCE!!!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

No, they're NON-Weeble men. Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down, because they ARE weighted at the bottom.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Oh, true. Now I kinda want to write the terrible evo-psych relationship book based on this theory... "Women are Weebles, Men are Jenga"! You see, women's lower center of gravity makes them more physically grounded and therefore nurturing, while men with their giant muscular top-heavy torsos are so easily tipped over it makes them really guarded, right? And you have to take that into account when approaching their tender-man emotions and give them the space to spread their emotional knees, so to speak. science!

[rehana.livejournal.com]

And all that thinking about how not to tip over makes them better engineers!

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Exactly! And it makes them more adventurous and aggressive, because they have to keep constantly moving forward to keep their balance, like a bike, and if they stop, they'll tip over.

Oh, and that's probably also why men are inherently non-monogamous while women, who can more easily stop and settle, are naturally monogamous.

IT ALL FITS

[anzhalyumitethe.livejournal.com]

these days probably a majority of men are too.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

I'd have taken that line for moderately-clever satire if it weren't for the sentence that followed it.

[mcbadger.livejournal.com]

It's funny how none of these arguments seem to apply when these guys are standing up, does it? Or do they all walk like Charlie Chaplin, so they'll be Taken Seriously?

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

Well then let them manspread. But they have to pay three fares instead of one. Watch how quickly they stop.

[freshninja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, taking up more than one space if the bus/train is filled to capacity when you don't have to is rude. Though if everyone who takes extra space pays extra...

What about people with shopping bags? Do people who put them in their leg space or on another seat pay extra - triple or double fare, respectively?

I take up way less space than some of the really overweight people I've shared the bus with. Does that mean I pay less fare? Does the overweight person routinely pay double fare for taking up more than the "standard human size" allotted space?

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

This has been tried on airlines, usually with no good results. Not so much with public transit.

If people were to pay fares proportional to the space they occupy, there would be fewer strollers on the streetcars and busses.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I'd be OK with that. (Well, except for the cases where the mother is clearly doing it because she can't afford child care. There's a particular wild-eyed resignation.)

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I live in Toronto. Nobody can afford child care.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

And it's not okay if the mother is taking her baby to the doctor? Or the park? Or the library? Or to visit her friend?

The answer to "too many strollers taking up too much space on public transportation" is "then we need more goddamn buses and trains." Not "leave your babies in a box till they're old enough to pay their own fare."

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

I favour alongside this a mild, non-shaming push to show people the wonders of slings and other babywearing equipment. But the most important words there are "mild" and "non-shaming." Sometimes circumstances or health or number of kids quite reasonably forbid. Or the parent or the kid hate it. Or whatever.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

This, precisely.

This is one of those Progressives' Dilemmas: social disapproval and disincentives are not bad in themselves, we instinctively feel, but in an unjust society they are always applied unjustly.

As for me, I will continue, on boarding a fullish public conveyance, to help stroller and wheelchair and cane users as required and then make directly for the nearest manspreader and loudly and cheerfully carol "Excuse me!" While aiming my ass at one of their knees.

I mention this so that people who wish to practice their Person Who Has Boarded The Streetcar Unaccompanied impressions may have ample time to do so.

[lostwanderfound.livejournal.com]

Is there no obvious difference between people who require more than typical single-person volume due to genuine biological or practical reasons, and those who take the space due to entitled deluded douchebaggery?

[freshninja.livejournal.com]

It's all on a scale of convenience. Genuine biological reasons - are people incapable of lowering their weight as a service to their health and the public? Practical reasons - can't people put shopping bags on their laps?
Unless you have magic mindreading powers, you don't know if people put their shopping bags out of convenience on the seat next to them, or because they don't want anyone sitting next to them.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

There IS a quantifiable difference: the manspreader's argument is obvious bullshit. Taking the space you genuinely need, at a given time, no matter why you need it, and taking the space you bloody feel like having and devil take the hindermost aren't actually the same thing.

Which even the manspreaders concede, or they wouldn't be spouting this crap trying to justify their behaviour.

The problem is, see above comment, some jerk will immediately come along and argue that nobody HAS to have kids or experience middle-aged spread or leave the house while one-legged or shop while possessed of a bad shoulder or Christ only knows, so we'll have to carry on as best we can, meanwhile.

One short sentence ...

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

...which explains so much about why initiatives to encourage people to increase public transport use fail:

I want to give my balls breathing space when taking the TTC.

Re: One short sentence ...

[tandw.livejournal.com]

Wait, they breathe? Get this man to a biology lab, stat! Some dissection may be involved, but that's a small price to pay...for SCIENCE!

Re: One short sentence ...

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

as my dear old Gran used to say (though usually to/of men who scratched obnoxiously in public) , "HAVE you tried washing them?"

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

Who's going to enforce this? Not the poor driver, I hope.

[seawasp]

I don't have a tag, but I've got a point-and-laugh icon...

[freshninja.livejournal.com]

You're presupposing that people you're okay with taking extra space have unavoidable, good reasons for taking up extra space. That's not an argument, that's a pat on your own back.

I already stated that people taking up extra space in a full bus when they don't need to is rude. I guess my condemnation isn't vehement enough for you.

EDIT: dammit LJ, I was replying to the above post directed at me, not starting a new sub-thread...