I did see a lot of people taking up a lot of space with their backpack on; women crossing their legs and sticking their shoes out to the space between the seats (I guess free shoe polish as you try to negotiate the walkway, right?), and people being dicks in general to each other for no particular reason. I was even thanked once by a lady when I took off my backpack before entering the train... thanked for not being a dick. So I have seen enough assholery, but it was not gender specific. It was just people being assholes.
Anyhow. Manspreading. It does not exist. It is used to ridicule and shame one half of the population, but it is a non-existing problem. Don't even try to argue that it only tarnishes the inconsiderate assholes who manspread; you have the word "man" in the expression, for Pete's sake! Same goes with the term mansplaining... there assholes who mansplain usually do it to people regardless of gender; and there are assholes who mansplain and have a vagina. (Interestingly the above linked study shows exactly that: men "mansplain" to each other just as much as to women -which is the exact definition of equal treatment.) It's a term about assholes who think they know everything best, regardless of what dangles between their legs. If you think that it does not tarnish all men, try to use the term "Jewccupation" for the Occupied Territories, and see how people will take your explanation that you only mean the State of Israel and the settlers, but not the entirety of the Jewish people. (By the way, I have dibs on that term; I just came up with it.) The reason certain women attribute a gender aspect is to "mansplaining"or "manspreading" is that they can't imagine this could happen to them for any other reason than their gender.* Which says a lot about them, to be honest. It's also really interesting to watch that on one hand this feminist movement wants to "ungender" language (spokeperson, using "they" instead of he/she), but on the other it keeps pumping out divisive, gendered words.
This is an excellent tactics if you are in identity politics; by stating manspreading is a fact as a fact, you establish it as one. From then on people start arguing about why it is justified or not justified, instead of asking you to justify your original assertion to begin with. So you will see furious arguments on the Guardian's comment section between men and women about how your balls need or does not need more space, instead of stopping to ask if it is a problem at all? (To pitch in: my balls are regular sized as far as I can determine; I never had issues sitting with my legs closed.)
So. What did I do in my only instance of a guy (or a gal) overspreading his/her (or their?) boundaries, you ask? Did I write a furious opinion piece in The Guardian about the Patriarchy, the Gender Pay Gap, and The Oppression of Women by All Men? Did I launch an anti-elbow campaign? #killallwhiteelbows?
No.
I told him to move his hand back.
He got red as a beetroot, and moved his fucking hand back. Case closed.
So the moral of the story: if you have someone manspreading next to you (by which I mean sticking his/her backpack into your face, not letting you exit, not moving inside the carriage to let you on), you can do two things: either you generate a fake social movement for gender equality, shaming and ridiculing one half of the human race, or, you know, you can fucking ask them to move. I wonder which is the most constructive solution.
*Are there genuinely sexist men who think women are stupid? Undoubtedly. But how many? And how many women harbour similar thoughts about men? Have you had a woman explain to you how to do the freaking washup or change nappies?
