# On Manspreading **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 8, 2015, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945 "2015-10-08T18:01:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/61 "2015-10-09T14:56:28Z")
You people stop hijacking this lovely thread with your mansplaining. Took that shit to another thread. Back on topic. Ok, we all agree that manspreading is bad. But there is another related issue here that also needs to be addressed. Why is there so little womanspreading? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/62 "2015-10-09T15:02:36Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Some people - not many people, but some - take up too much room on public transit. That’s a fact. Why does it have to be made into some kind of political debate? Why create new gender-specific words for it? Because Gawker, Buzzfeed, HuffPo, etc need you to click their articles. Hey have you heard of this new thing called “Manscenting”? It’s when a dude with BO raises his arm to hold onto a rail or something and you smell his stink! This is a new thing that you need to be aware of if you’re to stay informed on gender issues! Quick, hashtag that shit and let’s get some clickbait rolling! ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/63 "2015-10-09T15:03:20Z")
Maybe seats are just not designed correctly. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/64 "2015-10-09T15:05:25Z")
If each person just got slid into a stacked tube, this wouldn’t a be an issue. I hear that’s how they do it in Japan. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/65 "2015-10-09T15:15:03Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > If each person just got slid into a stacked tube, this wouldn’t a be an issue. I hear that’s how they do it in Japan. It would if you spread your legs so wide that you got stuck in the tube. Or if they were so wide they couldn’t even GET you in the tube. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/66 "2015-10-09T16:20:36Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Are you purposefully not reading my posts? > > I don’t think I want to keep on explaining over and over again. This kind of argument is what makes this board suck, quite frankly. You try to say something, and you explain it, and you explain it, but people frankly refuse to listen and understand but continue to demand you explain yourself!!! > > I respectfully bow out of this game. This is mannotexplaining. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/67 "2015-10-09T16:22:35Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Because Gawker, Buzzfeed, HuffPo, etc need you to click their articles. > > Hey have you heard of this new thing called “Manscenting”? It’s when a dude with BO raises his arm to hold onto a rail or something and you smell his stink! This is a new thing that you need to be aware of if you’re to stay informed on gender issues! Quick, hashtag that shit and let’s get some clickbait rolling! If men were deliberately rubbing their smelly armpits in people’s faces, it would be a thing. But it’s not, so your point is pointless. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/68 "2015-10-09T16:25:55Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > But it’s not, so your point is pointless. Quick, give making a pointless point a cutesy, social media-friendly name so we can rail against it. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/69 "2015-10-09T16:29:04Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I’m not sure what putting the label “mansplaining” on something means. Does it mean the opinion is invalid, because a man cannot know what sexual harrassment really is? Is it offensive? Could, say, a male jury member rule on the matter, if you charged the guy with an offence? It’s a reference to a specific and all-too-common practice by some men of telling women that they are wrong about their own personal experiences. It’s not merely condescension on a massive scale; it’s persistent and aggressive condescension derived from a fundamental assumption that women can’t possibly properly understand things that have happened to them. And it gets its own label _because_ it happens a lot. > [@](#): > > Does the same work for a non-parent stating that a parent is wrong about a childrearing issue? If a non-parent says “no, from your discription of that incident, it sounds like you aren’t appropriately disciplining your child”, is that invalid/offensive “childfreesplaining”? If you want to coin that, good luck with it. > [@Jophiel](#): > > Quick, give making a pointless point a cutesy, social media-friendly name so we can rail against it. It’s already got one. It’s called “being a dick”. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/70 "2015-10-09T16:36:56Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s already got one. It’s called “being a dick”. Calm your tits tender nuts. Jophiel was making a hypothetical. You retards need to stop taking everything so literally. Unless that is you retard affliction. Then go back to punching your nuts instead of jumping peoples shit because you can’t understand things. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/71 "2015-10-09T16:37:22Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s already got one. It’s called “being a dick”. See, now I would have said the same about people taking up excessive space on mass transit but we’ve squeezed multiple cutesy names out of that so we can hashtag our subway adventures. But no one’s going to click a Gawker link to see what this new “Being a Dick” phenomenon is all about. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/72 "2015-10-09T17:20:14Z")
[QUOTE=Gyrate] Exactly. Which is why Tithonus’s desperate false equivalence is both pathetically obvious and obviously pathetic. So much anger against women, masking so much personal insecurity. [/quote] Oh, blow it out your arse, Freud. You’re the one trying to gender a ubiquitous discourtesy practised by people of both sexes. Why do you hate men so much? Daddy leave when you were a kid? Smack you around? What’s the source of your trauma? > [@Tithonus](#): > > In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be manspreaders or shebaggers. There’d just be normal people, and inconsiderate assholes. See me taking gender out of the equation like that? Yeah, that’s some weapons-grade misogyny right there, isn’t it? Dozy cunt. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/73 "2015-10-09T17:22:07Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > Do you also walk with your knees at a forty degree angle? I mean, the shit fits. So to speak. When I walk everything hangs out in front, where it’s attached. Do you understand gravity? ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/74 "2015-10-09T18:20:30Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Some people - not many people, but some - take up too much room on public transit. That’s a fact. Why does it have to be made into some kind of political debate? Why create new gender-specific words for it? My impression is that sitting like this is a new thing, a sort of trendy hyper-masculine dominant male thing that the Youth are adopting, a new and somewhat bizarre way to assert how manly you are to the generic public. There certainly are fads in body language. And if that’s the case, it is sort of an example of obsession with being manly basically being incredibly annoying to everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/75 "2015-10-09T18:43:45Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I think then my question is why anyone needed to pretend this phenomenon is uniquely male and therefore merited being named as it is was, or why the LinusKs of the world want to turn it into a “women are worse” argument. > > Some people - not many people, but some - take up too much room on public transit. That’s a fact. Why does it have to be made into some kind of political debate? Why create new gender-specific words for it? > > I think maybe it’s not so much a battle of the sexes thing as it is the Internet phenomenon of creating new words and terms of art for common things in an effort to make them seem new. Recently a fun one is “ghosting,” the phenomenon by which someone who doesn’t want to see you romantically anymore just doesn’t return your calls and texts. To read some articles on this wholly unnecessary new term you’d think this was both a new phenomenon and the worst thing since the Killing Fields. In fact it’s just, you know, s/he isn’t that into you, a phenomenon as old as the human race itself. But it sounds cooler if you invent a word for it. I wholeheartedly endorse this post, but I’m a cisgendered white male so my opinion is worthless. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/76 "2015-10-09T18:53:16Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > Do you have similar analytical difficulty with, say, the label “whining?” It’s a label that means a certain thing is happening. When somebody says the label describes particular behavior, they mean that the behavior fits that description. It doesn’t mean some bullshit about a jury. It means somebody’s fucking whining. > > What’s confusing about that? This seems like a total non sequitur. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/77 "2015-10-09T18:54:59Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Are you purposefully not reading my posts? > > I don’t think I want to keep on explaining over and over again. This kind of argument is what makes this board suck, quite frankly. You try to say something, and you explain it, and you explain it, but people frankly refuse to listen and understand but continue to demand you explain yourself!!! > > I respectfully bow out of this game. I’m pointing out an inconsistency here. Whether you want to explain it is, of course, up to you. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/78 "2015-10-09T19:05:46Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > It’s a reference to a specific and all-too-common practice by some men of telling women that they are wrong about their own personal experiences. It’s not merely condescension on a massive scale; it’s persistent and aggressive condescension derived from a fundamental assumption that women can’t possibly properly understand things that have happened to them. And it gets its own label _because_ it happens a lot. And sometimes, surprisingly enough, people _are_ in fact wrong about “their personal experiences” - man or woman. Particularly in their interactions with other people. I don’t take other people’s word automatically in other situations, why must I do so in this one? Yes, sometimes people making the claim (that someone is wrong about their personal experience) are “massively condescending”. Other times, they are not. > [@](#): > > If you want to coin that, good luck with it. I don’t want to, because I think it would be silly. _Of course_ I think non-parents are sometimes right about parental experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/79 "2015-10-09T19:58:23Z")
> [@sitchensis](#): > > When I walk everything hangs out in front, where it’s attached. Do you understand gravity? Wait, you mean that pain in my testicles I’ve been feeling every time I sit down for the last 58 years is because I’m sitting on them? Holy cow, am I the only one that didn’t know that? Look, asshole, just don’t be a fucking asshole. If your shits that big that you can’t sit without taking up three spaces, you belong in a circus sideshow instead of a subway car. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945/80 "2015-10-09T19:58:30Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > I define mansplaining as “men explaining to women, women’s issues”. For example that gym thing recently. Women would come in saying why they might feel comfortable in a women only gym and gave examples and stuff and yet men kept coming in telling us how we were wrong. That is mansplaining to me. Ok. Again though, I’m pretty sure that some women insist on explaining men’s issues to men. I’ve gotten “that’s how men think” on occasion. I just consider this talking at your ass or criticizing things you don’t know about. It seems to me a pretty general failing of the human race. In fact, it seems to me that the term “mansplaining” is itself a version of this itself, suggesting that men specifically think this way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-manspreading/733945.md?page=5)