On Manspreading

[sitchensis]

@Frank

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.

Okay, I kind of feel bad because I feel like I’m yelling at a retard.

This is my post, I figure you might need a second chance to read it because you obviously didn’t read it the first time.

@sitchensis

This is the first I’ve heard about manspreading so maybe you guys are talking about some extreme behavior I’ve never seen, but when I sit down my junk falls between my legs. I’m not showing it off, it’s hidden by the crotch of my pants. I have to sit with my knees open at maybe a 40 degree angle because there is something physically there. Is that what you guys are talking about?

Where the hell do you get anything about me taking up three spaces? The only conclusion I can come up with is that you don’t know what the fuck 40 degrees looks like. Everybody in this thread seemed to get it what I was talking about, but not good old Frank. He needed to get his lame ass gotcha in, “do you also walk with your knees at a 40 degree angle?” Fucking pathetic.

[woodstockbirdybird]

@Jophiel

How do you feel about reclining airline seats?

I don’t care about it at all. I know it’s an option on every single commercial flight, so why would I get upset about it?

[woodstockbirdybird]

@Scylla

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.

That’s because a lot of men do. Way, way, way more than women do to men. Look for it and you’ll notice it’s pretty common. Why so many men (I’m a man myself, FTR) get defensive and shout “But women do it too!” instead of realizing it’s not about them and trying to actually listen and not be a dick is beyond me.

[Scylla]

@woodstockbirdybird

That’s because a lot of men do. Way, way, way more than women do to men. Look for it and you’ll notice it’s pretty common. Why so many men (I’m a man myself, FTR) get defensive and shout “But women do it too!” instead of realizing it’s not about them and trying to actually listen and not be a dick is beyond me.

I’m calling bullshit.

I agree that men do it a lot. I am surrounded by women. They do it all the time, as well.

White people do it to black people and tell them how they should be black. Black people will tell white people what it means to be white.

Hell, if you to introduce me to someone who’s Beligian, I’ll probably end up explaining the Belgian experience to them. I’ve never been to Belgium.

Talking out of our asses and giving people unsolicited advice, is what separates us from the apes.

[Stringbean]

I can’t hold a rationally-consistent argument about gender equality = mansplaining

[woodstockbirdybird]

@Scylla

I’m calling bullshit.

I agree that men do it a lot. I am surrounded by women. They do it all the time, as well.

White people do it to black people and tell them how they should be black. Black people will tell white people what it means to be white.

Hell, if you to introduce me to someone who’s Beligian, I’ll probably end up explaining the Belgian experience to them. I’ve never been to Belgium.

Talking out of our asses and giving people unsolicited advice, is what separates us from the apes.

I’m surrounded by women all the time, too - they make up 87% of my workplace - and they never do it. I see men doing it all the time, though. I also live in Oakland, and I have to say I’ve never heard black people tell white people what it means to be white. Explaining white privilege, maybe, by pointing out how different it is to live in society as a black person, but since that’s true, and most white people don’t try to understand it but, just like with mansplaining, get defensive instead, I don’t see it as a problem. I don’t know what to tell you. If you’d explain the Belgian experience to a Belgian, maybe you’re just an asshole.

[Memnon]

One of the problems with “mansplaining”, (apart from the fact that it’s an innately irritating neologism, like ‘guesstimate’ or ‘amazeballs’) is that, as time goes on, its definition seems to get broader and broader. Whereas it once denoted the act of summarily dismissing and/or explaining away a woman’s subjective interpretations of her own experience (ie. “That’s just harmless banter, not sexual harassment. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”), it’s now used so casually that it encompasses anything up to and including disagreeing with a woman about anything. More than once, I’ve been accused of “mansplaining” simply for suggesting that the gender pay gap is largely explained by the personal career choices that women, on aggregate, tend to make. That’s just statistics!

And, as with “manspreading”, it works both ways. I’ve met plenty of women who love nothing more than explaining to men how their own minds work. “Guys only think with their dicks”, “Men can only think about one thing at a time”, “Most men are emotional cripples” the list is endless. A friend of mine who happens to be rather indifferent to sport, upon telling his co-workers that his wife was expecting a baby boy, was asked by a woman in his office “How can you expect to raise a son if you don’t like football?” I mean, what the fuck is that?!

Some men are condescending arseholes. Some aren’t. Some women are condescending arseholes. Some aren’t. We don’t need a deliberately gendered word to describe the phenomenon of condescension as if only one gender ever does it. People just need to stop being arseholes, end of.

[Scylla]

@woodstockbirdybird

I’m surrounded by women all the time, too - they make up 87% of my workplace - and they never do it. I see men doing it all the time, though. I also live in Oakland, and I have to say I’ve never heard black people tell white people what it means to be white. Explaining white privilege, maybe, by pointing out how different it is to live in society as a black person, but since that’s true, and most white people don’t try to understand it but, just like with mansplaining, get defensive instead, I don’t see it as a problem. I don’t know what to tell you. If you’d explain the Belgian experience to a Belgian, maybe you’re just an asshole.

New York next Pa, here. Mostly men in the workplace, mostly women outside, so it seems that we are not only on opposite coasts but that our work/mix is also inverted. I don’t think that it’s very surprising that our anecdotal experiences differ. That, plus confirmation bias makes these comparisons meaningless.

Anyway, it’s not like there is a gene that makes men talk down to women, that women don’t have toward men, or that works for white people but not black. The only logical conclusion is that some people like to talk down to other people.

I personally think that assigning gender specific nouns to this inarguably common behavior describes more about the prejudices of the person using them than anything else.

And yes, I have a tendency toward asshole that I fight with varying degrees of success, but I was really just making an exampl to describe human nature in general and used “I” self deprecatingly rather than the generic “you” to avoid you thinking I meant you specifically. Just trying to be nice.

[woodstockbirdybird]

@Scylla

New York next Pa, here. Mostly men in the workplace, mostly women outside, so it seems that we are not only on opposite coasts but that our work/mix is also inverted. I don’t think that it’s very surprising that our anecdotal experiences differ. That, plus confirmation bias makes these comparisons meaningless.

Anyway, it’s not like there is a gene that makes men talk down to women, that women don’t have toward men, or that works for white people but not black. The only logical conclusion is that some people like to talk down to other people.

I personally think that assigning gender specific nouns to this inarguably common behavior describes more about the prejudices of the person using them than anything else.

And yes, I have a tendency toward asshole that I fight with varying degrees of success, but I was really just making an exampl to describe human nature in general and used “I” self deprecatingly rather than the generic “you” to avoid you thinking I meant you specifically. Just trying to be nice.

Well, there’s certainly no gene that makes men talk down to women and dismiss their experiences, but there’s definitely a lot of cultural factors that make it more acceptable than the opposite, and I think, realistically, in our society you’d find tons more examples of the former (I, personally, as a white guy, can’t even remember the last time my experiences were dismissed as “all in my head/attitude”). Not that I doubt it happens to men, any more than I doubt white people are occasionally pulled over for no reason. But I don’t think there’s really any equivalence. And I can see all of it as possibly part of human nature, but it’s the kind of thing you can at least change once you become aware of it.

[Rune]

@Gyrate

Strangely, I’ve never personally felt the overwhelming need to advertising my own virility thusly but here these people are, potentially overcompensating.

Probably you’re just an eunuch in addition to being a complete idiot and I don’t give a shit what you think or how you usually sit. I sit how the fuck I feel like on any given day, but if you want to sit next to me and I happen to forget that I’m crowding you, you’re always welcome to point it out to me, and I’ll be happy to apologise and make you feel less crowded. A bit of communication never hurt anybody. And if a woman has her bag on a set and I want to sit down, I tell her to move it too. Talking to strangers really isn’t such a scary thing.

[Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus]

@woodstockbirdybird

Well, where I live, the subway (BART) has seats, and people do that shit all the time. Also, you’re absolutely right: you’re not entitled to ride at your desired level of comfort. So when you’re sitting there unnecessarily taking up room where I could be sitting, I’m not the dick for making you move your bitch-ass leg over, you’re the dick for stretching out like that in the first place during commuter hours.

Out of three commuter rail systems I’ve ridden on, they’ve all had bi-level coaches usually with the stairs at either end; I assume that’s a fairly typical configuration. I’ve got nothing against bike riders, but they do tend to take seats on the lower level so they can park their bikes and watch them. There are fewer seats downstairs and more room where bikes can be stowed. But they will manspread. There must be something about coming off a long bike ride that makes you want to spread your knees, at least if you’re male.

My solution is simple. Find a seat upstairs, if possible.

[Siam_Sam]

Is manspreading a particular problem in Scotland? Seems like there might be some ugly views with all those kilts.

[Bookkeeper]

@Siam_Sam

Is manspreading a particular problem in Scotland? Seems like there might be some ugly views with all those kilts.

Yep and OMG!

[Dangerosa]

@MandaJo

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.

It seems to have become at least a recently problematic thing - either because the behavior is new, or the behavior is being noticed, or because the capacity of subway systems in some major cities has reached some sort of tipping point that taking up “extra” room is creating issues.

And yes, as a public transportation rider, it doesn’t matter if its bags or legs, your butt is more entitled to the seat than my purse/backpack or thighs. Its really nice when I take the first or second bus out - or the last ones out - and almost everyone gets a set of seats to themselves. But that is a luxury, not an entitlement.

And yes, bus seats with my purse and laptop in my lap make for a tight fit. But its a bus, not a personal limo.

[Jennshark]

“Spreading,” whether by man or woman, is a power signifier in body language. Skipping over the why, how, when (since we can all guess these things . . . )

I’m a middle-aged chick and I use The Spread at times to steer a conversation or other dynamic my way. Both women and men respond to it and in different, interesting ways. For example, I use it when I am forced to meet with an especially arrogant man at work; I wheel out from behind my desk, clasp my hands behind my head, lean back, and spread 'em wiiiide. The effect on him makes our meetings far more productive – we can get down to business right away, he doesn’t pull as much crap with me as he does other admin (both male and female), and so on.

And it’s fun to watch how women respond to the move as well. I’ll leave it up for Doper experimentation.

Caveats:
-I am a large, butchish woman who wears trouser suits; mileage may vary for smaller, more feminine women.
-Unless the goal is to Basic Instinct-ivize your test subjects, wear pants on the experiment day.

[Inna_Minnit]

@sitchensis

When I walk everything hangs out in front, where it’s attached. Do you understand gravity?

So you go commando? I thought the whole point of the pouch was to lift that junk and support it?

[SciFiSam]

@Anaamika

That is not at all what I said. Is it? If it is, then I apologize for being unclear.

Look. Men can certainly have an opinion on what women’s issues. But I definitely think it’s mainsplaining to come in and tell us that our opinions are wrong…that clearly we are not seeing it in the way we should.

If I tell you someone sexually harassed me and you say, “No, that wasn’t sexually harassing, that was simply him being nice to you,” That is mainsplaining.

Gyrate, that picture made me cringe.

They’re mansplaining you on a thread about man spreading.

[Stanislaus]

@Rune

I sit how the fuck I feel like on any given day, but if you want to sit next to me and I happen to forget that I’m crowding you, you’re always welcome to point it out to me, and I’ll be happy to apologise and make you feel less crowded.

You realise, of course (I mean, of course of course, because this is the whole point) that this attitude puts the onus of getting you to conform to basic standards of courtesy on other people instead of on you where it belongs. If you “happen to forget” that you’ve spread your legs over a neighbouring seat, and your neighbour doesn’t feel for whatever reason like confronting you about it, then you’re also quite happy *not *to apologise and *not *to make them feel less crowded, right? I mean, who’s really at fault for them not having space?

Well, obviously it’s you. But this way you get to blame them for being weak.

[gallows_fodder]

Mansplaining in a nutshell: a simple definition

When men [ul]
[li]subconsciously or conciously [/li][li]discount women’s knowledge or experience of a subject [/li][li]simply because they’re women, [/li][li]and they (men) instinctively assume that they[/li][li]know better than women about the subject [/li][li](because…well, duh)[/li][li]and talk to them as such, [/li][li]ignoring or discounting women’s contributions to the conversation. [/li][/ul]
Especially noticeable and egregious when women are speaking of their experiences as women and men still think they know better, and try to explain to women why they (women) are wrong and/or talk right over them like they’re not there.

Let’s flip this around in a fun thought experiment!

Imagine you (a man) are talking to your buddy about how it feels to get kicked in the balls. A woman overhears your conversation and approaches you to tell you that your description was incorrect. She has done some reading on the subject of testicular pain, and she has a husband and two brothers, so by this authority, she feels confident enough to tell you you’re wrong – you feel more like this when you get kicked in the balls.

You tell her, hold on now, you have balls and you’ve been kicked in them, too – you know what that pain feels like from first-hand life experience – and she continues talking to you as though are clearly mistaken and are in need of her to educate you about your own experience.

Also, and this is important, in this bizarro world, women are the movers and shakers in history, women are the world leaders and scientists and philosophers and artists and ethnographers, and women are born into a world where they learn that for all of human history, the vast majority of the people and their deeds lauded in this culture are women. (BTW, women wrote the history books, too.)

So, really now, who can be trusted to be the authority on testicular pain? Not you, dear. What books have you read on the subject? No, those don’t count.

By the way, you’re obviously exaggerating about the pain, too, it can’t hurt that much. She fell on her crossbar once and sure, it hurt a little, but she got up and laughed it off. Maybe it’s not actually that painful – maybe you just have no pain tolerance.

Wow, look, now you’re angry. Well, there you go, being testicular again. It’s SO hard to have an intelligent conversation with men. Is your testosterone level low again today, sweet boy? (What, it’s a compliment!)
Hope that helps!

[Scylla]

Gallows Fodder:

That’ funny. I genuinely sympathize with the woman in your example. Just because the guys have balls doesn’t make them the Lord High King of Testicles. The woman’s lack of them does not disqualify all of the other knowledge of them that she may have gained through her experiences with her brothers and through her reading researches.

We as human beings have the ability to intellectualize information rationally. We have empathy and imagination. I don’t see why getting kicked in the nuts would be such a deep and unique experience that is far beyond the keen of any woman to imagine.

I had a pretty good idea of what it would be like to drive before I ever drove a car, because I thought about it and processes all kinds of information before I did it.

So, in your example, I think the men are being exclusionary jerks and arbitrarily shutting out what might be a valid contribution.

I’m not being argumentative here. That is genuinely what your example makes me feel.