#manspreaders

tourists who don’t understand the idea of personal space

dancers who do routines in the middle of an insanely crowded train

bratty rich kids who won’t stop complaining

anyone who incessantly complains

MAAAAAANSPREADERS

people who don’t get up for pregnant people, elderly people, or disabled people (if you do this you are the actual worst)

parents who think that their not-a-toddler deserves a seat even if they’re perfectly capable of standing

Hello, I am an expert on pelvic sexual dimorphism. I wrote a dissertation on the topic as it applies to Neandertals. In my research, I regularly estimate sex from fossil and more recent human skeletons based on the sex differences McGill is talking about.

I also think that his claim about pelvis shape affecting sitting position is bullshit.

Manspreading is something that we don’t see cross-culturally (here’s a scholarly article from the 1950s that shows that even back then, knees-together sitting occured at different frequencies in different cultures). Only a certain type of dudebro or man-man manspreads. The man who wrote the article interviewing McGill admitted that even after being told that his natural sitting position is knees apart, he still avoids manspreading on the subway because he knows it’s rude.

I have been traveling by plane a lot lately - home for Thanksgiving, home for Christmas, back to San Francisco, then immediately back home the next day because the future I thought I had disappeared faster than guacamole put out at an office holiday party. But that’s not the point of this post.

The point is, I’ve learned a lot while racking up all those meaningless miles I can trade in for a $20 Amazon gift card - like wait to buy the $2 airline headphones from a flight attendant instead of splurging on same-quality but $30 headphones from a Hudson News. I’ve also realized I rather sit next to someone deathly afraid of flying, a therapy animal I am allergic to, or someone transporting a beating organ, than 90% of men.

Now you may be thinking, “You wanted to be a flight attendant, you love every aspect of flying!” That, or you’re sitting on the toilet at work reading this because there’s nothing new on Reddit and you’re out of Candy Crush lives not thinking much to begin with. Either way - totally fine, I’ll take my readers where I can get ‘em. But news fucking flash, my Pan Am era dreams of flying have been ruined for me by MANSPREADERS. 

What is a manspreader? Urban Dictionary says it’s word feminists use, and I’m thinking maybe, idk? Bust mostly it’s a word normal decent carbon-based lifeforms use to describe a man that sits with his knees set so wide apart that it looks like his grundle is trying to consume the seat in front of him. Other side effects of manspreading include a man’s knee and upper thigh sliding onto your faux leather seat, warming your metal seatbelt like a little testosterone powered microwave. This often results in girls (like myself) having to squeeze their legs together so hard they get off the plane with thighs that look like they belong to an American Ninja Warrior, all to avoid some unwanted Banana Republic khaki to leggings contact. 

I get it, you all have huge Mangum wearing dicks, that require feet upon feet of space to hang so your precious sperm full of big-dong-carrying DNA aren’t squeezed to death. But at the same time, guys basically spend the first 25 years of their lives with 2 goals - stay out of jail and don’t get anyone pregnant. So shouldn’t you want to squish your fleshy stress balls just a wee bit? If you need that much space to sit comfortably, sell your dick pics to the Smithsonian, and use the ticket sales to sit first class where there are little walls between seats to prevent thigh spillage. Boom, everyone’s happy, you, me, and most importantly - your balls. 

Being the passive aggressive ginger gem that I am, I’ve found ways to combat this growing epidemic. First, always pick an aisle seat. You’ll feel less pinned to the wall in the least sexy way possible like you would with a window seat. Plus, you have Instagram - you know what a plane wing over a sunset looks like. Also, you’re gonna want to be able to get up to go to the bathroom, because you’ll need to go often with tip two. That tip being, DRINK! Stick to wine or like, vodka ginger ale. Sometimes the flight attendants give you 2 mini bottles for the price of 1, but then you have to sit there with a cup of melting ice for thirty minutes. Wine is nice, although lower in alcohol content, but you can sip it without a plastic cup, twist the lid back on, and stick it in your sleeping neighbor’s seat pocket. 

Next, pick one of those random emergency rows where there is no immediate row in front of you, so the trays fold out of the armrest. That way, no man can slowly move the armrest up, allowing for additional leg space. The divider is like a little Trump-esque wall, only it’s actually effective and not a horrible waste of money. Make your grandma roll over in her grave by sitting spread eagle the moment you sit down.

There’s a second, less obvious, much sneakier, manspreader species as well. This kinda of fellow sits so his feet are touching, but allows his legs to flop wide open like opposing magnets are embedded in his knees, pushing his thighs open like a pervy butterfly stretch. Eradicate this level of oh-hell-no by un-hinging your tray table so it hits his wandering knee. 

Or there’s always the more direct route of asking a man to move his leg because you feel it’s entered your personal space. I have tried this route. I put on my best 5 AM flight smile and asked ever so politely, ever so sweetly, that if you were eavesdropping you may have thought I was Snow White summoning woodland creatures to help me craft artisanal soy candles for a charity farmer’s market. To which he promptly responded, “I think you’re on my side.” And in that moment I was the murderous woman on Dateline from the sleepy backroads town where “nothing like that could happen here” and everyone still has a landline, who tells the police she was so angry she saw red. Now let me tell you, I am the girl that has put duct tape down the middle of a shared room and I went to art school, I basically majored in coloring inside the lines. I know where my side ends, and your side begins. 

So you know what I do then? I reach over you and turn my reading light on and off so often you think you’re at a God damn rave hosted by Lena Dunham. If you so much as think you’re going to get away with using your jacket as a blanket, draping it across the entire row like we are telling spooky ghost stories around the fire at sleep away camp, you have another think coming. And if you happen to outlive me, so help you God, I will make it my mission in the afterlife to haunt your ass from whatever low staffed Forever 21 purgatory my soulless carcass ends up in.

like he was literally pushing me with his leg 😭😭