Manspreading: do men need to occupy more when sitting down?

The term “manspreading” is relatively new., and in fact didn't catch on until well into 2014, according to Google search data. However, the problem to which he refers has been known for years: a certain tendency on the part of many men to occupy much more than necessary in the seats of public transport by dint of opening or stretching their seats a lot legs.

In fact, as far back as the 1970s, a feminist photographer named Marianne Wex dedicated herself to documenting this phenomenon, and the result was a widely documented book called Let's Take Back Our Space: Female and Male Language as a Result of Patriarchal Structures.

However, when it comes to explaining why manspreading exists, the gender and feminist perspective is not the only one, and today the cause of this trend in male behavior is debated. Now, what do we know so far about manspreading?

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To what extent is it a widespread problem?

From what is known, manspreading is something very common, so much so that it is normal to find at least one case in each train carriage.

A recent study carried out with a sample of more than 5000 people who used public transport during different days of the week and hours of the day, more than a quarter of the men (26%) exercised manspreading, while that this percentage fell to less than 5% in the case of women.

In addition, that same investigation concluded that even those men who stretched their legs in the absence of other passengers Those who sat next to him tended not to correct their posture as the car filled with people and the seats disappeared. free.

Curiously, in addition, the age group in which men were more likely to fall into manspreading is the one who goes from 30 to 49 years old. At younger ages the percentage was somewhat lower, and considerably lower in age groups of people older than 50 years.

The campaigns against manspreading and the increasingly widespread use of this term do not seem to have served to eliminate this behaviour. What could this resistance to change be due to? Is it a cultural problem, or a biological one that will not go away because of many propaganda civic campaigns that are used in the form of disciplinary signs?

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Possible causes of manspreading

Obviously, many of the proposals that try to offer an explanation about manspreading have a more or less clear political background. For example, as we have seen, feminist authors such as Marianne Wex indicate that manspreading could be another one of those little privileges reserved for men; in this case, being able to claim more space for themselves in certain situations, for their own comfort and to the detriment of the well-being of others.

Thus, this behavior would be at the same time a way of expressing her power, which from a feminist perspective would be linked to patriarchy, and a privilege that allows you to feel more comfortable.

On the other hand, entities critical of feminism, such as the Canadian Association for Equality (an organization linked to the Men's Rights Movement) has come to argue that it is potentially painful for men to sit while keeping their legs parallel.

In a less politicized (although equally politicizing) way, researchers Ash Bennington and Mark Skinner suggest that manspreading is a biological issue that has to do with the fact that men have much wider shoulders than hips compared to women.

According to this reasoning, the space between the knees must correspond to the space between the shoulders, which means that, by default, the minimum angle that the legs maintain with each other is much greater. In addition, opening the legs would be a way to prevent them from taking up a lot of space right in front, where the corridor of the wagons often runs.

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Biology or cultural phenomenon?

In short, there is still no clear cause that explains the phenomenon of manspreading, although it is known to exist, is very present in the day to day of those who use public transport, and that it is something significantly generalized in men.

Now, if it is something caused only by the very biology of the bodies or by cultural norms and behaviors learned throughout the generations is something we will probably know more about in a few years, as more research has been done about this behavior recently baptized. Probably, in its origin we will find a mixture of biology and cultural learning standardized over centuries and centuries. After all, it is very difficult to find a clear space between sex and gender.