Canadian group: Crackdown on ‘manspreading’ is nuts
As these signs from Japan, New York, and Paris (top to bottom) obviously prove, there’s a global war on sitting with your legs wide open on mass transit. But never fear, beleaguered manspreaders, some brave foot soldiers have joined the fight against intolerance.
In Canada, a group called the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE) has started a Change.org petition to fight the Toronto Transit Commission’s efforts to convince passengers to shut their legs. Not only is the term manspreading sexist, the group notes, but efforts to prevent it can be harmful. From the petition:
This sets a very bad precedent as men opening their legs is something we have to do due to our biology. It sometimes can be physically painful for to close our legs and we can’t be expected to do so. We can’t force woman to stop breast feeding on busses or trains and we can’t force men or women to stop bringing strollers on, why should we force men to close their legs?
As of this morning, 1,777 people had signed the petition. Nearly all of those people were (and this is just a guess on our part) the same ones who say blue balls is a serious medical condition, and one therefore has to sex at that point or you’ll, like, die.
We’ve followed this phenomenon closely because we are no stranger to it here in ballsy San Francisco. Revisit some of our most egregious examples of Muni manspreading (also mansitting) and the shaming thereof.
h/t: Jezebel, Yahoo Health
Images via @GammaCounter, The New York Times, and News on Japan
I think this sign might send the wrong message. It seems to imply that if you spread your legs wide, strange beings wearing halos will stop to admire you.
Yeah, because feeding your infant and asserting your imagined dominance and/or being an asshole are the same thing. Glad to see they copy edited the shit out of their cool petition tho lolz
Too funny!
PSA: If your genitals are swollen or damaged to such an extent that closing your legs while seated is painful, see a doctor immediately. Because that’s not normal.
I recently posted a tweet about manspreading — followed immediately by one about womanspreading (lady with her purse and bags all over seats) — and the MRA fools came out. I try to be sensitive to people’s feelings, even when they seem ridiculous, because I like it when other people extend me that courtesy, but these guys obviously just hated “feminists.”