So Manspreading is a thing, hence a controversy. I don’t have a lot to add to this Jezebel post on the subject. Except I do! I did some important historical research by remembering that Honoré Daumier got there first with “The Omnibus”.
You can download a full-size image from The Walters Art Museum site (or visit the museum and see it in person, I should hope).
Now, what can we learn, children? Since the beginning of time, Man has wondered: is manspreading a totally natural and necessary thing that half our species has evolved to do since the beginning of time – or the invention of public omnibuses, whichever came first? Are women who complain just SJW’s and grievance harpies? Clearly, Daumier is saying so. That guy is innocent. Look at that honest, open face. And that guy who is tipping over? Obviously men just tip over more easily. We’re taller.
And the women, with those sour expressions, are just contracting into themselves in preparation for springing out in indignation. Being all thin like that is, literally, a form of moral entrapment for their fellow, male passengers. And who is the real offender here? Obviously the woman who brings her child on the bus. That can be very annoying for her fellow passengers. Has she considered that?
Actually, there may be something we can learn. The museum description reads as follows: “Unlike a train, the omnibus had no seating arrangements by class. Instead, passengers could either hail the conveyance in the street or wait at a designated office along the line. In the case of the latter, riders received numbered tickets and waited for the conductor to call them in numerical order. Here, Daumier treats the inevitable conflict that arises from the mingling of the working and middle classes, in such confined quarters, with more humor than he has demonstrated in previous representations of this subject.”
To my eye the picture is about gender, not class. I don’t think the men look like they are lower class than the women. Although I can’t claim any expertise in distinguishing fine grades of Parisian society. The big guy is a laborer, but the guy in the top hat? Daumier is just noticing that men presume to expand to take up social space, whereas women feel obliged to shrink, so as not to. And obviously it has not failed to occur to the women that, in a just world, social norms might be settled differently. And that utopian notion is no likelier to cross our good laborer’s mind than he is likely to cross his legs.
Also, after my last foray into French art, I don’t want you to think I’m raising my daughter to be a perfect little ancien régime Disney princesses or anything like that. (By the way, I didn’t thank rea for that William Carlos William poem – “Agh! what sort of man was Fragonard? – As if that answered anything.—” So true. Thanks!) Anyway, I also checked out of the library a whomping great volume of Daumier
{ 180 comments }
maidhc 01.19.15 at 10:51 am
The shocking thing about the omnibus was that, as its name suggests, all classes were mixed together without distinction. I wonder whether the manspreading of the one man is more lower-class, whereas the dozing chap in the top hat represents an entirely different and more refined method of encroaching on one’s fellow-passengers.
The woman on the left seems more resigned to being squashed, as a natural part of lower-class existence, whereas the woman on the right seems a bit more annoyed.
I think he’s done a great job of capturing this moment, so much so that a hundred-odd years later we’re still talking about it. Good praise for an artist.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 10:54 am
“Daumier is just noticing that men presume to expand to take up social space”
But the men in this picture are not ‘expanding’. In fact the huge yeoman is canting his shoulders slightly and leaning forward. He just happens to be huge. It is difficult to see what he could do to make himself tinier.He isn’t spreading his knees which is the usual complaint of the delicate souls who consider ‘manspreading’ a fight worth fighting. The other bloke is just asleep, and sleepiness affects us all. I am an incorrigible nodder offer on public transport but I don’t think it relates to any sense of entitlement, in fact I consider is a tremendous nuisance.
John Holbo 01.19.15 at 11:28 am
“It is difficult to see what he could do to make himself tinier.”
Admittedly he has more of an akimbo problem than a knees apart problem. But I still read him as expanding beyond his natural bigness to fit even more space.
Elly 01.19.15 at 12:11 pm
You could fit two knees’ between Big Dude’s knees, so if they aren’t spread I don’t know what they are. And yes, arms akimbo. He’s impinging on the space of both women, and the woman with the child has her shoulders up around her ears. She’s not reading as a happy camper. And while Mr. Top Hat is not only manspreading, he is also leaning on the woman next to him, who looks annoyed and a little repulsed to me.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 1:05 pm
“You could fit two knees’ between Big Dude’s knees, so if they aren’t spread I don’t know what they are.”
It seems to me they are just in the normal sitting position for knees. The alternative is to squeeze them together, which I realise many women do, but I don’t think it is really shameful not to. The woman with the child is squeezing into the corner because she is sat next to a big man and there is little room, but her knees under that skirt are spreard as wide as his to support the baby. He has made a little more room by leaning forward so that his shoulders are not pressing into her as they would be if he sat back. Mr Top Hat is, again, sitting in a normal way and is only leaning because he has fallen asleep. I am betting he didn’t decide to fall asleep. The woman is annoyed. I would be too. Although I quite often find it funny too, whether it is a woman or a man. Especially when they snore. What I can’t bear is open mouthed chewing, especially chewing gum, which seems to be a gender-neutral misdemeanour.
Sam Dodsworth 01.19.15 at 1:19 pm
A very fine piece of mansplaining there from Minnow, with bonus points for the “look over there – a badger!” at the end of each post.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 1:21 pm
Mansplaining? You mean expressing an opinion while being a man? I think John Holbo may also be a man, so the whole thing is a festival of mansplaining.
Elly 01.19.15 at 1:24 pm
Shorter Minnow: “This is the natural order of things, that men should take up all the space and that ladypeople should smallify themselves, accordingly.”
Elly 01.19.15 at 1:25 pm
No, mansplaining: Blowing smoke up a ladyperson’s skirts, as if she has no idea what being a ladyperson is all about.
MPAVictoria 01.19.15 at 1:26 pm
I am sure this is going to be a very sensible and informative thread with no depressing comments whatsoever.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 1:27 pm
“No, mansplaining: Blowing smoke up a ladyperson’s skirts, as if she has no idea what being a ladyperson is all about.”
Leaving aside the slightly lurid imagery, I didn’t tell any lady person on here anything about what being a lady is all about, nor would I. Nor did I ‘explain’ to any ladies what their experience was ‘really’ like or ‘really’ meant or how they should feel about it. So that’s that.
MPAVictoria 01.19.15 at 1:35 pm
These conversations just remind me how much I hate public transit and how lucky I am that my partner and I can afford a personal car.
J Thomas 01.19.15 at 1:39 pm
Everything in CT happens repeated, alternate times as farce.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 1:39 pm
Public transport is full of irritations like any public space but it does have compensatory pleasures, at least some of the time. It isn’t always unpleasant even to be squeezed up against people. Pinter claimed to have taken most of his dialogue from eavesdropped conversations on the bus.
Elly 01.19.15 at 1:46 pm
For sure no ladyperson would know when she’s being mansplained at. That’s something mansplainers are fully qualified to define and identify for us.
John Holbo 01.19.15 at 2:23 pm
Just as long as we are clear that the picture as a whole is about ethics in games journalism. Daumier was mostly concerned with that.
QS 01.19.15 at 2:25 pm
Public transit also comes with the pleasure of not having to own an automobile.
Lynne 01.19.15 at 2:38 pm
I read the Jezebel article and particular liked this guy’s justification:
“we’ll tip over if we sit with our legs together,”
It is interesting that this manspreading thing (which I only just heard of a week or so ago—is it a really recent thing?) is coming up in the context of public transit. In all kinds of settings men take up more space than they might, and women take up less. Men sit on chesterfields with their knees apart and both arms along the back. Women cross their legs and keep their arms by their sides. Taking this on in the context of public transit may make some men realize what they are doing.
Squirrel Nutkin 01.19.15 at 2:45 pm
M. Dodsworth! It is not a badger, it is never a badger; it is a squirrel, it is always a squirrel. I have to say I am very disappointed that you should have compelled me to lapse into squirrelsplaining, which is something I never ever do. Also, we should all express our gratitude for the holbosplaining at 16…
Er, when do we get to move up to the next level in this game?
Minnow 01.19.15 at 3:09 pm
“For sure no ladyperson would know when she’s being mansplained at.”
I think it is possible even for ladypersons to be mistaken or dishonest. I realise this will send some scrabbling for the smelling salts.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 3:10 pm
“Public transit also comes with the pleasure of not having to own an automobile.”
Amen to that.
Ze Kraggash 01.19.15 at 3:12 pm
847 comments to go.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 3:14 pm
“Men sit on chesterfields with their knees apart and both arms along the back. ”
MEN don’t sit on chesterfields. Men sit on barstools, bucket seats, and broncos.
MPAVictoria 01.19.15 at 3:26 pm
“Public transit also comes with the pleasure of not having to own an automobile.”
Eh. I like owning a car. Though, as a 400 dollar repair bill this morning reminded me, it is not without its drawbacks.
bianca steele 01.19.15 at 3:30 pm
I once spent a summer working abroad with a male coworker from the same US office as me, and we did tourist things every weekend. After eight weeks or so of sitting at cafe tables trying to find a spot for my own feet, I was about ready to hit him over the head with a napkin holder.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 3:33 pm
“Though, as a 400 dollar repair bill this morning reminded me, it is not without its drawbacks.”
Yep. I had to pay out a vast sum to have my brakes replaced, straight after Christmas. The brakes! I barely even use them.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 3:36 pm
“After eight weeks or so of sitting at cafe tables trying to find a spot for my own feet, I was about ready to hit him over the head with a napkin holder.”
L’enfer, c’est les autres.
mpowell 01.19.15 at 3:54 pm
Eh, I think leaning forward as he is helps the situation a lot. Given that he is leaning forward, putting his arms on his knees helps him support himself. It would probably be difficult for him to lean forward and cross his arms for an extended ride, though that would minimize the space he takes up. I don’t think this is a great example of manspreading, but it is an interesting painting.
Minnow 01.19.15 at 4:06 pm
“Eh, I think leaning forward as he is helps the situation a lot.”
I agree. In fact I know it does from my commute. Being a thoughtful type I lean forward when I find I am in the squeezed middle to free up a bit of space.Resting my hands on my knees doesn’t impinge on anyone as far as I can tell. When the middle person doesn’t do this you get into shoulder-standoff unless the person at the end does a one-buttock balance or the window seat twists sideways.
bianca steele 01.19.15 at 4:08 pm
In Seoul it seemed to me there was an unwritten rule that you don’t hold packages while you’re straphanging. The middle-aged man I was standing in front of asked if he could hold my shopping while I was standing. It seemed like a reasonable solution. I think something similar could be done in this case, though I can’t think of how at the moment.
Eszter 01.19.15 at 4:45 pm
This stuff has bothered me for years, way before pictures about it started circulating on the Interwebs a few years ago. I do like that it’s getting some attention publicly. On occasion, when I’m in the mood. I push back when in such a setting. I’ll make sure to look at where my seat ends and the man’s begins and then will sit so that *I* take up my seat to the extent possible. (I don’t do this if the man is so large as to need the extra space, but that is pretty much never the reason that the man is expanding beyond his seat.) Very rarely does the man next to me get the hint. Often he’ll actually push back. It’s ridiculous. And infuriating.
A s for the image above, that is absolutely not how you should place your arms if you are trying to be considerate of those around you.
Glen Tomkins 01.19.15 at 4:52 pm
I don’t know. I have some sympathy for that guy in the middle of the etching.
As I get older, I find that I become a man of more substance, someone who carries greater weight in the community, that in general there’s more to me than there used to be. The fact that I therefore move in wider spheres should perhaps not be held entirely against me.
bianca steele 01.19.15 at 4:59 pm
It’s easy to have sympathy for those who are overweight. But the only time someone on a train was clearly pretending to be asleep so he could slump against me in a nearly sexual way, he was fat. I’d guess he’d had plenty of practice finding ways to turn his taking up space to advantage.
sc 01.19.15 at 4:59 pm
“Men sit on chesterfields with their knees apart and both arms along the back. ”
i prefer not to sit on my cigarettes, lest i crush them.
Harold 01.19.15 at 5:08 pm
I don’t think “Minnow” has ridden the subway very much.
Tyrone Slothrop 01.19.15 at 5:23 pm
Manspreading, Mansplaining, what fun! I shall happily anticipate another CT thread exemplifying that which transpires because the stakes are so low…
Steve Williams 01.19.15 at 5:43 pm
Manspreading, mansplaining, fat-shaming. Someone more talented would write a rap or a poem about it.
Dr. S 01.19.15 at 5:47 pm
One of the more amusing and deontological threads. I like “manpandering” which means being sensitive enough to attract more women.
MPAVictoria 01.19.15 at 6:17 pm
“Manspreading, Mansplaining, what fun! I shall happily anticipate another CT thread exemplifying that which transpires because the stakes are so low…”
Shorter Tyrone: The problem does not effect me so how could it possible be important? Also, what is empathy?
Eszter Hargittai 01.19.15 at 7:46 pm
MPAVictoria – Not shorter, but alternatively: “I’m too clueless to get it or to care so I’m just going to crap on it.”
MPAVictoria 01.19.15 at 7:51 pm
Yours is better Eszter. :-)
Bloix 01.19.15 at 8:10 pm
Story:
A year or so ago I was taking my usual morning commute on the DC Metro red line. I’m sitting behind a fellow who is on the aisle side of his bench, with no one in the window seat. Earbuds in, face in his phone. He’s an elegantly dressed young black man, with a sharp haircut and a gorgeous black leather jacket.
As we move south, the car is filling up. At Noma/Gallaudet, a crowd gets on and fills up the few remaining seats, except of course for the one Mr Leather Jacket is protecting. A young white woman is eying the seat. She’s a bit emo – tights and sneakers, bare midriff, tattoo on her arm. She’s got a godawful big backpack, a little paper bag from some muffin store or something, and a big fountain drink with the straw sticking up from the plastic cap.
“Excuse me,” she says, perfectly good-natured. “Would you move in? I’d like to sit down.” No reaction. She tries again. Just the slightest uptick of his head, then back down to the phone. Third time, pleasantly. Nothing. She rolls her eyes, and then she puts her drink and bag in one hand, grabs the back of the bench with the other and climbs up and over him into the empty seat.
As we pull out of the station, he starts up. Quietly at first, but getting louder. Most of what he says is either “motherfucker” or “bitch.” Then he’s quiet for a while, then he starts up again. She sits there, perfectly still.
We get to Gallery Place – a transfer station – and she turns to him with a quaver but resolutely, and utterly politely, she says, “excuse me, I need to get off here.” He doesn’t move. She climbs up on the seat, and starts to step over him again. But she slips and falls half in his lap and half into the aisle. The fountain drink does a flip and explodes, spraying soda all over his beautiful leather coat and carefully cut hair.
He jumps up, dumping her in the aisle, and both his fists come up. Bitch and motherfucker are coming pretty fast. A dozen people are up, half a dozen men rush to restrain him and the same number of women help her up and surround her. It’s easy to see her fear and her desire not to be afraid.
He looks around, seems to realize that this could be serious trouble for him, and quickly steps out of the open door. The women help her get her things off the floor. We are holding for longer than usual. After half a minute, she says thank you to the women and steps out herself. Doors close.
MPAVictoria 01.19.15 at 8:24 pm
Bloix: Fuck. That. Shit.
How hard would it have been to move over one seat?
Theophylact 01.19.15 at 8:35 pm
It would have meant yielding a part of his manhood to a not-quite-human.
dbk 01.19.15 at 8:35 pm
Endlich! A CT thread awash in wit! One to which I can relate on multiple levels …
“And who is the real offender here? Obviously the woman who brings her child on the bus.”
(Yet Another) True Story: It’s 1986 or thereabouts. I’m on one of those shuttles that convey passengers from terminal to plane at O’Hare, alas. I’m holding my 4-year-old son in my arms. He’s sensitive, undersized, nervous … a Yuppy type (male, of course) says to me: “Aren’t you sorry you had one of those?” I’m … well, appalled.
Fast-forward to 2015. My offspring is an attorney in NYC. A public interest attorney. Maternal pride, etc.
Also: Daumier! I shall take the OP’s advice and spend a day with Daumier next time I’m in Baltimore, where Offspring #2 now lives.
Thank you, CT and JH, you have renewed my faith in humanity.
Lynne 01.19.15 at 8:55 pm
Bloix, yuck. What an awful thing. Grrr for that young woman to that young man.
Bloix 01.19.15 at 9:32 pm
It is was awful while it was happening but in retrospect it’s hilarious in a black humor kind of way. Especially the flying fountain drink.
Bloix 01.19.15 at 9:34 pm
And the nice thing about it was how well all the other passengers behaved.
bob mcmanus 01.19.15 at 9:58 pm
One of the more amusing and deontological threads. I like “manpandering†which means being sensitive enough to attract more women.
I am not amused; the thread is instrumental; I doubt the prefix is needed;and tools are dulled by overuse.
Lynne 01.19.15 at 10:00 pm
Bloix, yes, the drink. :) And the reactions of the bystanders, too—and the driver, waiting for the young woman to get off. Okay, I feel better.
chairman 01.19.15 at 10:47 pm
The large man in the middle is learning forward, possibly to give the women on his sides MORE room rather than having to be squeezed against his shoulders. His legs are also not spread when considered in relation to his wide body.
Who tends to take up more space: men with their legs or women with their bags? Have studies been done? Anecdotally I certainly see a lot of women taking up extra space by putting their begs on the seat next to them.
bob mcmanus 01.19.15 at 11:23 pm
One might imagine, even without gendering but one hopes with some distinction related to age, the swarming of a vain pop idol in an airport terminal;the studied indifference of those who pass in silence, intent on business and destination; the indulgent who worry about bruising in overenthusiastic crowds; the pleased authoritarian who understands that communal indignity infantilizes; the mental manspreader who knows where to find the psychic voids to fill and file until nothing remains but his Cheshire smile, in reflection.
The hermetic who tires of the madness of crowds getting in his way.
mattski 01.19.15 at 11:54 pm
Wait.
Did mcmanus say he wasn’t amused? Because I’d have trouble accepting that.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 12:20 am
“The large man in the middle is learning forward, possibly to give the women on his sides MORE room rather than having to be squeezed against his shoulders. His legs are also not spread when considered in relation to his wide body.”
I must say, this is turning into a more interesting exercise in audience response than I anticipated. It’s just so obvious (to me) that what we are seeing in the picture is a couple of guys presuming to occupy the space their bodies take, and a bit extra. Admittedly, it’s not as egregious a case as some of those NYC photos on Gawker or Jezebel, of guys who are practically doing the splits to take up 4 seats if they can. The tipped over guy is just asleep. Still, women don’t tip over like that. (Is sleep for women so different?) The big guy is big, sure. But the akimbo pose radiates ‘I’m here, I’m approximately a sphere, get used to it!’ above and beyond his strict weight class. I could argue the physics of it. If you want to lean forward to make room you don’t do that akimbo thing because that won’t help and is sort of counter-productive. You end up locking in your neighbors behind your arms, like gates (unless they squeeze away). Plus you obviously give direct access to your armpits, which may not be so fragrant. No, to lean in a way that is functionally accommodating you put your elbows on your knees. Is he too fat to do that? Doesn’t look like. But it would be uncomfortable for him and it would be a less manly posture. I do grant critics that his knees are no further apart than his girth would seem to naturally dictate.
Of course, this brings us back to the point that, since he doesn’t exist, there’s not really a fact of the matter about the physics of it. Daumier is just inviting us to see a scene, and I’m genuinely surprised some people see a guy just being natural, or even considerate and accommodating, and others see a guy taking up a bit more room than nature obliges him to, because he obviously assumes that’s the natural thing to do. A working man needs to assert himself and keep his pride because, God knows, there are enough daily threats to it!
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 1:06 am
“Did mcmanus say he wasn’t amused?”
I must say, the latest McManus pontification is too deep for me. I can’t tell what he is not amused at. Although I’m sure it is a great deal, per usual.
Harold 01.20.15 at 1:10 am
“The mental manspreader” — I like that. Some people take up way too much spiritual space!
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 1:16 am
“The mental manspreader†— I like that.
I do, too! I hope McManus has it printed on his business card! (I’m thinking about getting it printed on mine. Who among us isn’t a mental manspreader? Ladies, too. In the Platonic realm of pure ego, everyone can have a penis, as it were.)
Harold 01.20.15 at 2:04 am
Not everyone wants one, mirabile dictu.
Harold 01.20.15 at 2:05 am
In the Platonic sphere one can spread eternally in a grain of sand.
Ian 01.20.15 at 2:08 am
That’s Latin for “It’s a miracle you have a dick.” Good that this thread is getting back to the classics.
Ian 01.20.15 at 2:13 am
I’m surprised though that no-one has pointed out that Daumier was a thoroughgoing misanthropist, if often in a subtle and complex way. Nobody in his cartoons and sketches should be credited with anything but low motives. If Ralph Steadman drew a cartoon of a big guy manspreading over two subway seats, nobody would try to plead that Steadman is on the big guy’s side.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 2:13 am
This quote seems relevant:
“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”
Hence the need to air them out of their shell, as it were. Mentally.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 2:21 am
“I’m surprised though that no-one has pointed out that Daumier was a thoroughgoing misanthropist”.
I don’t feel that way about him. He has an on-off sympathy for his petit-bourgeois subjects, although he consistently regards them as pathetic. He’s consistently hard on the lawyers and kings. (But no one forced you to go to law school! And you could always abdicate.)
See this sort of thing:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_Museum_-_La_Vue_-_Honor%C3%A9_Daumier.jpg
It’s rather Dickensian.
I don’t mean to imply that, regarding our image, above, Daumier is urging a progressive campaign against manspreading. He just sees the humor in it. Everyone involved looks ridiculous . But it is a ridiculousness that involves mild suffering for women and a mild lack thereof for men.
Lasker 01.20.15 at 2:32 am
My initial interpretation of the picture was that some humor is derived from the way the gentleman on the right is behaving rudely while the laborer is making an effort to accommodate his fellow passengers by sitting on the very edge of his seat and leaning forward. I do this too when the subway is crowded, (though I am on the small side) but based on the responses here, perhaps this move is less useful for those around me than I thought.
Ian 01.20.15 at 2:33 am
Well, I did say his misanthropy was often subtle and complex. He’s not at all the misanthropic bore – he’s like Flaubert, utterly sceptical of human beings in society. I shouldn’t have said his characters should never be credited with anything but [only] low motives: “low, ignorant or silly motives” would be nearer the mark. I agree “La Vue” is kind of Dickensian but there’s an edge of unreality there, the similarity isn’t with the sentimental Dickens.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 3:02 am
“low, ignorant or silly motivesâ€
It’s true that Daumier will never draw an Oliver Twist or a David Copperfield, even though he will draw tons of the other sympathetic-comic, often lower-class or middle-class grotesques like Dickens uses to tug our heartstrings.
If you haven’t clicked the “Laundress” link, Ian – or seen that Daumier work before – you should do that. No one could say that portrait of a laundress, helping her little child up the big step, is the least misanthropic. Or even sentimental. But that’s painting instead of caricature. So I guess I would say we shouldn’t mistake the fact that Daumier is known overwhelmingly for his caricatures as a straight shot to his attitudes.
Eszter Hargittai 01.20.15 at 3:14 am
I can’t decide if the people focusing in on the one image in this post to push back on the general argument here (that many men often take up too much space on public transportation often to the detriment of women around them) are obtuse or, well… maybe I can decide.
To see perhaps better examples (and ones that address the question of bags raised by someone above), take a look at these images.
Ian 01.20.15 at 3:33 am
66: Yes I concede I was thinking entirely of the caricatures. Because they’re so energetic and so human (in a m*s*nthr*p*c way) they blot out the other Daumiers, at least in my mind. The Laundress is puzzling – it’s full of an abstract (and I’m sure genuine) compassion, but the woman’s face is completely shadowed, as if Daumier didn’t trust himself to refrain from caricature if he started to paint her face. I get the sense he wasn’t comfortable outside caricature, but The Laundress is still remarkable.
chairman 01.20.15 at 3:55 am
67: Those blogs with tons of men taking up room and spreading their legs always have a bunch of pictures of guys doing so in buses/trains that are hardly packed. If there’s tons of room who cares if someone sits at their comfort? I’m not convinced that the number of men legitimately inconveniencing people by taking up too much space is much greater than the number of women taking up space with their bags or other stuff sitting on seats next to them.
mattski 01.20.15 at 4:08 am
In the Platonic realm of pure ego, everyone can have a penis, as it were.
But the problem of penises taking up space is a subtle one.
The Temporary Name 01.20.15 at 4:10 am
10:11:33 PM Me: Sitting next to a guy* whose ass evidently requires two seats. Or he really likes the ridge.
10:11:43 PM Her: Naw, he’s a guy
10:11:51 PM Her: They apparently need lots of space
10:11:56 PM Her: And are clueless about it
10:12:09 PM Her: meaning about how much he takes up
10:12:43 PM Me: Space and the sexes is an interesting topic.
So thank you!
*Guy referred to maybe 5’8″, 150 pounds.
PJW 01.20.15 at 4:28 am
This LGM post on flight attendants might be germane:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/01/book-review-victoria-vantoch-jet-sex-airline-stewardesses-making-american-icon
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 4:57 am
“I’m not convinced that the number of men legitimately inconveniencing people by taking up too much space is much greater than the number of women taking up space with their bags or other stuff sitting on seats next to them.”
There are pictures of both sorts, chairman. But, out of curiosity, do you also deny that this behavior is a kind of status display (whether it inconveniences others or not)? This is a way of saying: I get extra space because there’s something special about me.
chairman 01.20.15 at 5:11 am
73: I’m sure its a mix of that in many cases and good old fashioned solipsistic inconsiderateness in others. What the actual mixture of those motives is I wouldn’t have a guess. In either way I think the motives and the prevalence of both men taking taking up space by spreading their legs and women taking up space with the bags they carry is more or less even. As a (very) regular public transport user in a major urban area I see a whole lot of both but never tried to keep a tally of which is more common. There’s also the classic “sitting in the outer seat with the inner seat unoccupied when all the other available seats are full,” which I guess I see both sexes do more or less equally, and is obnoxiously inconsiderate no matter who it is.
As for sitting with wide legs when there is plenty of room and you don’t run risk of inconveniencing anyone, taking up a spot, encroaching on anyone’s space, no, I think when people have adequate space they will just sit how they’re comfortable. Maybe a lot of guys ARE comfortable sitting with their legs wide. If in doing so they take up space or encroach other people’s space, sure it’s terribly rude, but if space isn’t an issue and they’re just sitting like that I can’t think of any reason to care or try to read too much psychoanalysis into it. I sit a lot differently depending on if I have plenty of room or if someone is next to me.
So yes, I do think this issue is rather overblown and I think the last thing anyone needs is another buzzword like “manspreading” floating around.
Harold 01.20.15 at 5:32 am
The pictures are hilarious. And, yes, it is thoughtless and inconsiderate and boorish at best. Newsflash to chairman, men also buy and carry things around as amply illustrated here.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 5:34 am
“I think the last thing anyone needs is another buzzword like “manspreading†floating around.”
Well, I’m sure we can think of worse things that complaints about a minor problem.
Pursuing the point: the disanalogy between lots of boxes and conspicuously spread legs would seem conspicuous. The ‘where else am I going to put them?’ question has a more self-evident answer in the one case than the other. (Also, the ‘why did you bring those with you?’ question.) The women are putting boxes next to them for a functional reason. The men are, I would say, just peacocking. Now perhaps there is some analogy like this: chicks gotta shop. Dudes gotta peacock on the bus. So it all comes out in the wash. Is this your considered position?
Because if this is your position, I’m not sure why you don’t get the joke: peacocking is kind of funny? Whereas, as aforementioned, boxes go next to you for a good reason, even if it’s annoying to others. You have a reason for bringing boxes with you, one can imagine. They have to go somewhere, one can foresee.
If you do want to argue against shopping, the root of this evil, we could have that debate. If you wanted to make a tumblr of images of ladies with packages that they could not possibly have a reason to have with them on a train, I guess that could be sort of funny. But I foresee what we are going to see are tired people who look like they did their shopping and are on their way home. Peacocking is just funnier than people going grocery-shopping, even clothes shopping.
ZM 01.20.15 at 5:40 am
My current passenger related public transport bugbear (most of my bugbears are public transport operator/department related ones) is people sitting at the desk seats without using the desks. On my line there is just one half of one carriage in peak services that have desks and sometimes they are all taken up and hardly anyone uses the desks :/ If it is a busy service the conductor usually makes some announcement about not putting your bag on the seat, but they never make an announcement about letting people sit at the desk seats who want to use the desks.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 5:40 am
“I can’t think of any reason to care or try to read too much psychoanalysis into it.”
You just don’t find issues of social status and social relations of potential interest? I guess that c0uld be true, but you are aware this makes you rather unusual?
ZM 01.20.15 at 5:44 am
“The women are putting boxes next to them for a functional reason. ”
This is not necessarily true to be honest. If it is a quiet service I put bags in the seat to show I prefer to sit by myself. I move them politely upon request. If the service gets busy I put bags on the overhead racks or under my feet or on my lap..
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 6:01 am
“This is not necessarily true to be honest.”
Well, we can agree to agree that situations vary, hence norms get stretched and confused. Except that there’s really no variance in whether you need to spread your legs extra wide or not. Indeed, that’s the whole reason that spreading your legs like that is functional as social signalling.
chairman 01.20.15 at 6:02 am
I don’t mean shopping bags, but purses/hand bags. I’m sure we all see women putting their purses/hand bags on the seat next to them when they could have just as well gone on their laps.
If we want to think of this as somehow analogous to men’s “peacocking” maybe the women are doing this to signal their sexual value and broadcast their unattainability — that no one, especially men, should presume to sit next to them in public without their prior agreement. Maybe neither is what is actually going on or something else in both cases.
“You just don’t find issues of social status and social relations of potential interest? I guess that c0uld be true, but you are aware this makes you rather unusual?”
Okay, it’s all fine and potentially interesting to consider. What I mean is these blogs that document this “manspreading” and want to make it out as an issue of concern very often have many pictures of men sitting with wide legs when there is hardly anyone around them and when they have all the space to sit however they want without offending anyone, as if they would sit the exact same way otherwise.
Meredith 01.20.15 at 6:35 am
Eszter, the link gives pictures of people who might well indulge in a little extra space around them. (The situation in which a reasonable photo is even possible!) That’s the problem of documentation here. Only when it’s okay for anyone and everyone to spread out a bit can you get a good pic.
Meredith 01.20.15 at 6:36 am
Let me add: New Yorkers are really really good at accommodating one another. The manspreader is there, a pain, but not the norm.
ZM 01.20.15 at 7:13 am
“The manspreader is there, a pain, but not the norm.”
That is true on my line too. Also I think one reason why it happens is that the seats are designed to be low enough that my feet touch the floor, so people with longer legs either need to move their legs knees upwards or feet outwards or sloping away from themselves. Having your knees up for a long journey would be quite uncomfortable I imagine.
Kiwanda 01.20.15 at 7:51 am
You show surprising knowledge of the internal states of other people.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 8:24 am
“You show surprising knowledge of the internal states of other people.”
I thought I was basing my inferences on external states of the body. I grant that if their testicles & etc. are drawn up into their bodies, they may have special medical needs. But even then, I’m not sure that leg-spreading would be indicated. The further in we go, the less likely we are to find something that strictly necessitates a wide stance, right?
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 8:44 am
OK, this is all so funny that I haven’t played it quite straight. I admit. Obviously if some guy is sprawled out in an empty train, like I might be sitting in my pajama boy pants and t-shirt in front of my tv, that’s one thing. He isn’t inconveniencing anyone, fair enough. Nevertheless, the point of the whole critique is pretty much that body language signifies. Which is a pretty trivial proposition, really. It seems a bit silly to balk at the proposition that dudes spreading their legs is body language, more than air-conditioning. Ergo, when that is inconvenient (however often that may be, compared to people inconveniencing you with their groceries) you are basically being inconvenienced by body language.
Minnow 01.20.15 at 9:37 am
“The tipped over guy is just asleep. Still, women don’t tip over like that.”
Women do tip over like that. Spend as much time on trains as I do and you will know. I had a woman sleep for about five minutes with her head on my shoulder the other day before I began to think it might be a little be creepy to leave her there. Of course, taller women tip more than shorter ones, thinner more than wider (as per men) and I think women are more wary about sleeping in public places because I see a lot more men dozing off. On the other hand, women do much, much more eating on trains which is incredibly antisocial. On commutes anyway. And that territorial blocking out with enormous handbags really is a thing. On my commute there is a daily battle over this. The guard will sometimes have to make an announcement and then walk down the train asking people (women really) to move their bags so others can sit. All sorts of pass-agg ensues. My favourite is the angry woman commuter who won’t even look at the guard at this point but angrily gathers up her enormous suitcase-sized handbag and laptop case and coat and piles them all on her lap rather than the luggage rack in a nose/face spite-out and then has to sit like that for half an hour just teaching us a all a lesson in injustice!
But these sorts of micro-struggles are inevitable when people are squeezed together and I don’t think either sex is particularly the worst. I just ask people to move and ignore by the eye rolling huffing, sighing and flapping (just look at how you are inconveniencing me!) that ensues. Sometimes I get into childish protracted knee-offs with assertive men sitting opposite though. What can I say? Commuting can be a bore, it passes the time.
Pete 01.20.15 at 9:43 am
*basically being inconvenienced by body language*
Language which must, like verbal and written language, be policed?
(I think that ZM is right, that the length of the lower leg matters; what we need now is some brave fool to take male and female anatomical skeletons on public transport and see how they arrange themselves. And whether anyone complains about them taking up a seat.)
Minnow 01.20.15 at 9:48 am
I am impressed at the willingness to dismiss men’s lived experience of public transport around here. Is this ‘ladysplaining’?
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 11:57 am
“Is this ‘ladysplaining’?”
I wouldn’t put it past Jezebel, but I think it would technically exceed my own anatomy. Speaking from my own lived experience.
“But these sorts of micro-struggles are inevitable when people are squeezed together and I don’t think either sex is particularly the worst.”
It doesn’t follow from the fact that widestance manspreading is objectionable that therefore men are ruder, overall, on public transport. Therefore, I don’t think it would follow from the fact that men aren’t ruder, overall, on public transport, that widestand manspreading cannot be objectionable. Make sense?
“Language which must, like verbal and written language, be policed?”
Moves to prevent men from taking up extra seats aren’t justified on the basis that men are thereby making a statement, and making statements is, per se, always to be prevented. (That would be an odd view.) It’s the taking up of extra space, by means of the wide-stance, that is regarded as legitimate to object to. (You might compare it to, say, yelling really loud on the train.) But the general tumblr making-fun-of material is, indeed, directed against wide-stance as speech. But you should then maybe think of the making-fun as counter-speech.
J Thomas 01.20.15 at 12:11 pm
#90 Minnow
I am impressed at the willingness to dismiss men’s lived experience of public transport around here. Is this ‘ladysplaining’?
It’s just silliness, not a problem for you is it?
Fifty years ago we had a lot of men complaining about lady drivers. They’d see somebody doing something stupid on the road and then they’d look carefully and sure enough it was a woman except when it wasn’t. That sort of thing builds up resentment and you’ve got to expect some pushback. Give it another 50 years and it will probably even out.
Ronan(rf) 01.20.15 at 12:19 pm
I do think taking pictures of strangers on the tube for the purposes of posting them(shaming them) on tumblr/Jezebel is also pretty rude though, in fairness. Whatever about manspreading, which Ive little doubt is a real phenomenon.
Harald K 01.20.15 at 12:29 pm
One thing 19th century patriarchal Parisian tut-tutters and modern pop-feminist clickbaiters can agree on, it’s that men don’t know how to show proper respect to a lady. That is, men of inferior sophistication, not men like Daumier or Holbo. They can of course rest secure in the knowledge that it isn’t them that are painted as disgusting boors.
Minnow 01.20.15 at 12:30 pm
“It’s just silliness, not a problem for you is it?”
Of course not, I was joining in.
Mind you I think there is a lurking serious point, the one Ronan mentions, that these online shaming campaigns have an ugly streak to them that undermines the idea of shared civic spaces. There was one about women eating on tube trains I remember that was also meant just to be ‘silly/fun/a lark’ but always felt more sinister to me because of the photographic, public shaming aspect and even though eating on public transport REALLY annoys me.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 12:58 pm
“I do think taking pictures of strangers on the tube for the purposes of posting them(shaming them) on tumblr/Jezebel is also pretty rude though, in fairness.”
Good point! I actually completely agree that taking someones picture without their permission is incredibly rude. However then you get into the the situation where people like minnow claim the problem doesn’t exist and ask you for evidence.
It is a catch 22 I am afraid.
Minnow 01.20.15 at 2:06 pm
“However then you get into the the situation where people like minnow claim the problem doesn’t exist and ask you for evidence.”
I actually think weaselly, dishonest, not-quite-accusation type smears are even ruder than publishing shaming photos online!
Yama 01.20.15 at 2:28 pm
http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2015/01/20
Je Suis Manspreader. Or not.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 2:35 pm
“I actually think weaselly, dishonest, not-quite-accusation type smears are even ruder than publishing shaming photos online!”
Umbrage! You take it well I see.
Anyway, I happily withdraw the remark if I have misinterpreted you. So we can count you on the manspreading is a real phenomenon side?
reason 01.20.15 at 2:40 pm
“These conversations just remind me how much I hate public transit and how lucky I am that my partner and I can afford a personal car.”
Which makes you part of the problem (a different problem to the one being illustrated here). The problem is people who don’t care about other people’s issues if they can avoid them (like for instance residents in gated communities). That is why problems get worse. Not only poorer people use public transport, younger and older people often have no choice, even if they are middle class. The more communal services are communal services the better they will be.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 2:51 pm
“Not only poorer people use public transport, younger and older people often have no choice, even if they are middle class. The more communal services are communal services the better they will be.”
Totally agree and would be fine with a tax increase to improve the quality of those services. I have some issues with being in confined spaces with crowds and so I devote more of my income to having a personal car and living in an apartment close enough to my work to walk most days.
/If you noticed I did say how lucky we were to be privileged enough to make the choice.
John Holbo 01.20.15 at 2:54 pm
“That is, men of inferior sophistication, not men like Daumier or Holbo.”
I can honestly say that it didn’t occur to me, when I wrote the post, that I would be called upon to prove my superior sophistication in quite the manner that has, in the event, proved – if not necessary – then the most conversationally relevant way for me to contribute.
But is what I’m saying so all-fired sophisticated? To me it just feels like an obvious point meeting a lot of two-wrongs-make-a-right resistance that I honestly didn’t anticipate. From the fact that Jezebel is obnoxious (let it be so) and these tumblr campaigns can be as rude as the behavior they document (I admit some of them are) and that some women bring too many packages onto trains (I concede it without the rack) it follows that the targets of the manspreading complaints and campaign must be innocent of all obnoxiousness? To me that just seems like illogical defensiveness. (What am I missing here?) You are all (I take it) refusing to give an inch of extra space on the moral omnibus out of a sense that if you give an inch, Jezebel will unjustly take up, like, four seats. OK fine. Worry about that if you really must. But don’t let that keep you from seeing the big picture, would be my advice. Dude in the Daumier picture is spreading. He just is. He’s not evil. He’s not history’s greatest monster. But he’s spreading. That’s all I’m saying, man.
RJL 01.20.15 at 3:02 pm
C’mon guys. You’re letting The Man divide and conquer here. Isn’t the real culprit the manufacturing company that makes seats too small for any man wider or taller than the paltry 5’9 average? Manspreading wouldn’t be necessary if they made the seats big enough. I know. I once got bumped up to first class on a Boeing, and I have to say, I never once bumped knees with the lady next to me.
And you know why the seats are so small? Same reason for everything else that is shit. NEOLIBERALISM SHEEPLE. Tiny seats are just the first volley in the latest wave of biopolitics. Wake up, and realise who the real enemy is here!!!!!
BubbaDave 01.20.15 at 3:31 pm
Another defender of the big guy’s leaning forward. Despite the best efforts of my sedentary lifestyle and affection for beer, my shoulders are still the widest part of my body. Leaning forward helps some; putting my hands on my knees, and rolling my elbows forward a bit also flexes my shoulders inward, further reducing my shoulder-breadth.
(Granted, this technique works with knees together as well, so I’m not sure he’s 100% in the right, but as soon as I saw the position of his arms I was reminded of far too many middle-seat flights with large men on each side of me.)
Trader Joe 01.20.15 at 3:40 pm
As a regular denizen of air travel, there is no question manspreading “is a thing.”
Its a near 100% certainty that a male occupying a middle seat will manspread and it makes little difference as to whether they are above or below the median as to size, weight or any other physical dimension.
Unlike mansplaining, manspreaders are indifferent whether other men, women or some mix of men and women are negated by their actions (mansplaining of course only negates women). Indeed a manspreading action by one man will likely inspire a reciprocal action by an adjacent male sparking an unspoken ‘space war’ that will persist for the duration of the journey.
I’m also surprised that no one observed that the man in the top-hat is most probably drunk and passed out rather than merely sleeping – this would be the more probable explanation for being tipped over since, as others have noted, the way men and women sleep is really not that dissimilar.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 3:46 pm
“As a regular denizen of air travel, there is no question manspreading “is a thing.—
Yep.
Ronan(rf) 01.20.15 at 3:55 pm
“I’m also surprised that no one observed that the man in the top-hat is most probably drunk and passed out rather than merely sleeping ”
My guess was he was drunk as well.
Ronan(rf) 01.20.15 at 4:04 pm
“Eh. I like owning a car. Though, as a 400 dollar repair bill this morning reminded me, it is not without its drawbacks.”
I agree with all of this sentiment,I like driving but the cost of having a car these days is getting prohibitive. I think I must have had 5 puncture in the last 12 months, the most recent one (last weekend) ended up with me losing the safety bolt unscrewer nut (dont know why id kept the safety nuts on) then having to have the car towed to a garage where they had to take off all the safety nuts, then mend the tyre (thankfully it wasnt a deep puncture, so that only cost a tenner, the rest cost 85 or so. Not outrageous, but it adds up) Add to that insurance, car safety inspections, petrol and all of that nonsense and it’s a killer.
Anyway, back on topic.
primedprimate 01.20.15 at 4:41 pm
Man here… I am never more ashamed about my obesity than when I am on public transit. I am also very self conscious about encroaching on other people’s (especially women’s) space. I am deeply aware of how unwelcome an unattractive fat man’s intruding on a woman’s personal space would be. So, I slouch, crouch, hunch, stand, keep my shoulders shrugged etc. consciously trying to minimize the negative externalities my obesity could be causing. On more than one occasion, I gave gotten off the T in Boston if it would start to get crowded and walked the couple or more miles to my destination in the blustery cold cursing my obesity and loathing myself every step of the way.
So when I fortunately find myself in a situation where there is plenty of room in public transport or elsewhere, I ‘manspread’ the way I suppose a famished man gorges on food.
primedprimate 01.20.15 at 4:47 pm
I would totally be in favor of a volume/weight based charge for tickets in all forms of public transit as that would help somewhat mitigate my guilt at occupying more room than the average ticket holder.
Sleepy 01.20.15 at 4:55 pm
Manspreading is a thing. Well. To be more accurate. It’s more of a manifestation of a thing, which I could give a snarky name but will just call “being an inconsiderate, annoying person.” No gender has a stranglehold on that. I guess I could engage in some pop psychology by saying men spread themselves to peacock, women spread their stuff (oversized bag, coat etc…) to show how well taken care of they are blah blah blah. But I don’t know and don’t need to. It’s enough to say that there are rude people from both genders that decide to take up more space than they need to show everybody else how special they are. The problem with essentializing this to one gender is that while it’s great for sparking silly gender battles (yay clicks and attention) it’s not so good at getting people to be more considerate. I guess a “hey, let’s all be more considerate in public” campaign isn’t as fun though.
Lynne 01.20.15 at 4:55 pm
Primedprimate, that is very sad. I think everyone should have as much space as s/he needs, no matter how fat or thin s/he is. This means public seating should not all be the same size, or if it is, it should not all be getting narrower.
OCS 01.20.15 at 5:13 pm
As a frequent subway rider, I have to agree you’re being unjust to the big guy with the arms akimbo. When I have to sit in a middle seat I often do the same thing — lean forward to avoid crowding the people on my left and right with my shoulders, and place either my hands or my elbows on my knees to support my lower back. His knees are even in line with his hips — putting them together wouldn’t make a difference to the people on either side of him.
Minnow 01.20.15 at 5:15 pm
“So we can count you on the manspreading is a real phenomenon side?”
If you mean men sitting with their knees antisocially far apart, I can hardly deny it. I have been drawn into a number of manspread duels on my commuter train with my thigh and knee pressed resolutely against that of the adjacent spreader forcing him back into his allotted space. After an hour or so it feels uncomfortably intimate, but we never once looked each other in the eye, so honour was satisfied.
But the picture above is a different thing. That is just big people squeezed in next to small ones.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 5:21 pm
“Primedprimate, that is very sad. I think everyone should have as much space as s/he needs, no matter how fat or thin s/he is. This means public seating should not all be the same size, or if it is, it should not all be getting narrower.”
+1
Minnow 01.20.15 at 5:21 pm
“Dude in the Daumier picture is spreading. He just is. ”
Nah, he’s just big. As lots of people have noticed, he has actually leaned forward a bit to make extra room and his knees are no further apart than his buttocks. To complain about him amounts to fat shaming I reckon. The position of his hands turned to the inside of his thighs is quite natural if you want to lift some pressure from the buttocks or if you have a tricky bit of digestion going on. It won’t interfere with the people behind. . You will see a lot of women in early stage labour sitting like that, the NCT even recommends it if I remember right.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 5:25 pm
“If you mean men sitting with their knees antisocially far apart, I can hardly deny”
Great! Let us part as comrades with much pip pipping!
“I don’t think either sex is particularly the worst”
Or maybe not?
primedprimate 01.20.15 at 5:27 pm
Actually, on re-reading my comments, I feel like I come across as a narcissistic whiner rather than as someone contributing to the conversation with interesting information or genuine insights.
So once again, I am going to get back to what I usually do – stick to merely reading posts and comment threads on CT rather than lower the average quality of comment threads with my own irrelevant personal observations.
Katherine 01.20.15 at 5:27 pm
Some of the advice given to transmen is, I am told, to literally take up more space. Spread your legs, puff yourself up, walk down the street taking up space.
armando 01.20.15 at 5:36 pm
Manspreading is definitely a thing, but I am very slightly more convinced by Minnow that in that picture, the criticism is perilously close to fat shaming. Fat shaming of a man, and only a picture of one, so not so serious, I guess. But still.
This is partly why the whole manspreading phenomenon makes me uneasy, in that it seems to border on that sort of unkindness. Seriously, watch big guys on public transport and you will see that a lot of the hostility they evoke is nothing they can change – primedprimate’s anecdote is something I have seen played out countless times. I myself used to be quite large, and found that after I lost 6 stone that my fellow passengers were much happier to have me around – which is entirely understandable, but nothing at all to do with me being more considerate and manspreading less.
Minnow 01.20.15 at 5:47 pm
Don’t be so hard on yourself PrimedPrimate, Victoria and I are keeping the level low enough for everyone to enjoy!
Sasha Clarkson 01.20.15 at 5:50 pm
Non-obese people are wider at the shoulders than at the bum, so perhaps seat design should take this into account? I don’t think the big man leaning forward is drawn very well: his arms look as though they’re on backwards to me. That apart, I’ve just spent a couple of minute testing: it’s easier to lean forward if you have your legs a little apart, as you’re less likely to topple over – which is important on a moving bus.
I don’t think there’s any manspreading as such in this picture, just jerksprawling by the drunk on the right which is having a knock-on effect on everyone else.
Ronan(rf) 01.20.15 at 5:51 pm
“Don’t be so hard on yourself PrimedPrimate, Victoria and I are keeping the level low enough for everyone to enjoy! ”
..also, I would like to make a mention of my comment on car troubles, which contained insights so banal Im surprised it hasnt been deleted yet.
Minnow 01.20.15 at 5:54 pm
” just jerksprawling by the drunk on the right which is having a knock-on effect on everyone else.”
I think that is a bit hard on the drunk too. Despite their nuisance, I have a soft spot for drunks for, er, personal reasons of my own.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 6:01 pm
“..also, I would like to make a mention of my comment on car troubles, which contained insights so banal Im surprised it hasnt been deleted yet.”
It was friendly chatter and the kind of thing that builds good will and community.
So I appreciated it.
Ronan(rf) 01.20.15 at 6:06 pm
wait til I tell you about the new socks I got .. ; )
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 6:09 pm
“wait til I tell you about the new socks I got .. ; )”
Go on…
;-)
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 6:11 pm
“Actually, on re-reading my comments, I feel like I come across as a narcissistic whiner rather than as someone contributing to the conversation with interesting information or genuine insights.
So once again, I am going to get back to what I usually do – stick to merely reading posts and comment threads on CT rather than lower the average quality of comment threads with my own irrelevant personal observations.”
100% Wrong Brother. You comment was on topic and worth mentioning.
/Besides in a commentariat that includes Brett Belmore, Ze and J. Thomas you can be confident that yours will never be the worst comment in a thread. That is what keeps me posting. ;-)
primedprimate 01.20.15 at 6:38 pm
Thank you all for your gracious and generous words. The CT commentariat is wise AND kind!
Also, I am sorry for derailing the thread – I would be grateful (and less self-conscious) if subsequent posts returned to discussing the topic of the OP rather than my comments.
J Thomas 01.20.15 at 6:49 pm
#102 John Holbo
To me it just feels like an obvious point meeting a lot of two-wrongs-make-a-right resistance that I honestly didn’t anticipate.
It’s just the blame game all round.
So, like, if it was a matter of blaming people who took up too much space on public transport, and we were thinking about ways to persuade them to take less that might work, that could be something else.
But instead it’s talking about how bad they are, and that they’re men. The obvious conclusion is that men are bad.
Kind of like on another thread, where the point is that terrorists are muslims so muslims are bad.
There are lots of ways it can go. Colonialists were europeans so europeans are bad. Racists are white so whites are bad. Rapists are men so men are bad. Racists are from the US South so southerners are bad. Pro-Life advocates are christians so christians are bad. Mass murderers use guns so gun-nuts are bad. Liberals discriminate against white southerners so liberals are bad. Gun control advocates are Democrats so Democrats are bad. Welfare cheats are black so blacks are bad. It goes around and around and around.
I’m always tempted to just stay out of it. If I say “Well only a small fraction of men are rapists and what can the rest of us do about it?” the response is likely to be “Rapists are men. Men created rape culture. Men are bad. You’re a man and you’re defending rape, I bet you’re a rapist.”
And yet, this sort of thing gets out of hand sometimes. “First they came for NAMBLA and I did nothing because I wasn’t a pederast. Then they came for….” It’s a legitimate moral question whether you should ignore it.
From the fact that Jezebel is obnoxious (let it be so) and these tumblr campaigns can be as rude as the behavior they document (I admit some of them are) and that some women bring too many packages onto trains (I concede it without the rack) it follows that the targets of the manspreading complaints and campaign must be innocent of all obnoxiousness?
No, it doesn’t follow. Men who take more than their share of the space are intrusive whether it’s men or women that they’re crowding. Women who reserve seats beside them hoping to keep intrusive men away are doing it even more. We could conclude from this that men and women are both bad. It might be better to figure that the intrusive people of both genders are intruding on the others of both genders. But when we get namby pamby results like that nobody is satisfied because it isn’t a blame-game win for anybody.
To me that just seems like illogical defensiveness.
Absolutely. If you start talking about people who watch football, and you talk about how mean and stupid they are, people who watch football may feel illogically offended and they might get defensive. I don’t know why it is, but for some unknown reason people who feel like they’re being attacked sometimes feel defensive in spite of any logical reasons they have not to.
Ze Kraggash 01.20.15 at 7:48 pm
Yeah, good thread. Y’all convinced me. I dig it, I do. All people are obnoxious; Sartre was right. Just stay away from them. Get a car, or move close to the office. And get a car. Car is the best thing this civilization invented. You sit in a comfortable chair, shielded from the elements, in the climate conditions you enjoy most, listening to music of your choice, no earplugs. Great, innit. But wait, there’s more: you’re moving! Fantastic. But avoid traffic, because this is how they manage to sneak next to you. Oh yeah, and get a gun, just in case. Not a cheap plasticky one; a nice and heavy S&W revolver. Now you’re all set, and life’s good again.
Philip 01.20.15 at 7:54 pm
The big man in the picture has to lean forward to fit on the bench, the way his elbows are turned outwards seems to me that he is asserting his presence and it’s the women who are being squashed and made uncomfortable.
Looking through the photos on Eszter’s link some are on a fairly empty train, some are taking up extra space in a crowded area and some are really restricting a woman’s space. It’s the ones in an uncrowded area where their knees are ninety degrees a part that I find funny, this is not naturally comfortable position to me and is peacocking. There is one of a guy standing on a train with a suit carrier hanging on a rail, I don’t really see the problem there. I once had to move apartment in Milan and there was taxi strike on so I had too take all my stuff on the tram, with the help of a friend, this would have made a photo for manspreading but I just had a lot of stuff to take on public transport.
Recently I was on a commuter train with some seats left but I knew it would be full by the next stop. There was a young woman who had a newspaper taking up a seat and I thought about making a point by asking to take that seat but by the time I thought if I was being unreasonable or would it make her feel uncomfortable I’d moved up the carriage to make room for more people coming on and I asked a young man if I could sit where his bag was. I’m not really sure what the relevance of that is but following MPAVictoria’s guidance I know it won’t be the worst post.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 8:45 pm
“following MPAVictoria’s guidance I know it won’t be the worst post.”
Ha!
I find it gratifying that J Thomas and Ze both posted almost immediately after my comment at 127. Truly the internet gods must be happy with my offerings of cute pug pictures and bad puns on twitter.
Trader Joe 01.20.15 at 8:50 pm
Daumier has a different work called “First Class Carriage”
http://art.thewalters.org/detail/2863/the-first-class-carriage/
And the characters he represents in that image are almost exactly the same – particularly the larger guy that we all labeled in the OmniBus as working class, in the other work he’s a little less crumpled but quite the same guy including the walking stick. The Top Hat guy and at the woman with the child in omnibus are also represented.
Is anyone going to ask why Vladaimir Lennin is holding the strap in Omnibus?
Bloix 01.20.15 at 9:43 pm
The top-hatted first class fellow is wearing a coat, waistcoat, and collared white shirt. I don’t think we can conclude that he stepped off the train and caught the omnibus from the station.
Compare “The Third Class Carriage”
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/29.100.129
There are two similar men with their backs toward us.
Dr.s 01.20.15 at 9:51 pm
This is definitely the best thread ever. I haven’t seen that picture (Third Class Carriage) for 60 years. But it hung in the living room of the apartment I grew up in.
Tom Slee 01.20.15 at 10:20 pm
jerksprawling is my new favourite word.
Tom Slee 01.20.15 at 10:22 pm
… but I do think we need a neologism for LS Lowry’s “man lying on a wall”: here.
MPAVictoria 01.20.15 at 11:18 pm
From John Scalzi twitter (@scalzi):
“”Whoa-oh here he comes
Watch out girl, he’ll condescend
Whoa-oh here he comes
He’s a Mansplainer”
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 12:23 am
“I don’t know why it is, but for some unknown reason people who feel like they’re being attacked sometimes feel defensive in spite of any logical reasons they have not to.”
Look, the OP is a whimsical attack on manspreading denialism, in an art historical mode. It is just not a good idea to become a manspreading denialist, for the duration, just because you feel the whimsical attack is the thin edge of a wedge, pushing all men to the back of the moral bus, where there are no empty seats. Even if you are right – which I deny you are – denying the obvious is still not the right way to hold your moral ground, whatever the immediate emotional satisfactions.
What is interesting is whether it is obvious. I am rather amazed at the range of evidently sincere visual reads on the picture. Maybe I’m now confabulating, to avoid being guilty of fat-shaming the non-existent, but, not only do I not read the guy as an accommodating fatty, I don’t see him as fat. He’s no Diaghilev, I grant you. But he’s just big. Broad in the shoulders but I don’t see a paunch there. I wouldn’t describe him as fat. Would you?
Well, anyway. I didn’t think he would turn out to be some Hamlet, attracting radically different interpretations, even to the point where we can’t decide his body type; I didn’t think his open look of contentment was like Mona Lisa’s smile. What is he thinking, this great, inscrutable beast of the omnibus? We will never know, even if we argue til the end of the line.
“Watch out girl, he’ll condescend”
That’s a great rewrite but, in fairness, it does show the potential complications with ‘mansplainer’. Women can be very condescending. Just read Jezebel! Also, I’m obviously a big believer in condescension, under appropriate medical conditions, i.e. it is a fine troll repellant, applied topically. Still, there is a norm that men can condescend to women without necessarily seeming out of line. Whereas when women do it, they are bitches. The larger function of Jezebel being so consistently condescending in tone is to fight against this norm. At the macro level, it’s strategy. At the micro level, it looks like hypocrisy. On the third hand, you might object that two wrongs don’t make a right: rather than fighting for the right to symmetrical rudeness, we should all try to be polite. Then again, it’s not like I’m going to give up my beloved condescension, when people are being wrong in my threads. Dilemmas dilemmas.
MPAVictoria 01.21.15 at 12:34 am
“it does show the potential complications with ‘mansplainer’”
I continue to maintain that mansplainer is a great term for something that women experience on a regular basis. But mostly, I just liked the rewrite. :-)
And maybe it would be best to respond to rudeness and hate with politeness but I am just not that good a person…
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 12:46 am
“I continue to maintain that mansplainer is a great term”
I don’t mind the term, even though I’ve had it applied to myself in circumstances in which I sincerely thought my interlocutor was just being a blockhead. All tools may be misused, and – who knows? – maybe I was mansplaining.
If you want to be polite in your own threads on the internet, not severely condescending, you have to be a rigorous deleter. There is no known third way, since it’s not like you can expect commenters to be polite and reasonable. I obviously favor condescension to deletion. That’s just me. No doubt some evil part of me delights in knowing that, by posting about anything at all – the wallpaper, pocket lint! – I will be able to indulge in the joys of righteous condescension. Since there are no longer any topics insignificant enough not to call forth a significant number of rudely wrong-headed responses that threaten to derail an otherwise well-mannered discussion of pocket lint. They made me do it!
In real life, it is generally a good idea just to be polite.
MPAVictoria 01.21.15 at 12:55 am
“If you want to be polite in your own threads on the internet, not severely condescending, you have to be a rigorous deleter. There is no known third way, since it’s not like you can expect commenters to be polite and reasonable. I obviously favor condescension to deletion. That’s just me. No doubt some evil part of me delights in knowing that, by posting about anything at all – the wallpaper, pocket lint! – I will be able to indulge in the joys of righteous condescension. Since there are no longer any topics insignificant enough not to call forth a significant number of rudely wrong-headed responses that threaten to derail an otherwise well-mannered discussion of pocket lint. They made me do it!”
Point taken. I really admire the contributors to this blog (you included) so keep on keeping on I guess. :-)
/And obviously not every use of mansplaining is going to be correct but that is true for almost every term.
mattski 01.21.15 at 1:58 am
At this juncture, I believe, a pivot to pocket-lint would be prudent.
J Thomas 01.21.15 at 3:03 am
#139 JH
Look, the OP is a whimsical attack on manspreading denialism, in an art historical mode.
Yes, I thought it was funny.
It is just not a good idea to become a manspreading denialist, for the duration, just because you feel the whimsical attack is the thin edge of a wedge, pushing all men to the back of the moral bus, where there are no empty seats.
Agreed, it is not a good idea. And yet there are almost always people who do it when it’s serious, and people did it here too. Why would people do that even when it is not a good idea?
Even if you are right – which I deny you are – denying the obvious is still not the right way to hold your moral ground, whatever the immediate emotional satisfactions.
Agreed. I believe I’m right in my explanation why they do it. They feel that they are being attacked even though they probably do not feel that they are the actual people being complained about. Men often feel attacked when it’s pointed out that rapists are always men and that men are entirely responsible for rape culture in which women are entirely innocent victims. Men who are not themselves rapists will often appear to stand up for rapists. Like, faced with the claim that not nearly enough men get jailed for rape, they want to make sure that accused rapists are actually guilty when obviously the more important problem is that far too few men go to jail.
Similarly, some men feel attacked when told that men think they know what’s going on and try to explain it — mansplaining, when the reality is that women know what’s going on and the men ought to shut up and listen to women explain the truth. Some men feel just as attacked when women tell them to shut up and listen because their own experience is worthless as they do when it’s men saying it.
And once they start feeling defensive they often don’t use the best strategy to get along.
Obviously, faced with the argument “Some men do X, therefore men are bad” it will get nowhere to say “Some women do X or Y and therefore women are bad too”. And yet we see it happen a lot.
I suppose one way to keep it from happening would be to say that people who make that mistake are stupid poopyheads who ought to know better.
js. 01.21.15 at 3:20 am
Am I really the only one thinking that the man at the center of the sketch, the manspreader, is the most humanistically and sympathetically drawn figure? I’m not really talking about the mechanics of the body, how much space he would be taking up if he were an actual person sitting in an actual omnibus, etc.? Just the mechanics of the representation. That’s it’s an implicit critique of that figure’s seating style is about the last thing that would have occurred to me. Which is not to say that his posture might not also embody manspreading.
(ps. primedprimate: you were in the top 5% of commenters on the Charlie Hebdo thread, probably. Please comment more!)
JanieM 01.21.15 at 3:30 am
@js. — I think you’re onto something, and I’m glad you brought it up. JH said this: “I am rather amazed at the range of evidently sincere visual reads on the picture.” I’m amazed at his amazement, and at this: “I didn’t think his open look of contentment was like Mona Lisa’s smile.” All day I’ve been resisting jumping in to say that I (sincerely!) think the big guy looks the least comfortable of all the figures; to me it looks like he’s gazing back at the person “taking the picture” as if he’s a touch annoyed, or bemusedly and tiredly wondering, “WTF now? Can’t you just leave me alone?”
*****
I was explicitly taught as a small child not to sit with my legs apart, because it wasn’t ladylike. I persisted in doing a lot of things that were considered unladylike in those days, such as loving math, wanting to play baseball, etc. etc. But weirdly enough, the bit about not sitting with legs apart has stuck to this day, at least when I’m not alone, even though sitting with my legs together is less comfortable, whether because of body mechanics or who knows what.
*****
Has anyone mentioned that another striking thing about the picture is that both the women are gazing at men, while none of the men are looking at the women? Except maybe Lenin the straphanger; it’s hard to tell what he’s looking at.
JanieM 01.21.15 at 3:34 am
Also, as to this: mansplaining of course only negates women
Maybe definitionally that’s true, but if so there should be another word for when men do it to each other. But the other day while waiting for an Amtrak train I sat behind two middle-aged guys who peacocked at each other the whole time to see who could prove he was more knowledgeable about Tom Brady’s early life and other sports topics.
I do love “peacock” as a verb…….
JanieM 01.21.15 at 3:36 am
Okay, maybe “least comfortable” is overdoing it. But I certainly don’t read his expression as conveying anything like contentment or self-satisfaction.
J Thomas 01.21.15 at 3:38 am
#139 JH
I am rather amazed at the range of evidently sincere visual reads on the picture. Maybe I’m now confabulating, to avoid being guilty of fat-shaming the non-existent, but, not only do I not read the guy as an accommodating fatty, I don’t see him as fat. He’s no Diaghilev, I grant you. But he’s just big. Broad in the shoulders but I don’t see a paunch there. I wouldn’t describe him as fat. Would you?
I dunno. It looks like he’s leaning forward, so his paunch would be where his shirt or jacket is hanging in folds. I could imagine it either way. His lower face and double chin look fat, but I guess they could just be wattles from age.
He is leaning forward some, and his arms would be even more intrusive if he had them by his sides leaning back. But he’s intrusive this way too. Maybe less if he curled his shoulders forward and put his hands in his lap.
He could reduce intrusion by standing up for the ride. But it looks like he has a cane, maybe he is injured and it doesn’t work for him to stand most of the way.
If his hips are narrow then his legs are spread, which he may need on a jolting vehicle to avoid falling onto people on either side, which would be more intrusive. Although it kind of looks like there’s something he could brace against overhead, which would put his arms more out of the way while opening his armpits to everybody. But if his hips are wide then his legs are not spread. I see hints of wide hips there but I’m not sure. Then his big knees might be hiding thin thighs (though I imagine I see a hint of a bulky thigh too). He could have little atrophied legs that he hobbles around on with a cane, and his chest and arms are overdeveloped because he has to use them more. I think the picture is compatible with that but he ought to have two canes, and they should be thicker.
RJL’s solution wouldn’t work — it’s a bench they’re sitting on, and if they put in dividers to regulate the space each person took up, then the ones who got seats would not be crowded but fewer people could sit.
If we go by “to each according to his needs” then if he does need a seat, then he needs a big seat. I can’t tell whether he needs a seat. The woman with the baby beside him needs a seat.
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 3:41 am
“Except maybe Lenin the straphanger; it’s hard to tell what he’s looking at.”
I’ll buy that he is Vlad Lenin. But clearly he is the conductor, holding the implement of his office, the ticketpuncher. Right?
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 3:44 am
We can agree about nothing. I think I’m going to argue next that it obviously isn’t an omnibus at all. It’s a space shuttle on the way to Alpha Centauri. And the reason they all look uncomfortable (possibly including the big dude) is they know how long the trip is going to take. The ship is fueled by benzene, hence the tank we see visible above their heads.
MPAVictoria 01.21.15 at 3:49 am
“We can agree about nothing. I think I’m going to argue next that it obviously isn’t an omnibus at all. It’s a space shuttle on the way to Alpha Centauri. And the reason they all look uncomfortable (possibly including the big dude) is they know how long the trip is going to take. The ship is fueled by benzene, hence the tank we see visible above their heads.”
Seems legit…
JanieM 01.21.15 at 4:00 am
But clearly he is the conductor, holding the implement of his office, the ticketpuncher. Right?
I’m not convinced. :-)
Here’s a bigger version. He’s not holding it the way you’d hold a punch, and there’s a little knob at the top of it that could be the screw that holds a strap to the upright surface.
I’ll give you that the big guy’s crooked half-smile (double signal?) looks more sheepish in the larger version than it seemed in the smaller ones.
J Thomas 01.21.15 at 4:11 am
#152 JH
I think I’m going to argue next that it obviously isn’t an omnibus at all. It’s a space shuttle on the way to Alpha Centauri.
That looks implausible to me. First, it was titled ‘The Omnibus’. I guess it could be a spaceshuttle named Omnibus, but that would not be my first or twelfth guess. I see a building through a square window, though I suppose it could possibly be part of the shuttle — since we’ve never built a space shuttle that can get to Alpha Centauri we can’t be sure what it would look like. And it might not be a window. Benzine would not be an appropriate fuel for an interstellar shuttle, and it’s toxic enough you wouldn’t want it close to passengers. Another word I can almost make out on that tank is “Rodents”. Possibly those are a series of viewscreens carrying important information, maybe th rodents that people depend on for protein in their diet are not reproducing fast enough. But more likely those are advertisements from a transport in Daumier’s own time, and they’re advertising rat poison. The people are dressed far more as I’d expect in Daumier’s time too, though of course people in a space shuttle might revive any old fashions they like. I wasn’t aware that Daumier had painted any science fiction themes. If this is the only one, that’s less plausible. Maybe a bunch of his other work could also be interpreted that way, but I’m not aware of any critics who noticed. If you’re the first to see it then you could be right, but it will be hard to persuade people because they will tend to assume that mainstream opinion is right even when it should be obvious that mainstream opinion is wrong.
Your interpretation is of course possible, but I think it is far more plausible that this is a 19th century omnibus, that the people are wearing 19th century garb because they are 19th century people, that the viewscreens are actually advertisements for benzine and rodent poison, that the darker area with dark parallelograms in one of the white rectangles is a building seen through a window and not something else.
Of course, YMMV.
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 4:21 am
“I guess it could be a spaceshuttle named Omnibus.”
Exactly.
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 4:24 am
Now I totally want to write it as a Jules Verne novel.
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 4:36 am
The big guy is the captain. He’s good but he’s got his flaws. A tendency to stare into space. The sleepy guy is the science officer. The two women are the medical and communications officers. Lenin is the engineer. The baby is kind of a Wesley Crusher-type, but way more precocious. Exposed to cosmic rays, it’s become a spacebaby with some sort of weird connection to something Out There. Perhaps all their fates lie in its tiny lap!
Man: Spreading Across the Universe!
That’s the theme. But defining what that mission means creates a lot of tension within the ship. Juxtaposition between majesty of space and uncomfortable wooden bench. A lot of crackling tension between crewmembers.
Political tension with those back home. The Orleans branch of the house of Bourbon dreaming of a space empire, but …
MPAVictoria 01.21.15 at 4:40 am
“The baby is kind of a Wesley Crusher-type, but way more precocious. ”
Mother of God…
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 5:48 am
Maybe it would be more realistic if the starship Omnibus ran not on pure benzine but on some uniquely Parisian chemical x compound of benzine, rat poison and patent headache cure.
Now that the Madagascar franchise is apparently flagging, maybe I could pitch it to Dreamworks as an animated kids feature, in the style of Daumier.
OK, Mr. Katzenberg, it’s “Autour de La Lune” meets “No Exit” meets “Mystery Science Theater 3000” meets “Pere Goriot” meets “Battlestar Galactica”. Plus it’s going to pass the Bechdel test, just barely! So Jezebel will like us. We’re going to get John Goodman to be the voice of the captain, Alan Rickman to be the science officer, Cloris Leachman to be the voice of the medical officer, Sigourney Weaver to be the communications officer, Jason Schwartzman to be the engineer … and Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of Spacebaby. We’re going to get Andy Serkis to help with the CGI motion capture for the baby. We’re getting Michel Gondry to direct. His first animated feature!
ZM 01.21.15 at 6:17 am
I was just now reading in the paper this afternoon that my train line had a very bad manners controversy on Monday that prompted radio discussion of manners and age and gender (I wasn’t on the train with I will assure you, since I have possibly given a bad impression of my train manners since I never thought that people would get so offended if you put your bag on the seat even on quiet services)
“The teacher’s call to the radio station was prompted by reports of an 83-year-old woman who could not get a seat on a V/Line train … on Monday.
The woman’s daughter-in-law… told 3AW no one would give up their seat.
“She had to sit on the floor,” Ms Clark said. “There were children sitting there with adults and they wouldn’t give up a seat for her. I just think it’s pretty poor.”
Ms Clark said the family had encountered similar problems in previous years when heading to the city for the first day of the Australian Open.
Dr Rosewarne [a senior lecturer in the School of Social and Political Sciences ] said the woman’s experience was unfortunate, but was not indicative of poor manners specifically among men.
“Yes, you could talk about men not knowing their place, but why weren’t able-bodied women standing up for the elderly woman on the train?” she said.
However, Dr Rosewarne noted not all manners were lost.
“There’s a perception that manners are lost with each generation. That’s not a cultural truth, it’s just a myth we keep repeating,” she said.
“All kinds of remarkable acts of kindness happen in today’s society.” “
Zamfir 01.21.15 at 6:53 am
Nitpicking: don’t confuse benzine and benzene, you use both terms above. Benzine the fraction of crude oil that we use as car fuel. In the days of Daumier, it was perhaps sold as lamp oil.
Benzene is a specific aromatic hydrocarbon molecule, also found in crude oil but a bit on the light side to be part of gasoline. It’s carcinogenic, so nowadays it gets filtered out completely. It’s used to make Styrofoam and more.
In the days of Daumier, there might still have been some benzene in the benzine, but I would bet that the omnibus is advertising fuel, not a precursor material for chemical factories
Zamfir 01.21.15 at 6:56 am
I guess not clear for English speakers: benzine is basically what you call gasoline.
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 6:56 am
I just remembered a scene from Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil”. Our hero, Sam, played by Jonathan Pryce, is riding one of those weird lateral elevator/train cars that pass for public transport. He’s got a seat and several other men have seats. There’s a middle-aged women with one leg – the other presumably having been taken off in one of the frequent terrorist attacks – standing up with no place to sit. No man offers her a seat. Our hero is too busy fantasizing about saving the girl, Jill, to notice that he might offer his seat to a one-legged woman. He’s just drawing long hair on the short-hair picture of Jill he printed out from the system. Then he misses his stop.
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 7:00 am
Zamfir, you are quite correct my spelling was inconsistent. I wasn’t sure what was being sold, honestly. I’m sure that either benzine or benzene plus rat poison plus headache medicine will do equally well to get the ship through space.
Haftime 01.21.15 at 8:42 am
Thank you for introducing me to Daumier.
Nit-picking the nit-picking (that’s how you build a cohesive band of chimps right?), my understanding (with a sneaky check of wikipedia) was that benzene is still legal to add as an antiknock agent in small quantities (a % or so). I don’t think much benzene gets into the ‘raw petrol’ stream, so it comes in later – I’m not a refinery expert but I think filtering petrol to remove benzene would be tough (I guess you could redistill or crack it).
Minnow 01.21.15 at 9:17 am
“But he’s just big. Broad in the shoulders but I don’t see a paunch there. I wouldn’t describe him as fat. Would you?”
He is both, I think. The way the tunic sags between his legs indicates paunch to me and the position he is in is characteristic of the big bellied (and pregnant women when at home). Also, the amplitude of his buttocks has required some work.
As to Lanin, deffo not the conductor. He is holding a strap and not wearing a uniform, no cap.
But I hhave a feeling I am a bit out of time on this thread now.
Minnow 01.21.15 at 9:19 am
I seem to be landing in moderation. Have I broken some bye law?
John Holbo 01.21.15 at 9:54 am
I can only hypothesize that our engine balked at ‘buttocks’ plus ‘pregnant’, or something of the sort, Minnow.
Sasha Clarkson 01.21.15 at 10:40 am
Benzine is petroleum ether. For English speakers, automobile fuel, ‘Benzin’ in several languages is called petrol: gasoline is an American word! :)
Benzene is used instead of tetra-ethyl lead as an anti-knocking agent in unleaded petrol: it’s extremely nasty stuff!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzene#Component_of_gasoline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_ether
Niall McAuley 01.21.15 at 11:35 am
Lenin is not holding a ticket punch, it’s a sonic screwdriver.
Zamfir 01.21.15 at 12:47 pm
@Haftime: I am pretty sure I was once at a refinery where benzene was removed from the gasoline stream, though I do not know by which process. This might not be universal practice.
I think the process contained a step that encouraged the formation of aromatic groups, because of their good properties for fuel. This also produced too much benzene, which got removed or at least reduced.
js. 01.21.15 at 9:07 pm
I just looked at a somewhat bigger sized image, and standing by my original thought. As JanieM noted, each of the passengers looks uncomfortable in some way (I mean, dude on the left looks to me like he’s ready to kill the rest), but the main function of the central figure’s posture (as portrayed) seems to me to be to more or less literally draw him closer to the viewer. It’s as if–to muck up metaphors–Daumier’s got him in medium shot and everyone else in long shot. (Ok, that’s not quite right, but you get my point.) I just still completely don’t see how this is supposed to be a critique, implicit or otherwise, of central dude’s posture. (Not taking issue with concerns about manspreading, which are genuine, just with what seems to me a really odd reading of the drawing.)
“Man: spreading across the universe” is pure genius, ps. Bookmark worthy.
J. Parnell Thomas 01.21.15 at 10:23 pm
I remember hearing a complaint in Taiwan that Americans walk like they own the street. I seem to recall hearing it more than one, but I could be wrong.
Look how these Chinese dudes sit.
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/586637/china-finds-no-terror-evidence-against-chinese-on-mh370-passengers-xinhua
J. Parnell Thomas 01.21.15 at 10:25 pm
On 2nd thought, maybe it’s just cold…
J. Parnell Thomas 01.21.15 at 11:20 pm
On 3rd thought, I think that was actually my mom quoting her students.
Haftime 01.22.15 at 1:30 am
@Zamfir – if you’ve been to a refinery sounds like you’re well ahead of me in the knowing about petrol making stakes! I think it was simply the idea of filtering (in a literal sense) that made me concerned (my guess would be chromatography rather than a simple filtration, or perhaps another distillation or catalytic process). Obviously that wasn’t what was meant. Keep up the benzine/benzene good fight. Next up silicone/silicon/silica.
bill benzon 01.22.15 at 5:19 pm
“Parisian chemical x compound of benzine, rat poison and patent headache cure.”
You forgot the absinthe.
dax 01.23.15 at 10:46 am
From way back: “There’s also the classic “sitting in the outer seat with the inner seat unoccupied when all the other available seats are full,†which I guess I see both sexes do more or less equally, and is obnoxiously inconsiderate no matter who it is.”
It may not be inconsiderate. If you’re going to get off at the next stop, then it may be better to sit in the outer seat. The person going for an inner seat with an outer seat taken has the choice of whether or not to experience the discomfort. The person in an outer seat enduring the discomfort from someone leaving from an inner seat does not have a choice.
J Thomas 01.23.15 at 1:48 pm
Dax, it may be less inconsiderate to keep the seat empty than to move to the inner seat yourself and then at the next stop struggle out over the person who sits in the outer seat.
It’s more inconsiderate than letting somebody by into the inner seat, or than standing the last little bit and letting two other people sit.
But both of those require more from you, and get you personally nothing in return unless somebody says thank you.
I don’t mean to imply anything by using 2nd person, which you did also.
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