Manspreading: the rise of broken windows liberalism

Of all the conflagrations of online outrage that have burst forward these past couple years, few have elicited as much long-lasting passion as the concerns over “manspreading." The term—which I really hate typing without scare quotes—refers to the phenomenon of men taking up too much space on public transport, typically by spreading their legs farther than ladyfolk are wont to do. The furor over manspreading has generated a few well-trafficked blogs, some deeply vitriolic thinkpieces, and hundreds of little instances of social media shaming. It has also bothered me much more than it probably should, and so I’d like to talk about it.

My first response to manspreading was that it didn’t really seem to exist, at least not to a degree that warranted the type of anger it was generating. Take catcalling as a counter-example: catcalling is vicious, it directly and intentionally dehumanizes its victims, and—unlike manspreading—its perpetrators are nearly always men and its victims are nearly always women. I get onto a bus or a train, and I do see some splayed-out dudes, but there’s usually an equal or greater number of women who are similarly stretched, or who take up an extra seat (or three) with their bags. Genders seem to do it equally, and so we’re all equally victimized. It’s only a gender-specific offense if you pay attention to half the people who are doing it.

But even then, aside from occasional mild annoyance on packed trains, I never took "spreading” as a sign of severe personal fault. Undoubtedly, some spreaders are grade-A palookas and they probably kick dogs and wear bodyspray. But maybe some are tired and had a bad day. Or their legs hurt from running. Or there was plenty of space when they got on the train but then it filled up and their mind is somewhere else so they just didn’t think to make space, so they’re not jerks really so much as they’re regular people who are being momentarily inconsiderate. At any rate, it’s no big deal. No offense is meant. Get over it, guys. Jeez.

But the blog posts and thinkpieces kept coming, as did the shaming pics that often contained the full face of the alleged spreader. I don’t want to link to any of these, because they’re mean. Some of the spreaders do appear to be of jerkface persuasion (usually because they are wearing ascots or soccer jerseys). But many are just of decrepit looking souls, or fat people. In one—one that had generated over 300 tumblr notes—the picture was of an overweight man. His thighs were touching up top, but they thinned out and spread apart as they went down, because that’s how thighs work when you’re fat. Hundreds of self-proclaimed feminists were having a gay ol’ time bodyshaming him, and it was one of the most grossly hypocritical things I have ever seen.

What engendered this anger, this meanness? In order to understand where the ire comes from, we have to look at a means of analysis that’s common throughout lazy writing and has recently, sadly entered into a lot of social justice commentary. It’s based around taking erstwhile inoffensive or mildly offensive actions, embusing them with a pervasive secret meaning indicative of some kind of hatred, and then getting mad not at the action itself, but the evil subconscious mindsets that underlie it.

Hence, manspreaders aren’t spreading for any material reasons—not because they’re tired or there’s plenty of space or even because they are fat and physically have to take up more room. They spread only because of their hidden ideology. They secretly believe themselves superior to women, which is why they want to take up space.

Basically, your posture says more about your ideology than your actual ideology does. That’s the sort of logic that’s so stupid it has an air of infallibility to it, the sort of “X is not actually X” hot take that blots out any hope of a reasonable reply. How do you respond to this? If you make the mistake of taking it seriously (which I have), you look from your phone or computer to see that, gasp, you’re sitting right now legs uncrossed, thighs separated by some kind of disgustingly phallic measurement (6 inches? 8? 12, you fucking pervert?), taking up nearly all the space afforded by your couch or office chair. Sure, you could make the argument that you’re the only one sitting on the chair at the present moment, but that’s just a cover up. Truth is, you’re entitled. Truth is, you hate women. And the internet ain’t putting up with that shit any longer.

Lots of dudes—few of whom would have considered themselves MRA sorts—tried to respond to this by saying, hey, our legs tend to be bigger and also we have balls. In turn, the internet feigned shock that men would dare attempt to mansplain what it’s like to have testicles. The defenders were righteously mocked just as much as the spreaders, told to check their poisonous privilege and accept other peoples’ explanation of the ideological underpinnings of their posture. There would be no discussion of this matter, only condemnation followed by apology, or arrest.

Not exaggerating there. In November, New York’s MTA launched a campaign meant to shame spreaders. And then, soon afterward, the NYPD began using spreading infractions as an excuse to search, harass, beat, and arrest brown people.

Wait… shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen! Who could have possibly thought that further empowering police would have led to an increase in the brutalization of minorities? Aside, you know, from anyone who possesses a cursory understanding of how policing works in this country.



Turns out, ascribing evil motivations to minor acts of inconsideration isn’t something that online liberals invented. Conservatives have been doing it for loooooong time, as it’s a very handy way to criminalize arbitrary behaviors that are associated with the people they want to fuck with. Just as sagging pants can be considered indicative of a predisposition toward criminal acts and grounds for a search, spreading is now equally indicative of wrongness, equally deserving a violent response. That this would fall into police purview is shocking only to those who don’t bother to think out the implications of their actions and beliefs. And anyone who would assume that MTA policy would be applied equally to white and brown passengers is just naïve beyond hope.

Now, to be fair, practically no one who complained about spreading would advocate for arresting spreaders. But that’s precisely why we should realize that disseminating widespread derision will lead to material consequences, and that those consequences are much more likely to strengthen the racist and sexist status quo than to effect any positive change.

Mean, petty discourse generates mean, petty policies. It’s easy to adopt conservative discursive strategies, yes, and they might appear to generate quick and decisive victories. But that’s just because these strategies hinge upon some of the most base and exploitable of human emotions—cruelty, totalization, the desire to chastise “the bad” as a means of confirming one’s placement within the “good,” and the refusal to countenance any nuance or conflicting accounts. These aren’t the traits you appeal to if you’re trying to improve things. These are the traits cynics invoke once their world has become cast in absolutist terms and all they care about is winning. You shouldn’t do that. You’re better than that.