Feminist Insanity Leads To Arrests For “Manspreading”

03 Jun, 2015 by William Teach

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Manspreading, ie, men sitting with their legs spread in a public setting, has become a Serious Issue to hardcore feminists, as explained over at National Review, which pulls the relevant complaints from feminists. If you manspread, you’re a part of the evil patriarchy, you’re exhibiting male dominance, blah blah blah. They always need something to complain about.

Manspreading arrests: the long arm of the law just invaded our personal space
As two men are arrested for ‘manspreading’ on the New York metro, Joel Snape argues that we should all take a bit of responsibility rather than making anti-social behaviour illegal

Bad news, tall men with a poor sense of boundaries: the NYPD have had enough of your nonsense. Yes, after op–eds in the New York Times (£), a popular crowdshaming Tumblr campaign and a series of public service ads from the Metropolitan Transport Authority, ‘manspreading’, or ‘sitting with your legs slightly too far apart’, as it used to be known, has apparently become a criminal offence.

According to a recent report from the Police Reform Organising Project, at least two men have been arrested and charged on grounds of the M–word, “presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders”. Rather than simply throwing out the charges, the judge issued an order that only guarantees that the men won’t suffer further repercussions if they avoid getting arrested again in the near future. It’s all part of a numbers driven crackdown on subway behaviour that’s also seen arrests for break dancing, walking between the cars and – collective air punch – people putting their feet on the seats. Nobody’s been arrested for playing dubstep on audio–leaking headphones yet, but it’s surely only a matter of time.

The two men were arrested in NYC. Think about that. Arrested for sitting with your legs spread out, taking up more than one seat. People can be fined $50 for taking up more than one seat if it interferes with the comfort of other passengers.

No, the main problem with arresting people for anti–social behaviour is that anti-social behaviour shouldn’t be illegal in the first place.

Criminal acts have clear boundaries, as in the case of murder, tax evasion, or torrenting episodes of Game Of Thrones; sitting with your legs too wide on a subway seat does not. Every commuter instinctively knows the difference between a man who’s tall enough to need a bit of extra room and someone who’s just being an arse, but in order to effectively prosecute it you’d need some sort of complex formula to determine guilt, which included variables like limb–length, testicular size, the number of other commuters on the train during the time of the offence and the always important willingness–to–be–accommodating–when–the–carriage–gets–crowded matrix.

What the feminists are attempting to do is make behaviour they do not like illegal. Men sit with their legs spread, when they aren’t crossed. Some sit with their legs spread more than others, and men will spread out when they can. It’s comfortable for us. That’s the way we roll. It’s not dominance, we aren’t trying to show how big are balls are, nor anything else the wacky feminists screech about.

That said, there is a time an place for everything. Going for the ultra-spread on the subway is a no no. But, there shouldn’t be any penalties, any more than people being on crowded public transportation taking up too much space.

There are lots of great comments at the article. Here’s my favorite