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Shilling, Chris, 'The Socially Constructed Body', The Body and Social Theory,  2012, pp. 75-102.

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"Nonetheless, the body is above all a metaphor of society as a whole." (Shilling, p. 77).

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"Nonetheless, the body is above all a metaphor of society as a whole." (Shilling, p. 77).

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It had never really occurred to me before this unit that men and women utilise their space in different ways using their bodies. The idea that men deliberately take up more space in the physical world because society allows them to feel entitled to it is absolutely fascinating to me. What does this say about the social order in 2016? And how much agency do we have as men or as women to bring attention to or to change this social order? Now that I understand that we give social meaning to the manner in which we use our space, my interest has been piqued, and in this collection pad I will explore some of the issues gendered space has raised in today's world.

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Transport authorities in the United States have erected posters in their trains encouraging commuters to consider other passengers when traveling. Is this a sign of a changing society? Will posters appealing for basic etiquette help to change the social landscape? In my experience, males and females both take up space on the train, but they do it differently. I've seen many cases of 'manspreading' from males, but in the case of women, it isn't the body that takes up unnecessary space - it's their shopping bags and handbag.

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"I'm not going to cross my legs like ladies do," he said. "I'm going to sit how I want to sit."

And what if Mr. Panceiro, an administrative assistant from Los Angeles, saw posters on the train asking him to close his legs? "I'd just laugh at the ad and hope that someone graffitis over it," he said.

For Kelley Rae O'Donnell, an actress who confronts manspreaders and tweets photos of them, her solitary shaming campaign now has the high-powered help of the transportation authority, whose ads will be plastered inside subway cars.

"It drives me crazy," she said of men who spread their legs. "I find myself glaring at them because it just seems so inconsiderate in this really crowded city."

When Ms. O'Donnell, who lives in Brooklyn and is in her 30s, asks men to move, she said, they rarely seem chastened: "I usually get grumbling or a complete refusal."

The new ads - aimed at curbing rude behavior like manspreading and wearing large backpacks on crowded trains - are set to go up in the subways next month. They will all carry the slogan, "Courtesy Counts: Manners Make a Better Ride."

One of the posters is likely to be especially welcome to women - as well as to men who frown on manspreading: "Dude... Stop the Spread, Please" reads the caption next to an image of riders forced to stand as a man nearby sits so that he takes up two seats.

The campaign is the latest in a long line of courtesy-themed crusades by the authority going back to at least the 1940s. One such ad urged women annoyed by impolite male riders to, "Hit Him Again Lady, We Don't Like Door-Blockers Either."

The new ads come as more riders are crowding onto the subways than at any time in recent history. In 2014, the system logged as many as 6.1 million riders on a single day, up from just under 5.1 million riders on the busiest day a decade ago. The city's population, meanwhile, has swelled to more than 8.4 million people, pushing everyone closer and closer.

With crime no longer rampant on the subway, the campaign is the latest sign that other unwelcome behavior is getting attention.

Several blogs regularly highlight instances of manspreading where knees stretch several feet apart. On some sites, images of large objects like the Death Star from "Star Wars" have been added with Photoshop into the space between the splayed legs. While there are women who take up more than their share of space, the offenders are usually men.

One admitted manspreader, John Hubbard, sat with his legs wide apart on an F train as it traveled through Manhattan recently.

"It's more comfortable," he said with a shrug.

Mr. Hubbard, 45, an engineer who lives in New Jersey, said he might move his leg, but not for just anyone. For an older person, he would. And for an attractive woman, he said, he definitely would.

Sherod Luscombe shook his head when he saw two men sitting with their legs spread on another train, taking up three seats between them. Mr. Luscombe, 58, a clinical social worker, said he thought the men should move, but he was not about to confront them.

"I'm not going to say, 'Bro, there is a lady standing up right there. Cross your legs, young man,' " he said.

Women have theories about why some men sit this way. Some believe it is just a matter of comfort and may not even be intentional. Others consider it an assertion of power, or worse.

Bridget Ellsworth, a 28-year-old music teacher, views manspreading as sexual harassment because some men engage in it near her even when the subway car is not packed.

"They could move over and spread out their legs all they want," she said, "but they're squeezing next to me and doing it."

For men who think that sitting with their legs spread is socially acceptable, manners experts say it is not. Peter Post, the author of the book "Essential Manners for Men" and great-grandson of etiquette guru Emily Post, said the proper way for men to sit is with their legs parallel rather than in a V-shape.

"I'm baffled by people who do that kind of thing, who take other people's space," he said.

Olof Hansson, a director of the Manhattan men's spa John Allan's, put it more succinctly. "A true gentleman doesn't sit on the subway, he stands."

As for men who may worry that crossing their legs could hurt their virility, doctors say there is nothing to fear. A half-hour train ride with legs crossed might raise testicular temperatures, but not long enough to do any harm, said Dr. Marc Goldstein, director of the center for male reproductive medicine and microsurgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center.

Philadelphia has a new etiquette campaign, too, with posters that say, "Dude It's Rude... Two Seats - Really?"

But Kristin Geiger, a spokeswoman for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, said the campaign in the City of Brotherly Love is aimed at passengers with bags on seats, not people spreading their legs too far apart. Manspreading, she said, may be a "localized" problem in New York. "I don't know of any complaints that have come through customer service about manspreading," she said. Transit officials in Chicago and Washington said the phenomenon is not a major concern for riders in those cities either.

In New York, the transportation authority went back and forth about what tone to take when tackling the topic, said Paul Fleuranges, the authority's senior director for corporate and internal communications. Officials knew it could be ripe for parody on late night television and did not want their approach to be too snarky. But Mr. Fleuranges said he knew that the ads had to speak directly to the spreaders.

"I had them add the dude part," he said, "because I think, 'Dude, really?' "

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'Manspreading' on New York Subways Is Target of New M.T.A. Campaign

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"I'm not going to cross my legs like ladies do," he said. "I'm going to sit how I want to sit." And what if Mr. Panceiro, an administrative assistant from Los Angeles, saw posters on the train asking him to close his legs?

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An interesting short article, and a cartoon showing that men have been taking up excessive space for at least hundred years! Clearly the social order has not changed with the passing of time!

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Reality check, ladies: the dreaded manspread is not a new phenomenon. It's apparently been ruining innocent commuters' train rides for a really, really long time. (The fantastic Tumblr memes, though, are relatively a new thing._

In fact, a 1918 cartoon and entry in The Elevated News, a Chicago-based transportation pamphlet, shows that manspreading has always been really annoying.

The pamphlet circulated throughout the Chicago subway system, and in this particular issue, it was argued that the seat deprivation caused by manspreading is completely unacceptable, especially considering that men will make much greater sacrifices in the name of patriotic pride:

Men will give their sons to the service of their country, they will give to the Red Cross and buy Liberty Bonds until they feel it pinch, but will they disturb themselves and sit a little closer to give a seat to some poor tired girl? They sit there complacently, occupying twice the space they really require, while some other passenger is deprived of a seat through their selfishness.

And while the cartoon in The Elevated Times might highlight the early adopters of the anti-manspread campaign, it certainly isn't the only one. A 1953 ad from the Subway Sun courtesy campaign encouraged commuters in New York City not to be a "space hog" -- or what we in 2016 now call a manspreader. And it's not just an issue in metropolitan American cities: commuters on the London Underground have expressed a huge interest in banning the practice, and as recently as 1976, Tokyo subway system etiquette campaigns have more or less associated manspreading with Hitler. In 2014, New York City's MTA debuted a clever courtesy campaign to much fanfare.

All arguments aside, there really is no excuse for it, no matter the environment in which it occurs.

So, gentlemen, listen up, because the 1918 lesson still applies: there are sacrifices far greater than closing your legs a smidge to make space for a fellow commuter.
Also on HuffPost:

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1918 PSA Proves Manspreading Has Been An Issue For Nearly 100 Years

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Reality check, ladies: the dreaded manspread is not a new phenomenon. It's apparently been ruining innocent commuters' train rides for a really, really long time. (The fantastic Tumblr memes, though, are relatively a new thing._ In fact, a 1918 cartoon and entry in The Elevated News, a Chicago-based transportation pamphlet, shows that manspreading has always been really annoying .

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This article states that as children, boys tend to play in larger spaces than girls. This is something I have seen first-hand, with my own children. My twins (one male, one female) had different interests which related to their gender roles. My son was more active, playing football and preferring to run in open fields, while my daughter loved to be indoors, playing with her doll's house or completing art projects. So, 'space' doesn't necessarily refer only to the body itself, it relates to the activity space used by each gender.

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Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development

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Gender: early socialization | Peer socialization of gender in young boys and girls | Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development

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One important way in which children learn about gender roles and develop gender-typed behaviour and attitudes is through their interactions with peers.

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The idea that women's 'personal space bubbles' are smaller because women tend to be more sociable and stand in each other's personal space. Why don't men do this? I've been thinking about this, and it seems to me that this is yet another example of women using up less space than men!

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Stuff Mom Never Told You - HowStuffWorks

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When it comes to how much personal space, who prefers more of it, men or women? The surprising answer might burst your personal space bubble.

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Would this really work? By evacuating unisex spaces, aren't women just affording men more space? And if there is indeed an entitlement felt by males which is rewarded by other males and society, would being told that they cannot enter a space actually be enough of a deterrent?

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The NSW Rail, Tram and Bus Union unveiled a p roposal in March to designate carriages "women only" on the state's rail network in an effort to reduce sexual assaults on trains.

According to Rail, Tram and Bus Union national secretary Bob Nanva, there have been 2859 criminal offences against women on public transport, including almost 19 sexual offences against women on NSW bus, tram and train networks every month since September 2012.

"That's simply unacceptable," says Nanva. "We must do more to protect commuters from violent and anti-social behaviour on public transport."

The solution the RTBU has settled on is a proposal for Safe Carriages. Under the plan passengers who feel vulnerable using public transport at night - not just women - could travel in carriages with extra safety features such as easy access to duress buttons, CCTV and regular checks by staff.

According to Nanva, "ultimately, Safe Carriages should be for people who feel vulnerable, including people who identify as transgender."

Women-only areas are cropping up in other public spaces, too. In 2016, the iconic UK music festival Glastonbury will feature a women-only venue for the first time. Organisers says The Sisterhood space will be "intersectional, queer, trans and disability-inclusive" and run by female-identifying staff".

In April, the city of Perth announced a 'female-friendly' parking bay trial, adding car parks to a list of public spaces that are single-sex. Universities offer women-only spaces, and women-only gyms and swimming pools are nothing new.

I suspect if men are being drunk and obnoxious they ought to be stuck away in a separate carriage rather than limit women to the special carriage.

For more than a century, female swimmers have been enjoying Coogee's McIvers Baths, a concrete pool hewn into rock which in 1995 was granted an exemption to the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination Act.

But rather than offering protection, do female-only spaces "ghettoise" women? Some feminist observers think so.

In response to the RBTU proposal, Eva Cox suggested inverting the policy. "I suspect if men are being drunk and obnoxious they ought to be stuck away in a separate carriage rather than limit women to the special carriage," she said.

"I think we should lock up the potential perpetrators. Or keep them away from the women rather than the other way around."

Another reservation many have with segregating gender in the name of safety is the risk of victim-blaming.

"Feminists have campaigned for the last few decades for the focus to be on educating men not to commit assaults, rather than making women change their behaviour to avoid being sexually assaulted," says Hannah Bows, a postgraduate researcher at Durham University in England. "The concerns around these schemes is that it may do the opposite."

So instead of asking whether women have a problem with safety, ask instead if men have a problem with violence. Why should all women modify their behaviour to protect themselves from a violent minority?

Eva Cox's suggestion to herd all the drunk molesters into one carriage sounds vaguely ridiculous, because antisocial behaviour from men is so normalised it is simply part of the furniture.

If we put redheads in separate carriages for their own safety, we would have to acknowledge our society had a serious problem when violence was so common that one group required regular protection from another.

But do they work?

But do women-only spaces protect women from violence? Overlooking the fact that most sexual assaults happen in private, women-only carriages improve the perception of safety, which may explain their popularity overseas.

In India, entire trains known as Ladies' Specials are reserved for women. In place since 2009, the provision has been well-received by female passengers who were sick of the regular harassment they received on packed commuter trains.

It is a sad state of affairs that women need these spaces to avoid unwanted harassment.

Other countries including Japan, Indonesia and Brazil have trialled women-only carriages too. However in Germany, a recent announcement by private rail operator Mitteldeutsche Regiobahn introducing women-only spaces on some of its services was met with criticism similar to that which met the RBTU's proposal: that gender segregation was a retrograde step.

Bob Nanva believes there is community backing for Safe Carriages policy in Australia. "We have received an enormous amount of support for the proposal - particularly from shift workers who use public transport late at night," he says.

Still, there is little long-term evidence to show women-only spaces are effective in reducing sexual assault, says Bows.

First step

Nanva acknowledges that women-only carriages won't solve the problem of violence on public transport.

"There is also a bigger social issue which needs to addressed around violent and anti-social behaviour," he says.

"To this end the RTBU is a supporter of White Ribbon Day and other initiatives to address violence against women across the community."

Bows emphasises the importance of education alongside structural and social change - more women in government and senior roles, and closing the gender pay gap - to reduce the incidence of sexual assault

We need to challenge "the traditional gendered stereotypes and roles which subordinate women and empower men", she says. "It is a sad state of affairs that women need these spaces to avoid unwanted harassment."
Love the story? Follow the author here: Twitter @nicoheath

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Are women-only spaces the solution to sexual assault?

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The NSW Rail, Tram and Bus Union unveiled a p roposal in March to designate carriages "women only" on the state's rail network in an effort to reduce sexual assaults on trains.

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What drew me to this article was the argument over who gets to 'control the dialogue' on this particular issue. It seems to the author that when women attempt to change their situation for their betterment, men attempt to thwart their efforts by complaining about perceived discrimination. I see this on online forums and Facebook comment threads constantly! For instance, an article about the rape or attack of a woman will draw male commentary with the theme #notallmen.

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I encounter similar responses whenever I laud the McIver's Baths in Coogee, NSW. For over 100 years, they've provided a safe space for women and children under 12 to swim and sea bathe in peace. And yet, my praise of them is always met by a proportion of people outraged by what they say is blatant discrimination. In a world that tells women we have to be careful about how we present our bodies to men and how we act in public (but also ridicules us for speaking out against harassment and abuse, if not disbelieving us entirely), having a private sea bath in which those women can do those things freely and safely is apparently gender discrimination of the worst kind.

Then there's the issue of who gets to control the dialogue. Despite being force-fed the narrative of danger that, for example, warns us against speaking to strange men lest we somehow give them the 'wrong impression', women are also demonised whenever we express concern or caution about being alone with men we don't know. To do so is to express the most violent of misandries against the innocent, unassuming gentlemen who would never, not in a million years, how dare you even suggest it you vile she-beast, ever do anything to harm a woman. "Not all men!" come the cries, usually from the same outraged mouths that will, without a moment's reflection or awareness, defend their right to offer unsolicited commentary about the various things we silly women do to invite danger upon ourselves and demand that we pay more attention.

The only conclusion I've been able to draw from this is that women, despite being constantly told what we MUST do to avoid danger, are actually not allowed to be in control of what those preventative actions might look like. Establish women's only spaces and you're discriminating against men. Talk openly about the risks you face (risks that men feel completely entitled to opine on) and you're inflicting a perverse and paranoid view of masculinity on the world that's 'unfair'.

The deck is always stacked against us. Do the 'wrong' thing, and we'll be blamed for being silly enough to invite risk. Take preventative measures (and worse, talk about what those measures might be), and we'll be blamed for lumping all men into the same box and perpetrating equal if not greater sexism against the poor, beleaguered blokes out there who don't deserve to all be tarred with the same brush by feminists who are probably just upset no one wants to f--k them.

But when a man tells a woman she has to behave more sensibly to prevent risk, he never means that she should behave more sensibly around him. He retains the right to not only view himself as non-threatening to her, but also to insist that she treat him this way to avoid insulting him by association. This ability to control the dialogue is removed the moment women are given the freedom to determine who and what we consider to be a risk to us. And what happens when men are denied the opportunity to decide who and what women are allowed to be afraid of? They face being implicated in those decisions.

I'm sick of having to coddle and mollify the people who have no compunction dictating women's behaviour as potential victims but balk at acknowledging the reality of men as potential perpetrators. If women have to be told constantly to take responsibility for avoiding risks in a world that's hostile to us, then men can start accepting responsibility for being part of the structures of power that make that world unsafe. I'm well beyond the point of caring whether or not this hurts their feelings or bruises any misjudged notions of 'equality'. Women are used to no one listening to us when we complain about the actual ways the world hurts us. Perhaps it's time men start getting used to being ignored when they complain about the fictional ways they feel maligned by it too.

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This is why we have women-only spaces, and why I don't want to hear your complaints

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I encounter similar responses whenever I laud the McIver's Baths in Coogee, NSW. For over 100 years, they've provided a safe space for women and children under 12 to swim and sea bathe in peace. And yet, my praise of them is always met by a proportion of people outraged by what they say is blatant discrimination.

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The very interesting idea that body language considered 'feminine' is not necessarily gendered. It is also associated with deference (to a boss, for instance) or submissiveness and is therefore not confined to females.

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We're celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. Enjoy!
Philosopher Sandra Lee Bartky once observed that being feminine often means using one's body to portray powerlessness. Consider: A feminine person keeps her body small and contained; she makes sure that it doesn't take up to much space or impose itself. She walks and sits in tightly packaged ways. She doesn't cover the breadth of the sidewalk or expand herself beyond the chair she occupies. This comic from Chaos Life illustrates the point well..

Likewise, burping and farting, raising one's voice in an argument, and even laughing loudly are considered distinctly unfeminine. A feminine person doesn't use her body to forcefully interact with the world, she lets others do for her when possible. "Massiveness, power, or abundance in a woman's body is met with distaste," Bartky wrote.

Stunningly, when you think about it, these features of feminine body comportment are, in fact, not uniquely feminine, but associated with deference more generally. Bartky again:

In groups of men, those with higher status typically assume looser and more relaxed postures; the boss lounges comfortably behind the desk while the applicant sits tense and rigid on the edge of his seat. Higher-status individuals may touch their subordinates more than they themselves get touched; they initiate more eye contact and are smiled at by their inferiors more than they are observed to smile in return. What is announced in the comportment of superiors is confidence and ease...

Acting feminine, then, overlaps with performances of submissiveness. Both men and women use their bodies in more feminine ways when their interacting with a superior, whether it be their boss, their commander, a police officer, or their professor.

New evidence suggests that this is not pure theory. Psychologist Andy Yap and his colleagues tested whether "expansive body postures" like the ones associated with masculinity increase people's sense of powerfulness and entitlement. They did. In laboratory experiments, people who were prompted to take up more space were more likely to steal, cheat, and violate traffic laws in a simulation. A sense of powerfulness, reported by the subjects, mediated the effect (a robust finding that others have documented as well).

In a real world test of the theory, they found that large automobiles with greater internal space were more likely than small ones to be illegally parked in New York City.

Research, then, has shown that expansive body postures that take up room instill a psychological sense of power and entitlement. The fact that this behavior is gendered may go some way towards explaining the persistence of gender inequality and, more pointedly, some men's belief that they have earned their unearned privileges.
Cross-posted at Jezebel and Pacific Standard.
Lisa Wade, PhD is a professor at Occidental College. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture, and a textbook about gender. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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Gender and the Body Language of Power - Sociological Images

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We're celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in. Enjoy! Philosopher Sandra Lee Bartky once observed that being feminine often means using one's body to portray powerlessness.

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"Both women and men often hesitated upon seeing the unisex restroom sign, but whereas women proceeded into the restroom, the majority of men turned away." I've actually never come across a unisex bathroom before, but I thought about what I would do if I did. I think I would still enter, but I would feel very uncomfortable about it, despite the claim in this case that "women did not express discomfort or concern about sharing restrooms".

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This article points out that men are not only encouraged to take up as much physical space as they feel entitled to. This behaviour also extends into intellectual space, professional space, social space, the political arena and even intimate space. It agrees that these behaviours are perpetuated and rewarded by mens' silence, and that men need to speak up in order to change this. I see these behaviours daily in my workplace, in a male dominated industry. Many of the men I deal with raise their voices and talk over others in order to be heard. The result is two or more men taking up all of the aural space in the room with their steadily rising and booming voices, and nobody calling them out on it. Probably because they wouldn't be heard above the rabble!

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A few weeks ago, I was having a meeting with a friend at a coffee shop. It was hot out, I was slouching a bit, and without my really noticing, my legs were sticking out into the aisle. A woman who came by had to walk around them to get inside.

My friend laughed. "Dude, are you manspreading right now?"

"Am I? Maybe. I don't think so. Maybe..."

I totally was.

In truth, at first I was defensive and had assumed that I wasn't mainly because I'm not "that guy" - you know, the super entitled jerk who takes up more space than he deserves.

But that's the thing about manspreading. It's not about men actively choosing to be jerks or trying to be sexist and ableist (since the outcome of our manspreading not only takes up space under the guise of our needing more room, but also often makes space less accessible for some people with disabilities).

It's entirely about our socialization - about how we've been taught (in subtle and overt ways) never to consider how entitled to public space we may act or feel.

So when countless women (often in hilarious ways ) that we're manspreading all over the place , we quickly hear the refrains of "Women do it, too!" and "Stop conflating someone being rude with sexism and toxic masculinity."

But the problem actually is toxic masculinity and, by extension, sexism - it's just not as obvious as sexist name-calling or men being physically abusive.

After all, it's our masculine socialization that ingrains in us from the youngest of ages the idea that we are entitled to what's around us.

And this is intensified when we add in other forms of social power (or a lack thereof) to the equation.

When male entitlement compounds with class privilege, White privilege, and other forms of privilege, we see the amplification of this privilege and entitlement (all too perfectly exemplified in Donald Trump's "I'm rich, so I can do what I want" braggadocio).

On the other hand, when White supremacist systems endlessly brutalize and humiliate men of Color while reducing them in the media to strict portrayals of hypermasculinity , then masculinity, the only sense of social power that some men of Color may feel, can show up in hypermasculine expressions or in a sense of entitlement to public space.

We as men have been so inundated with the idea that all space is our space that we, often subconsciously, act as if that's true - both in our body language and in more overt expressions of entitlement like dominating conversations, talking over other people, and harassing women on the street .

A hilariously perfect illustration of male entitlement to public space, the KoolAid man busts through a wall of a party, shouting "not all men."

Thus, I do think manspreading is a problem- not because it's the ultimate example of misogyny, but because it's a perfect, public representations of the much more concerning issue of sexist male entitlement.

So when we as men experience a lifetime of messages that tie up our identity with entitlement to space and bodies, it makes perfect sense that we would take up more than our fair space on a crowded bus - but we must also understand that this is indicative of something so much bigger.

The point is that, in and of itself, manspreading in public isn't inherently sexist.

But when it's taken in the context of power and oppression and all of the other ways that we consciously and subconsciously assert our entitlement into public space, it's suddenly something entirely sexist.

With that in mind, here are six spaces in which our entitlement shows up in forms other than manspreading, offered with the hope that we as men will reflect a bit on how we can work toward better ways of being in community.

1. Men Dominate Physical Space

Though I'm not into the whole Crossfit thing, one of the things I have heard many women say is that Crossfit is pretty inclusive and that they're much less likely to experience the "gym dudebro" entitlement at a Crossfit gym.

I can't tell you how many committed female and gender non-conforming gym goers I've talked to about how hard it is to be in gyms with men who either constantly hit on and harass them or leave little room for them with their grunting, screaming, and throwing weights.

And like manspreading, this might just be a case of individuals being rude if it weren't for all the ways that we as men show entitlement to physical space.

In my own case, it's shown up with my friends on the dance floor. We love to dance, and we love to really get into it. When there's a crowded dance floor, that's not my scene. I want one where we can really move. But when that makes it hard for others to enjoy their time on the dance floor (as we've been accused of in the past), our reaction needs to be less "They're just fun killers" and more "How can we have this awesome time while respecting other people's space?"

From hyper-competitively running over women in mixed gender sports to dudes taking up entire tables in crowded libraries or coffee shops, we could do better to thinking critically about the physical space we're occupying - and call on other men to do the same .

2. Men Act Entitled to Intellectual Space

Whether we're mansplaining something that people who don't share our gender clearly can understand for themselves or actively contributing to intersectional gender oppression in the academy , men are really good at dominating intellectual space.

This is something I know I'm really good at, and it's something I need to work on.

I show entitlement to intellectual space by talking down to others in online debates or in coffee shop discussions. But it's uniquely problematic when I'm doing this, as I have been known to do, to women about women's issues.

And much like admitting that I, too, am guilty of manspreading, admitting this doesn't mean that I'm a terrible human being, but it does mean that if I really want to be in solidarity, I need to work on it and do better.

3. Men Dominate and Control Professional Spaces

We don't need a Harvard study to tell us that the business world is filled with male dominance and entitlement. All we have to do is listen to any woman works in these environments.

Yet, much like manspreading, we have dudes constantly denying even the possibility that it might be sexism and masculinity that's the problem.

Simply telling women to "" demands nothing of us as men. It frees us from listening and reflecting, rather than dominating and acting entitled in professional environments.

It frees us from working to change male-dominated fields (from to board rooms ) and from following the leadership of women who are demonstrating different ways of leading in the workplace.

If we would claim that our values support women's leadership, we need to call upon our workplaces to reflect less male entitlement and control.

4. Men Regularly Show Entitlement to Social Spaces

I'll be the first to admit it. I've been that guy on countless occasions, the one making a scene and shouting over other people to be the "hilarious" center of attention at a party. And I've been the one who takes off his pants or otherwise acts a fool.

But our entitlement to social space, an entitlement that often gets rewarded by people of all genders, doesn't have to be as obvious as the center of attention at a party.

Many men's voices tend to be on the louder side, but that doesn't mean that we are incapable of regulating our tone of voice so we aren't dominating a room with our booming baritone. Nor do we have to interrupt others to get in that "priceless" joke or to have our point heard.

We can take the time to reflect on how we take up (physical or proverbial) space at parties or dinners, and we can step back. And we can call on other men to listen when we notice that our fellow men are interrupting or talking over.

And it doesn't have to be a cape-wearing, save-the-day sort of moment. It can be as simple as, "What were you saying about ______?" to the person who was interrupted while taking the time to listen.

5. Men Control Political Spaces

We are all well aware of the ways that men are demonstrating feelings of entitlement to women's bodies through the regulation of their healthcare .

But there are far more subtle ways that men demonstrate entitlement in the political sphere

Even among the most "progressive" of men, what are we using our political power and energy for? Are we focusing on electing ourselves or other men? Are we allowing traditional male dominance to shut women out of our various formal and informal political processes?

Because there are all sorts of badass women, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people we can support who align with our values - but the systems we've created for political process aren't designed to support their election.

It's not enough to say that "more women need to run" if we're not going to actively support changing the culture of politics that values traditional forms of male leadership and that centers "electability" on traditionally masculine ways of being.

6. Men Consistently Demonstrate Entitlement in Intimate Spaces

Let's be clear - none of these other forms of entitlement can be separated from how we as men act as if we're entitled to the bodies of other people, most often women.

There is a direct, demonstrable link between male feelings of entitlement and the incredible rates of sexual violence that we see in the US and elsewhere.

We simply cannot separate manspreading or any other form of male entitlement from sexual violence, intimate partner violence, and male sexual entitlement because they all have the same toxic root: male socialization that tells us we are entitled to take what we want.

Manspreading, Just Like All Forms of Male Entitlement, Relies on the Silence of Men

That's why when someone says that we should "focus on more important issues" than how much space men are taking up on the train, I think they're missing the point. We as men should call out manspreading not because it's the worst form of sexism but because it's a symptom of the sickness that is toxic masculinity.

Whether we're talking about manspreading or endemic sexual and intimate partner violence, the harm caused by male entitlement is men's problem to solve.

We make the issue of toxic male entitlement our issue when we as men choose to speak out, to call on men to change, and to, perhaps most importantly, work on ourselves.

And by taking up this challenge, we open the doors to real change.

After all, women can tell men to close their legs on the bus, but public space doesn't get more inclusive until men decide to change. And women can call on men to stop rape, but it doesn't stop until men choose to change not only ourselves and our attitudes toward sexual entitlement, but also the systems that support and protect rapists.

Because in the end, male entitlement isn't just about the behaviors of individual men. It's about systemic gender violence and control that shows up through the daily entitlement of men, and we need to take responsibility for how we are complicit in those systems.

A simple place to start? Be more aware of how much space we're taking up and call on other men to do the same.
Jamie Utt is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. He is the Founder and Director of Education at CivilSchools, a comprehensive bullying prevention program, a diversity and inclusion consultant, and sexual violence prevention educator based in Tucson, AZ. He is currently working toward his PhD in Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies at the University of Arizona with research interests in the role that White teacher's racial identity plays in their teaching practice. Learn more about his work at his website here and follow him on Twitter @utt_jamie. Read his articles here and book him for speaking engagements.

Filed Under: Tagged With: Articles, Gender Posts

Everyday Feminism Contributing Writer, speaker, activist, consultant, gallivanter.

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From Manspreading to Mansplaining - 6 Ways Men Dominate the Spaces Around Them - Everyday Feminism

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A few weeks ago, I was having a meeting with a friend at a coffee shop. It was hot out, I was slouching a bit, and without my really noticing, my legs were sticking out into the aisle. A woman who came by had to walk around them to get inside.

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This article purports that we live in a 'visual culture', and that society tends to give meaning to the visual which affects every aspect of our lives. We are taught from an early age 'gendered body practices' and these practices are cemented in our collective minds by the people around us and by the media. We see images of bulky, chisel
ed male bodies and conversely we are shown images of small, thin female ones. The idea of women taking up very little space compared to men begins with the bodies themselves. I think that this ties in with Focault's view that the body is 'wholly constituted'' by discourse (Shilling, p. 78). We're not biological creatures once meaning is given to our biological selves, we instead become a product of society, a product which alters constantly with societal views.

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It's fairly typical for women to fold into themselves making room for others in public spaces, while many men seem comfortable splaying themselves out. Where did this behavior come from, asks Soraya Chemaly?
I'm guessing that people aren't going through their days thinking to themselves, "How much space do I displace?" It's an interesting question though. Especially if you have kids. You feed them and they tend to grow and take up room. Then, without realizing it, in a hundred small ways a day, you teach them how to and not to do just that.

To this day, when I sit-in a chair, on a bus, a train, at a desk-I hear my primary school headmistress explain that ladies never cross their legs at the knees. The thought of sitting, arms stretched out on either side on the top lip of the back of, say, a park bench is laughable to me, it's so physically alien. Usually, in public space, I fold myself up and try, by habit, to make room for others. This is fairly typical for girls and women. On the other hand, many men are very comfortable taking up as much space as possible, indeed actively splaying themselves casually, in public. This physical ease in public space starts early and isn't just a function of rambunctiousness.

Then, one day, my daughters, active athletes, started sitting like New York Knicks players sitting on the bench watching a game. Only they were at the dinner table. I reprimanded them and basically asked them to retract their lanky, strong limbs while we ate. They protested and I insisted, some siren reservoir of "ladylike" urging me on. Here I was telling them to suck themselves in, take up less room, withdraw from space. So not me to do that. So I stopped. It was my own, quiet Eureka.

Saying that we live in a visual culture and that this visual culture affects all of our lives would be the understatement of the century. Gendered body practices are taught subtly and learned early. In the past 30 years, our explosion of visual/video culture has exacerbated these messages. Not only are mainstream, massively propagated stereotypes feeding unhealthy ailments that plague kids-girls with eating disorders, boys with low self-esteem-but they are memetic in other ways. We spent billions of dollars (Disney alone made in excess of $4 billion on the princess market) a year telling girls to take up less and less space. And we are telling boys to take up far more.

How bodies look and are used, how much space they take up, is important.

Visualized gender and race stereotypes represent, reflect, and create societal norms and interactions. And power dynamics. The way bodies take up space are territorial displays. This becomes even more blatant in the United States when you consider how, for women, ideas about thinness, fatness, and health are complicated by race. Our understanding and reporting of girls' eating disorders and body expectations, ideas, and stereotypes are racially biased. As Alice Randall explained last year, "Chemically, in its ability to promote disease, black fat may be the same as white fat. Culturally it is not."

Every year, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, conducts studies about...gender in media. Consider these findings, which have been consistent for years:

"Females are almost four times as likely as males to be shown in sexy attire. Further, females are nearly twice as likely as males to be shown with a diminutive waistline. Generally unrealistic figures are more likely to be seen on females than males.

Males outnumber females 3 to 1 in family films. In contrast, females comprise just over 50% of the population in the United States. Even more staggering is the fact that this ratio, as seen in family films, is the same as it was in 1946."

Or, these conclusions, recently reported in an ABC news report on the topic:

"Twenty years ago, the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less. "

"Most runway models meet the body mass index criteria for anorexia."

This piece closed by pointing out that model Beverly Johnson, who hovered between a size 4 and 6 at the peak of her career in the '90s, would be considered plus-size today.

Despite terrific strides in women's earning power and girls' participation in athletics, every single day, just walking in public or hopping online, girls are bombarded incessantly by images of emaciated, engineered body parts-toned, shaved, buffed, tanned, bleached, thinned. That women are also passive accessories is just a nifty bonus. If girls are obsessing over thigh gaps (hey, have you seen FuckYeahThighGap yet?) and thinness, or sculpting their ladybits to look like Barbie's, and dropping out of sports at twice the rate of boys by age 14, it is because they learn that those things are what are valued by society and because, as a society, we have failed epically to make sure that our children are media- and gender-literate.

Now look at what boys see. Big. Chiseled. Bulked up bodies. Like girls, they are deluged by visualizations of an unattainable-for-most idealized male form. Boys are unhappy with their bodies, taking dangerous drugs, suffering from eating disorders. More than 40% of high school boys work out to increase their body mass. Like girls, in greater and greater numbers, boys are experiencing a disconnect between how they look and what is healthy. We aren't even talking about violence as a foundational constituent of how we define being a "real" man. Our ideas about masculinity are inseparably enmeshed with male physical dominance and brute strength.

The imposition of these gender ideas starts at birth. A 2005 study found that parents of 3-year-olds worry that their boys don't eat enough and that their girls eat too much. That is depressing beyond words.

So, visually, in our mass media-everything from cartoons to our top grossing movies-girls and women (generally speaking, thin and white) are physically diminished and boys and men are grossly expanded...in space, bodily.

But, these distortions go far beyond the visual: We are saying to our girl children, empty yourself, lack substance, embody frailty, have no core or centrality. Be as small as possible and we will love you more. To our boy children we say, take up more room, more than is good for you or that you need. Be as big as possible. Fill yourself. Dominate space disproportionately. Go to a park, walk around and see how people are sitting in relationship to one another.

People often ask me if I think things have "gotten worse." I say yes. Grossly distorted ideas about bodies, femininity, masculinity, space, and power have proliferated during the past 30 years. These are 30 years in which technology, mass marketing, and cultural backlash all came together to profit from reductionist ideas best expressed in stereotypes that are cheap and easy to sell and understand. Concerned parents, teachers, media critics, researchers, and doctors agree that boys and girls as individuals are hurt by conformity to these stereotypes. The harm and messages imparted don't stop at individuals, but pervade society and, in truth, we won't know the consequences for another 30 years.

This taking up of space, way beyond how people sit and into how they "are," is a subtle and massive statement of dominance.

In the meantime, when my daughters spread out to be more comfortable I no longer "correct" them. Their physical insouciance is a gift. So, I smile and hope my lovely mother-in-law isn't watching, aghast, from beyond.
Soraya L. Chemaly writes about gender, feminism and culture for several online media including Role/Reboot, The Huffington Post, Fem2.0, RHReality Check, BitchFlicks, and Alternet among others. She is particularly interested in how systems of bias and oppression are transmitted to children through entertainment, media and religious cultures. She holds a History degree from Georgetown University, where she founded that schools first feminist undergraduate journal, studied post-grad at Radcliffe College. Related Links:

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Our Society Urges Girls To Take Up Less Space And Boys To Take Up More, And It Needs To Stop - Role Reboot

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It's fairly typical for women to fold into themselves making room for others in public spaces, while many men seem comfortable splaying themselves out. Where did this behavior come from, asks Soraya Chemaly? I'm guessing that people aren't going through their days thinking to themselves, "How much space do I displace?"