Space invaders: is manspreading only socially acceptable when men do it?

What price a square foot of space on the Tube at peak time these days? Do you value it enough to shove a crowd of strangers further into a carriage first thing in the morning? Do you value it enough to stop using the Underground entirely? Do you value it enough to pick a fight with an unknown bloke who is “manspreading” his legs wider than a phone-box porn star?

That — apparently — is where we are at. Any economist will tell you that the dynamics of a market can be altered when a scarce resource is fought over by a sharply growing consumer base, and in London, New York and some other densely populated cities blessed with overcrowded rail carriages, that is happening about spread legs, obnoxiously placed bags and unfurled (broadsheet) newspapers.

Space being at a premium on the Tube is nothing new but the network carries 4.2 million people every weekday on 402 km of lines nowadays, so tensions have been intensified.

The term “manspreading” — invented in New York — refers to men who splay their legs across several seats. And in the US, it has got political. After loud complaints by mainly female commuters, the MTA (the Metropolitan Transport Association — New York’s TFL) has announced that it plans to display signs warning men, “Dude, stop the spread please. It’s a space issue”.

The initiative has found support among some women commuters, and claims of sexism from the brave campaigners for men’s rights.

To prove that blokes are getting away with murder, New York journalist Elizabeth Plank this week released a video for online magazine Mic, in which she and a male colleague, Nick, went manspreading on the Subway. As she has presumably predicted, the pair are treated differently: when Plank stretches out, people start snapping pictures of her and uploading them to social networking sites; but as Nick’s legs get wider and wider — Plank reports that a group of four is forced to stand because he is taking up three whole seats — his lampooning is limited to a few tuts.

Occasionally he is asked to move his bag from the adjacent seat or make room so that someone else can sit down but the video seems to imply manspreading is so widespread that it goes largely unnoticed — a crime for which women would be mocked and photographed.

Nick admits that it’s “really empowering” to posture as an arsehole on the Subway; Plank cites research that proves people who take expansive body stances feel more “confident”, though research by MiT reports that they also make subjects feel more entitled, “breeding cheating and stealing behaviour, so it’s possible that manspreading breeds bigger problems than just uncomfortable Subway rides.” Apparently, it’s a slippery slope from splaying to general societal breakdown.

Is London as exercised about it as New York? We caught a Circle line from High Street Kensington to observe and ask.

The rules of Tube travel are informal and nebulous but manspreading could be reasonably defined as a hip-flex that extends beyond a rough parallel (legs going straight forward) or just over. Like building a basement under a house, you can take some space in front but going sideways isn’t going to work for the people next to you.

“It’s inconsiderate, isn’t it?” said an elderly London man who spoke to the Standard as the carriage moved into Paddington. “I try not to do it, unless I’m rearranging my legs because my back is hurting. It’s selfish and rude.”

He didn’t think men should be the sole culprits in the debate about space-theft. “Sometimes ladies carry so many bags with them, with one in front and one on the seat beside, that you can’t sit down. Also, it depends how fat they are.”

Backpacks can indeed be a more vexing obstacle; as, unfortunately, are fat people, whose unavoidable spread is, nevertheless, unavoidably annoying.

“I think Londoners are used to not having any personal space,” said a thirtysomething woman who used to work in London full-time but now commutes part-time from the Home Counties. “I notice it more now because I spend more time out of the city, where there’s a lot more space. I think people have become immune to having other people in their face. Personally, I always stand to avoid sitting next to people who are spreading out.” She admitted she noticed it more in men — and is familiar with the “manspreading debate”.

A slightly older man, who we found sitting compactly on his own, said the anti-manspreading campaign was “the stupidest thing I’ve heard in my life” but added that on account of his diminutive size he wasn’t in the business of taking space from fellow commuters.