By GABRIELA SANTOS
Madrid, the Spanish capital, will begin to place signs on city buses that will prohibit “manspreading.” Much like those already in place that do not allow smoking or littering.
Manspreading is the practice whereby a man, especially one traveling on public transport, adopts a sitting position with his legs wide apart, in such a way as to encroach on an adjacent seat or seats, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary.
Cities around the world, like New York and Philadelphia, have been adopting these kind of campaigns to dissuade riders from practicing the careless behavior.
“The mission of this new signage is to remember the need to maintain civic behavior and to respect the space of everyone on board the bus,” Spanish bus operator EMT said in a statement this week.
The decision came after a Spanish feminist group called “Mujeres en Lucha” created a petition that garnered more than 600 signatures on the popular site Change.org. They also created the hashtag #MadridSinManspreading (MadridWithoutManspreading) to help spread the message.
Manspreading “is not something that occurs sporadically, but if you look, you will realize that it is a very common practice,” the petition read. “It is not difficult to see women with their legs closed and very uncomfortable because there is a man next to her who is invading her space with his legs.”
Transport officials in Madrid also plan to use this campaign for the city’s metro system, according to BBC News.
The term “manspreading” has become a worldwide phenomenon and has led to many men being called out via social media. So much so that the Oxford Dictionary entered it into their online dictionary in 2015.
The practice has become so commonplace that most perpetrators don’t even realize that they’re doing it- and if they do they certainly don’t care. Hence, the new campaign to put a stop to it.
News media outlets have maintained a pretty good level on non-bias reporting on this topic, which surprisingly has been reported on by most top sites.
This is just one of those issues that is non-partisan, because after all, how can you be mad at people just trying to make the world more polite?