‘Female rage’: Is there merit to manspreading on flights?

Can you justify manspreading on a flight? Photo / 123rf
When a video of one woman wedged tightly between two manspreaders on a flight surfaced, the reaction online was a mixture of verbal glares and hubristic rebuttals.
“As a man it’s just more comfortable to sit like that,” a comment read on TikTok.
“My anger issues could never,” wrote another social media user.
Last month, Canadian model and stylist Erin Rempel posted her TikTok with the overlaid text “female rage”, filming herself squished between two men widely stretching their legs on an hour-and-a-half-long Flair flight from Edmonton to Winnipeg, Canada.
As she edged her legs to the left – demonstrating a need for space and discomfort – the man on her right responded by moving his leg closer to hers.
why would anyone EVER need that much room??? i tried to get him to move but he wouldnt
The 17-second video has racked up more than 17 million views and nearly 40,000 comments. The most-liked one: “It’s on purpose, probably to feel you up too. They do it cause you let them, you gotta speak up or they’ll take advantage.”
Defined by Merriam-Webster dictionary as the “act or practice by a man of sitting with the legs spread wide apart (as in a public seating area) in a way that intrudes on the space of others”, the term manspreading became popular after the blog Men Taking Up Too Much Space On The Train was posted on Tumblr in 2013.
But the action itself is nothing new – nor is the debate around it. For instance, in the 1970s German feminist photographer Marianne Wex explored nearly 5000 photos of men and women showing body language rooted in patriarchal structures in her body of work Let’s Take Back Our Space. And Canadian-American sociologist and social psychologist Erving Goffman conducted a similar study on “gender display” within advertisements in the same decade.
But in the age of the internet, exposing manspreaders on social media has become a popular Thing To Do – particularly in discussions of plane etiquette. On the popular subreddit Two X Chromosomes, one user wrote, “your comfort does not expand into my space or ribcage, f*** you very much.”
Though, for every comment against manspreading there is another “we do gotta sit like that tho”. But Rempel’s video captioned “Why would anyone EVER need that much room??? I tried to get him to move but he wouldn’t”, also attracted many comments about what she “didn’t do instead”.
According to Rempel in her TikTok, her viral video got more “victim-blaming comments than supportive ones”. “She’s so weak unless she’s a teenager I get it, but I never would’ve let this happen!!!” wrote one user, to which Rempel responded in another video, “why are you choosing to use your comment to shame me for how I reacted instead of choosing to shame him for how he acted in the first place”.
But why do manspreaders spread the way they do in the first place?

If you consulted Reddit, it all boils down to the “family jewels”.
“Men spread their legs because we have two sensitive and important hanging balls that do uncomfortable things like chafe, sweat and get heat rashes if we don’t,” wrote one user on the subreddit “Jordan Peterson”.
According to spinal neurosurgeon John Sutcliffe, it has more to do with a man’s physical needs than his ego.
Speaking to the Independent, Sutcliffe said: “The overall width of the pelvis is relatively greater in females and the angle of the femoral neck is more acute. These factors could play a role in making a position of sitting with the knees close together less comfortable in men”.
On the other hand, there’s the amusing YOUR BALLS ARE NOT THAT BIG page on Tumblr where the blogger highlights how manspreading is about ego with photos of men committing the act on a New York subway, seemingly prioritising their comfort over that of others.