Citations:manspreading

Noun: "(slang, pejorative) the practice of men splaying their legs open wide when sitting on public transport, thus occupying more than one seat"

 * 2014, "MTA Targets 'Man-Spreading' And Other Subway Faux Pas", Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR, 23 November 2014:
 * Rachel Martin: So, man spreading - we heard the MTA spokesman try to describe this. Why don't you give it a shot? What is this thing?
 * Jake Dobkin: Man spreading is this, like, weird thing that men do where they start to spread their legs, and they can sometimes take up two or even three - if they're an exceptionally good man spreader, they can take up three seats.
 * 2014, Emma G. Fitzsimmons, "A Scourge Is Spreading. M.T.A.’s Cure? Dude, Close Your Legs", The New York Times, 20 December 2014:
 * 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.
 * 2014, Bill Sanderson, "Rude dudes are ‘spreading’ on subway, New York Post, 20 December 2014:
 * But too many men like to take up more than their share of seat space — a nasty habit called manspreading, which the MTA is determined to stop.
 * 2014, Radhika Sanghani, "'Ban manspreading': Londoners want men to sit with their legs together on the Tube", The Telegraph, 23 December 2014:
 * Any woman travelling by public transport will be aware of manspreading – where a male passenger sits with his legs splayed out, totally oblivious to the woman next to him who’s forced to double cross her legs for lack of space.
 * 2014, "'Manspreading' and other rude behavior on public transit", Chicago Tribune, 31 December 2014:
 * Chicago transit officials say manspreading is part of a larger constellation of etiquette issues that irk riders.
 * 2015, Andrew Clark, "Manspreading on transit: There is an easy solution", The Globe and Mail, 2 January 2015:
 * In short, manspreading is not that tough of a problem. We don’t need a taxpayer-funded awareness campaign. If you see a dude with his legs too far apart, ask him to move, like when someone has a backpack on an empty seat.
 * 2015, Jen Zoratti, "Manspreading is, um, widespread", Winnipeg Free Press, 7 January 2015:
 * But if you're feeling defensive about being called out for manspreading, stop and think about what exactly you're defending. The right to be disrespectful?
 * 2015, Joshi Hermann & Phoebe Luckhurst, "Space invaders: is manspreading only socially acceptable when men do it?", London Evening Standard, 9 January 2015:
 * 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.
 * 2015, Margaret Wente, "Advice to younger women: Practise manning up", The Globe and Mail, 10 January 2015:
 * Manspreading is certainly bad manners in a crowded subway – and so is other stuff, like people wielding giant backpacks.
 * 2015, Barbara Speed, "'I need to sit that way because of my balls' — and 5 other misguided defences of 'manspreading' on public transport", The Independent, 14 January 2015:
 * As the anti-manspreading lobby gains momentum here and abroad, here are a few answers to some commonly aired concerns.
 * 2015, Natasha Devon, "The rise of stranger shaming: How humiliating others became acceptable", The Independent, 16 January 2015:
 * Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram show thousands pictures of men engaging in this behaviour, and New York's transit authority launched a campaign against 'manspreading', with a Tumblr dedicated: Men Taking Up Too Much Space On The Train.