First of all, no one gets the personal space they deserve on a plane. Accept that right off the bat; do not sink into pity for your seatmate if he is 6’7 and convince yourself that he merits the armrest between the two of you. You are on a plane; you are bound now only by Skylaw. The rules of God and man no longer apply. Wring mercy clean from your heart. I promise that he has none in his heart for you.
Do not hope that he will notice your uncomfortable position and cede you your fair share of the armrest. In the history of time, no man has ever silently anticipated the needs of a woman. (BROAD GENERALIZATION) As surely as your father will never notice of his own volition if the dishwasher is full and start unloading the clean silverware without prompting, no male flier will ever say, “Oh, were you using that?” and gently withdraw his meaty pincer. You are your own champion today, sister. It is a feminist victory whenever a woman makes it through a flight without losing the majority of the shared armrest to the man sitting next to her.
It is possible, perhaps, that once or twice in human history two women who are strangers to one another are seated together. Stranger things have happened. But in all my life, whenever I have traveled solo, I have always been seated next to a man, each one dudelier and more prone to sprawling than the last. I offer my poor wisdom that I might save you from the pain I have endured.
Men are forbidden from using this knowledge. Please do not read the following. I will hold you to an honor system.
1. Make up your mind as soon as you board the aircraft that you will not give up. None of this effort will be worth it if you cede an inch. He will claim immediate victory and you will have uncomfortably rubbed triceps with a man whose name you do not know for a quarter of an hour, and for nothing. This is as much a mental contest as it is physical.
2. Board the plane before him. Do not wait idly by as the rest of seating group 2 clusters around the pre-boarding area. Get in there. Jostle some motherfuckers.
3. Fly clean. One bag that fits in the overhead compartment without having to force it in, and one handbag. No long straps, no smaller plastic bags full of purchases and tchotchkes stuffed illegally within. Travel light; you will require swiftness.
4. You must be seated, with both arms prominently and dominantly splayed across the armrests, when your traveling companion stops in front of you and says “Oh, I think I’m in __D.”
5. The next step is crucial: do not get up to let him in. Tilt your knees to the side and hug them to your chest. Make no apologies for this clear flouting of the social contract. If your size or his will not permit such a maneuver, exit your row as quickly as possible and re-seat yourself while he is still getting situated, then re-claim the armrest.
6. Mark the territory with your menstrual blood.
7. At this point, unless your forearm is large enough to cover the entire armrest, he will attempt to place his own arm against yours. You may choose to allow this, but make sure your elbow is always further back than his, in the dominant position.
8. Cede nothing. Reach for your bag with your outside arm. Move your armrest hand at your own peril. If he shifts, shift with him. If he reclines his seat back, slide your elbow further into the crevice between your seats. To abandon your position for even an instant would mean instant loss of hard-fought territory. Play the long game, and play to win. I promise you that he will not let the social discomfort of touching a stranger’s bare arm keep him from trying to wrestle the armrest from you. Abandon your sense of personal space.
9. If you are in an aisle seat, intercept his meal as the flight attendant hands it to you. Eat it in front of him, screaming continuously.
10. Remember the lessons of the Somme: Grind them down wherever you can, sisters. On planes and on subways and wherever humans jostle with one another for territory. That small metal platform is your birthright. Treat it like the Weimar Republic treated Alsace-Lorraine.
Tags: advice, armrests, fathers may or may not exist, fathers may vary, flying, get yours, life is a grim struggle, meaty pincers, travel, yes i know the germans ultimately lost alsace-lorraine, yes i realize there are no women in the picture, your father’s dishwasher attention may vary
Don’t wear deodorant. Make him shirk away from your natural womanly musk. This is an airport, not a nightclub. Wear it proudly.
This is why I carry a small vial of menstrual blood whenever I fly outside of my woman-time. Under 3 oz of course.
BROAD GENERALIZATION.
If anything I think us broads should be making more generalizations.
When I started flying on my own at about age 18 – mostly on Southwest, which doesn’t do assigned seating – I always sat next to women, and it was always great, and I never had any issues with the armrest. I think the first time I had to sit next to a Man was two years later.
I only had to sit next to a man once on Southwest, and it was when I was flying home from college with my cat. I was like the third one on the plane, and he was maybe the sixth and he came and sat right next to me (I was in the window seat) and started talking about how he was allergic to cats. I looked around the plane which was, at that point, 90% empty, and suggested he move to ANY OTHER part of the plane but nope. He just sat there, and sniffled whenever I glanced in his general direction.
I am so sick of people on the Underground (some women, mostly men) taking up more space than is allotted to them. The ones who spread their legs so wide that the seats on either side of them are out of bounds, and rest their arms on the backs of them, are the worst. I make a point of taking up the space that is mine by right (not intruding into theirs, just to make sure I am setting a shining example of Correct Tube Ettiquette), elbowing them off my bit of the armrest and knocking their knees out of the way. Looking around the carriage and seeing loads of women making themselves as small as possible while the men around them sprawl is infuriating.
I have this uncontrollable urge to sit down right next to the sprawling men on the subway, and it fills me with glee every time I get any of them to cede an inch
Continue fighting the good fight, sister in misandry! Some of us are too grossed out by the idea of our coats touching the coats of strange men to sit by them, and instead glower ineffectually at them from across the aisle.
You underestimate your efforts. It’s pretty hard to glower at them from the adjacent seat; sitting opposite is the ideal position for this.
If I’m taking transit and have to sit next to one of these dudes, my response is always to spread my legs wide to match theirs. It’s worth it for their faces alone.
I know y’all’s balls don’t need that much room.
I love sitting my size-24 butt down beside them. Sometimes you can SEE the war on their faces – maintain their manly stance, or avoid contact with the thunder thighs? Either way I win.
I like to stare at them as I try to fit myself, a backpack filled with groceries, and another smaller bag filled with groceries (I have to take two buses each way to go grocery shopping; I’m making it fucking worth it) into as little space as I can, asking them with my eyes if they really want to commit to taking up half of the space I need for my food and toilet paper.
I usually win this contest.
Sometimes they don’t make room. When that happens I cross my legs and put my foot on the knee. I had to ride from Park to Fenway with my heel dug into the flesh of the guy next to me, but I did it by god.
Thay’re just saving room for cats!
Haha I was just about to link to that! 😀
My current trick on the bus is that I use my backpack (which normally has my laptop and 5000 books in it and weighs a TON) to claim my seat space: I plonk it on the floor between my legs and well, then there’s no space for me to shrink into, is there? Bag of Academic Goddessness 1, Sprawling Menfolk 0.
Here is a wonderful crowdsourced poem about men defending their balls on the train: http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com…
And then if they try to take up more space, you can just side-eye them SO HARD and try to shame them.
If they’re not saving room for cats, they’re just taking up too much space on the train: http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com…
Yup, I will be trying to see if I can go 10 for 10 on the Tube home tonight. I will also be battling for communal thigh space.
Years ago I had a friend who, if some dude was sprawled unnecessarily in a way that obstructed her path, would kick the guy’s foot as she passed. She never got shit for it, either, at least not that I saw.
I was coming back from a trip with a suitcase and backpack a couple weeks ago, and there was a drunk guy standing uncomfortably close at the bus stop. I stuck my hands in my pockets with elbows out and ignored him furiously. When I got on the fairly crowded bus he of course sat next to me and tried to talk. I stared out the window. When he started pressing his knee against me I turned to him and said “Let me out.” He acted surprised and like he hadn’t heard me so I repeated “Let me out” a little louder but still with zero emotion. He got up, and I picked up my luggage and went and stood at the back of the bus with my suitcase between my legs and returned to pretending he didn’t exist for the next 20 minutes until he got off the bus. While I ended up ceding territory, lower body contact is my personal limit and I feel pretty okay about only acknowledging him as an impediment to my free movement.
Lava balls!
This happened to me last week! I had my toddler with me in the stroller and a man both a) moved over one seat so that I could sit down (they were groups of three facing into the subway car), and b) sprawled his legs out so that he was taking up 2.5 seats’ worth of leg room. He just sat there, secure in the perception that he had been Polite and given a mother a seat. His knees were halfway into my seat space and actually touching mine. So, since I didn’t have an umbrella that I could gingerly use to push his knee back into his own space, which is what I usually do, I just put my purse on his knee and smiled innocently until he moved his knee away. I mean, if I’d had all of my own seat space, I would have put it in the same place, on my own knee, anyway. (The stroller was politely placed out of anybody’s way.)
That is an excellent response!
I was seated next to a woman on a flight from Zagreb to Zurich. In this case we came to a silent agreement that the armrest was a neutral zone and we each used our other armrest through out the flight (small plane, only two seats together). Also, even though we were both English speakers, we did not talk at all during the flight. It was the best flight ever!
Were you finishing an “Around the World in Alphabetical Order” trip?
Don’t forget the proper reading material! Something about childbirth with gruesome (to men) bloody pictures is optimal. Make sure they are visible from his viewpoint. He will shrink away and make himself small to get away, guaranteed.
This is closely related to my advice: Fly with a lap baby. Breastfeed it during the flight. Do not use a cover. Deploy baby feet as necessary to kick any encroaching elbows.
Breastfeeding a baby! Genius! Perhaps audio-animatronic babies can be made available to women on international flights, for male intimidation purposes. The cool thing about babies is sometimes the guy will flee from the seat entirely, spending the entire trip lurking near the restrooms.
I have done this on many occasions. EVERYONE leaves you alone. I gave no fucks. Best part? Flight attendants brought me extra free drinks and I was super nice to them, and they were super nice to me. I could have cleared that plane had I had an extra baby to tandem nurse.
The best flight I ever had was flying across the Atlantic reading a detailed Patricia Cornwall investigation of the Jack the Ripper murders with large crime scene photos. SO MUCH PEACE AND QUIET.
Google articles on conjunctival melanoma, y’all. The oncologist who gave me the color photos had to get me an emesis basin.
My mother and grandmother and I once went on a trip (I was perhaps 9 years old?), and on the way back we somehow got seats that were not together. I sat next to a fairly nice woman in her mid-forties and a young man who I’m pretty sure was toting a musical instrument as his carry-on.
My mother and grandmother, however, were seated by some ladies that did not speak English and smelled, apparently, quite strongly of garlic. To the point that people several rows away had commented on it after the flight. I’m willing to wager that those ladies, with their pungent aroma, won the armrest battle.
Tl; dr: Smell like anything as long as it’s strong enough to kill a small animal. You’ll probably get that armrest.
*taking copious notes as I have to ride the subway later today*
I think a more fitting punishment would be to make the Man eat his in-flight meal and yours. Airline meals are a horrifying mess of mystery meat garnished with boiled hornets’ nests.
My friend accidentally flew first class recently, and she confirmed that first class really does get treated like a bunch of royalty! She had a five-course meal, including mixed nuts (no peanuts were included in this aristocratic nut mix). And anyway, I DO count mixed-nuts, since I always fly coach and we’re lucky to see the drinks cart.
There should be people handing this info out in brochure format, outside of the airport.
The shrieking meal consumption has ended me. I expected the menstrual blood trick, but the bare aggression one-two has _done me in_. WELL PLAYED.
That’s when I cackled with such force and volume that my husband asked what I was reading and I had to (GOT TO) impose Mallory’s vigor upon him like an elbow on an armrest.
One time on the way back from Phoenix to Boston, I was seated on the (right) aisle and a tiny, elderly Indian couple had the middle and window seats. Somehow I did not follow Mallory’s excellent instructions, and 15 minutes into the flight, Tiny Indian Man (TIM) had not only taken my inner armrest, but his left elbow was inches into my seat and periodically poking me in the ribs.
I thought briefly about picking him up, breaking him in two and hurling the pieces bodily out the back door, but I stopped and took a deep breath. Then I brought my arm down fairly hard on TIM’s elbow, as if I didn’t know he was there, and turned to him and said, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” But while my mouth said, “Sorry,” my eyes said, “Give me that armrest or I’ll break you in two.”
I had the armrest for the remaining 3 1/2 hours of the flight. It was lovely.
One time on a Greyhound bus, I was seated next to an adorable little old lady who knitted the entire time. Every two seconds, an elbow poked me in the ribs. I had to flatten myself against the window to escape the onslaught. I was too cowardly polite to say anything. This woman has lived through several wars, I thought. She has earned the right to knit on the bus. There are only 2 hours to go.
That’s just bad knitting form, though. Her elbows shouldn’t be moving that much!
Bad knitting or armrest-winning wisdom from our elders.
I think I might have done that to people in the past. Oops.
I once was moved last minute from a United Airlines flight from London Heathrow to Chicago to an Air India flight for the same routing when the original plane had a mechanical issue. Our “new” Air India plane was about 200 years old and freezing cold, so I was already not very comfortable (and a little scared–seriously, I saw duct tape in a few places).
After we hit cruising altitude, I gently reclined my seat to settle in for the 8 hour flight, when I felt someone shove it from behind and push it back upright. I whipped around ready to bitch out the person in the seat behind me, when I see it’s this tiny, elderly Indian woman surrounded by her sons who all just glared at me, with her feet up pushing against the back of my chair. I realized I was vastly outnumbered, and just turned around quietly. Later I verrrrry gradually would recline a centimeter at a time, and got a little space, but at some point I guess I overplayed my hand, and she did it again.
Oh god I just remembered. Flying back from Japan (so about a 13-hour flight) I kept smelling feet. The person next to me was shod, and so was I, so I couldn’t understand what was happening. I had a window seat, and at some point as I was trying to get comfortable I moved my arm as far back as it would go on my armrest and that’s when it happened. My elbow encountered surprising resistance. I looked at what was on the back of my armrest, and it turned out that the girl behind me had put her putrid feet up against the wall on MY ARMREST. And she had the nerve to look obnoxiously comfortable. After stewing in ineffectual rage for about half an hour I just went crazy and stabbed wildly with my elbow until she removed her feet.
One time on the way back from Phoenix to Boston, I was seated on the (right) aisle and a tiny, elderly Indian couple had the middle and window seats. Somehow I did not follow Mallory's excellent instructions, and 15 minutes into the flight, Tiny Indian Man (TIM) had not only taken my inner armrest, but his left elbow was inches into my seat and periodically poking me in the ribs.
I thought briefly about picking him up, breaking him in two and hurling the pieces bodily out the back door, but I stopped and took a deep breath. Then I brought my arm down fairly hard on TIM's elbow, as if I didn't know he was there, and turned to him and said, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" But while my mouth said, "Sorry," my eyes said, "Give me that armrest or I'll break you in two."
I had the armrest for the remaining 3 1/2 hours of the flight. It was lovely.
Yeah, I'd love to win the armrest fight, but my personal bubble is extremely big and I cannot bear the thought of brushing against random strangers. *shudder*
Wild applause, of course, but allow me to share my theory of the armrest: It is not for use! The armrest exists as a divider to indicate the space each passenger may occupy. In an ideal flight scenario, nothing actually rests on top of the armrest. The armrest should be a sacred space.
Now, in my less-than-ideal reality, I always put my elbows on there immediately. Not the forearms! Just the elbows. It’s impossible for someone to rest their forearm comfortably on an armrest if your elbow is there. But no one with even a passing familiarity with social norms can be upset by the elbow maneuver– so much of the armrest remains. It is perfect in its passive-aggression.
your theory is garbage and you are garbage, the armrest is MINE and it is for MY ARM TO REST ON
You are not garbage.
Yes! Everyone just keeps within the bounds of the armrests and nobody is encroaching on other people’s space.
Precisely. My goal in all public spaces– but especially in airplanes– is to touch as few people as possible, and generally to pretend we’re not all in a freakishly unnatural situation. The armrest as indicator of personal space encourages this.
Also, on a transatlantic flight a few years ago, I was seated next to a middle-aged woman traveling with her teenaged daughter. The woman slept for a few hours, then woke up and proceeded to get stupefyingly drunk. There was some issue with their meals or something, so one of the flight attendants gave them each a small bottle of wine. The woman drank both, then ordered about half a dozen rum and cokes. Finally, in an attempt to sober up, she summoned the flight attendant again and asked for a mocha with whipped cream on it. I was like the hell, lady, this is an airplane, not a Starbucks but then the flight attendant came back with a warm drink with whipped cream on it (sidebar – is this a normal thing? could I have been ordering whipped-cream concoctions on flights all these years and didn’t know?). The woman managed to consume the whipped cream but then spilled most of the drink on her legs and mine. I spent the rest of the flight curled up as far away from her as possible to avoid further incidents.
So obviously, getting obnoxiously drunk (or pretending to because you are a sneaky genius) and making your seat neighbour as uncomfortable as possible is also a winning strategy. Just don’t take it too far; you wouldn’t want the Man to see you laid low in zip-tie handcuffs.
Meanwhile, the teenage daughter was pronounced dead at the scene from Extreme Embarrassment.
Conversely, whenever I sit next to a woman, I try to give her the armrest because when do women ever have public space ceded to them? It’s nice to give a fellow lady a break sometimes.
yes, all rules are suspended when seated next to a woman, you may take the armrest, share comfortably in womanly peace, or grant it to her as you like
I’m flying home from San Diego in three hours. This was a perfectly-timed article. Thank you, Mallory.
Once upon a time, I was on a transat flight to England for the first time ever. Quite young, with a terrible blonde dye-job, I was not the most forthcoming of snakes.
Therefore, being seated next to a tall, thin gentleman who invaded my space was inevitable. He also talked. A lot. He was a proud minimalist, fresh back from selling his condo somewhere, and had the kind of watch that I… resent, in others. He talked and talked and invaded my book-space and took the armrest, and finally, the stress was too much!
I had one of the famed Rupturing Nosebleeds. Blood everywhere, the satisfying won’t-stop sinus-filler type. Cupped hands full of blood. It was a full-on Carrie and the stewardess very kindly brought me a towel to clean it up, and The Man did not interrupt again even after the red sun came up.
This is too much information, but if you’re prone to nosebleeds, they’re super effective.
Excellent strategy. Highly approve.
Ugh is there any kind of minimalist OTHER than proud? Good for you.
This is a beautiful story, told beautifully.
I was getting tired just after the first few paragraphs. Another reason to eschew air travel in favor of Amtrak, if you can.
This is the first time I have seen anyone say something even comparatively positive about Amtrak.
OH REALLY http://the-toast.net/2014/03/12/trains-wonderful-…
Still one of my favorite pieces of your writing, Mallory.
There are many nice things to say about Amtrak (at least the Boston – Philly route I take a couple times a year):
* Security, at least the kind you see frequently, comes in the form of train cops with bomb-sniffing Alsatians instead of full body X-rays and patdowns. This is the #1 reason why I stopped flying and started taking the train. However, if someone is out of control, like the hostile racist/misogynist dude in the cafe car whom I saw a few rides ago, the train cops at the next stop descend quickly, precisely, and en masse. (That sight was quite gratifying.)
* Roomy seats: no cold wars over armrests.
* Quiet car (no loud devices/talking) if you so choose.
* Lots of things to see out the window.
* Decent, but not great, free Wi-Fi.
* Generally much cheaper than air travel for day travel. (Acela travel can get pricey and those sleeper compartments are quite dear.)
* The only significant delay I’ve experienced, and I’ve taken the trip several times now, was when the train hit a deer outside Stamford, and that was about an hour or so.
Maybe someone else can chime in about the Western/Southern trips to places like Banff or multiday travel.
This is interesting! All my American friends only have bad things to say about Amtrak. I myself have had unobjectionable experiences with Via Rail, but nothing to write home about.
I have never once had Amtrak be on time, so that’s definitely a downside. However, the seats are pretty roomy, if you’re outside of peak holiday travel time you might get the entire row to yourself, and there is NOTHING like a train nap. The view out the window is a lot more colorful than what you see on the highway (or from a plane, duh), which is fun. Also, there is a SNACK CAR. Where is your SNACK CAR, Jet Blue?
I’ve experienced approximately a million delays traveling in the midwest. But I have terrible motion sickness problems, and trains are the kindest to my inner ear, and very often I get to sit in two seats ALONE and sprawl all over them. So I don’t really mind the delays.
Also that quiet car. THE BEST.
I spent approximately 80,000 hours outside Dyer, Indiana once on the Amtrak. What is in Dyer? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Anything in the Chicago-ish area is asking for trouble in my book.
I never had good things to say about Amtrak when I took it between Chicago and Michigan, but once I moved to DC and took it up to NYC, I now only have good things to say about it (well, other than the price if you don’t buy months ahead). There is *such* a difference in timeliness and even ambiance between those two routes that I just don’t understand.
The problem with some routes like the Coast Starliner is that the route is soooo long (i.e., the entire West Coast) that there is almost certainly a delay unless you are only taking it for the first bit. San Diego up to about Santa Barbara is fine, and Seattle down to about Portland, but otherwise you’ll be spending a lot of time just waiting for freight to pass you. .
Amtrak owns the rails in the northeast corridor so it’s trains get priority. Therefore, there are minimal delays. I’m not sure about the pacific coast, but in the midwest and south, Amtrak travels largely on rails owned by the freight companies, so Amtrak trains have low priority and suffer delays much more often.
AMTRAK HAS A QUIET CAR.
It can be pricey, but the actual Amtrak experience has always been great for me. I’ve heard of people complain about delays, which I’ve never experienced, but delays happen all the time for flying, anyway.
Amtrak Cascades (between Seattle and Portland) is da bomb and roughly 10 zillion times better than driving up I-5.
THAT is absolute fact. It is incredibly pretty the entire time.
I would have said something nice about Amtrak until two weeks ago when I rode the Acela for the first time. Fuck all business-class men but especially fuck the ones who ride from NY to DC and bring a bottle of chardonnay for dinner and talk loudly to their friends about how nobody has sympathy for transit workers because their median salary is too high. only thing worse than a man in a suit sitting next to you who thinks he owns all the elbow space is a man in a suit sitting across from you who thinks he owns all the leg space. by god I planted my heels and did not move them no matter how many times he kicked me. fuck that guy and all his friends.
The same business-class men manage to take up a huge amount of space on stairs and in hallways, while walking very slowly and chatting with their businessmen friends. No, fuck you guys, I just want to get out of this Starbucks, you complete and utter bastards.
It seems to be an amped-up version of the trait in all men that prevents them from moving aside while you’re trying to browse past them in a bookstore. Like, damn, dude, I acknowledge your complete and utter immersion in a Wheel of Time novel, now let me by.
Dude-space: the most treasured real estate in the world.
It’s not just those guys, really. I work in an office staffed primarily by socially-inept Mans and I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to walk between dudes holding a conversation from opposite sides of a hallway. Like, across the walking-space.
At this point, I’ve taken to stopping and looking impatient and, if prompted, pointing out that their conversation is clearly more important than the right of way in a shared space, so I couldn’t possibly interrupt.
I might be slightly bitter about this.
And then they call you passive-aggressive and make sure to turn it into a thing from then on.
Although I’ve used, “[female friend], why are you trying to talk now? You know that men are talking now, silly” to great effect when men in our social group (which is mostly composed of grad students) interrupt really loudly.
I’ve lost contact with people like that because I just stopped talking to them altogether. Amusingly — and in support of the whole point — they never seemed to notice or ask why I’d suddenly gone silent.
Well, these are well-intentioned guys, who have merely gotten caught up in the “I must make the loudest and most important point, because I am desperately insecure” academic thing, and will respond well to social shaming. The women in the group do it too, it’s just that I feel more of a need to make a point of it when it’s a dude.
That’s fair. I’ve never been a graduate student — to my everlasting shame! — but I’m given to understand they are often very proud and very touchy about their specialties.
Also, yes. Please continue to shame dudes for being too self-important; it’s important to break us of that habit as early as possible.
It’s more the “oh god oh god must contribute something important to prove that I’m worthy of graduate school LOUD CONTRIBUTION TO CONVERSATION.” But in a fun, progressive move, this insecurity is shared relatively equally between the genders.
Understandable! Post-grad degrees often require a thesis, yes? Just getting started on the insecurity early!
by god I planted my heels and did not move them no matter how many times he kicked me.
You are doing the hard and noble front-line work in this war to reclaim space.
SECONDED with the fire of a thousand suns, BUT –
On the Empire Builder from Seattle to Chicago last summer (yes, it’s a two-day train ride, and it’s lovely, that’s why you take the train instead of flying) I was awakened at two in the morning by a fracking-rig worker collapsing into the seat next to me and promptly falling asleep on my shoulder. I elbowed him; he flopped back over. Repeatedly. He snored there for his full eight hours and then woke up and said, “Sorry, did I bother you?” in that voice that says lol I am totally not sorry I slept on a total stranger for eight hours (which is at least two hours longer than any normal person can sleep in a coach seat anyway). I regret to report that I merely grimaced in his general direction, at which point he rejoined his friends two rows back and commenced a loud and obnoxious conversation about what they were going to spend their paychecks on when they got to Milwaukee.
Nowhere is safe from the creeping horror that is Dudes Who Feel Entitled To Your Personal Space.
ARGH the only way I am not bursting into flames thinking about wanting to crush this man in my giant hamfist is that I am rewriting the story so that he puts his head down on your shoulder and is stabbed by the cluster of spikes of said shoulder. Whew.
See, this is the kind interpersonal conflict that I will avoid at any and all costs. It makes me want to breathe into a paper bag just thinking it. Just take the damn armrest; I want no part of this bloodbath.
you have begun to learn, Male
I flew yesterday and claimed the armrest almost the entire time, and I thought of you, Mallory. The man was in the middle seat, and I think he had no armrests at all. I did cede some territory when I put my tablet on my tray table and used that to rest my arms, but that was for my comfort, not his.
I spent a morning on the train recently with a dudebro whose legs splayed into my territory to make room for his massive balls. Even a hot coffee spill on his knee did not grant me back my space.
I will use this guide to avoid any future humiliating defeats like that one.
But what do we do about their damn splayed male legs?! A few years ago an awful dude had his foot under the seat in front of ME! Imperiling my handbag and my own leg room!!! And don’t even get me started about the fucking metro. I’m tempted to start saying “can you close your legs, you’re in my space” or something similar with more “fuck you”s in it. Anyone had success with that?
Pretend it’s not there and kick it “accidentally” a couple times. Do not acknowledge that you have done it at all.
Or just shove it* over with your foot and put your feet or bag in its place. If he complains directly to you, give him a level look or just stare off into space. If you feel moved to respond, use a flat, uncompromising voice to say something terse like “Yeah, that’s my footwell” or “That’s [the bag] not mine” or similarly declarative remarks.
I don’t even get into “I need that space” or “You need to move that” because this is not about negotiating needs with each other. This is about claiming public space as it is allotted to you.
Negotiating differing needs for public space is a related issue, and one I respect, but it doesn’t start with some bozo silently dumping his bag or his feet or his knee into my space and expecting me to be happy about it.
*edited to add: I wrote this with a bag in mind, not the specified foot. Yeah, when it’s someone else’s actual body part, I might kick it or extend my own foot there or drop my bag on it.
how illegal do you think it would be to market a little garment that would be essentially a thigh garter studded with thumbtacks? in my mind the way it works is he yelps and recoils and asks if you just stabbed him, and you say, no, sir, what you felt were pangs of remorse and shame. and if he asks why, if that is so, his leg is bleeding, you raise your book higher and ignore him.
you are a GENIUS
Sockdreams, in their infinite goodness, sell Spiked Sock Garters, which I think might do nicely.
Observe their power and glory:
I use a crisp “Excuse me” as I jam my feet into that space, but I admit that I’m using a different form of social privilege there: I went prematurely gray, so as early as my 20s, I could pull that steely-mom-voice act and people — especially youngish dudes — would heed.
And like all tacit battles, it’s a matter of persistence and degrees, a long slow slog toward broad change. Every time once of us takes back our space, we chip away at the cultural certainty that certain men (the closer they cleave to white, upper- or middle-class, heterosexual, cisgender, the greater the cultural certainty) are entitled to take space from others.
I did this by accident. Some of our trams (Melbourne, Australia) have seats where it’s possible to sit sideways. A young guy was sitting on one side (facing forwards), legs wide apart, taking up more than half the seat, so I sat sideways with my back to him. Then without even knowing it (the back is not a sensitive area, and I had my coat on), I must have begun to encroach on him, because eventually he got up and moved away. Whereupon I turned to the front and started politely occupying half the seat.
TOTAL VICTORY!
The last time I was on a long flight, I managed to get an extremely drunk, puke-smelling, space-encroaching man turfed off the plane (before take-off, not while it was in flight, unfortunately). First he tried to STEAL MY AISLE SEAT when he got on. Then he leant his head against the seat in front of him and made little hiccupy-pukey noises. Then he rushed off to the bathroom. Then he came back and as he sat down he let his arm FLOP INTO MY LAP. I can honestly say it was the most satisfying tantrum I have ever thrown.
This is awesome and you are an airplane hero.
Thank you! I felt like I’d finally levelled up to adult assertiveness 🙂 At one point the captain came out and tried to convince me that “he’ll probably just go to sleep!” and I was like “well how about YOU sit next to him for the next 9 hours then.”
I am still pleased by the thought of this guy waking up very confused with a terrible hangover in an airport that he was convinced he’d flown out of the night before.
DELIGHTFUL
and I was like “well how about YOU sit next to him for the next 9 hours then.”
DOUBLE HERO
PERSONAL HERO
I literally cackled upon reading this.
That is a LOT of stuff to have going on before takeoff! I don’t mean to sound as though I doubt your story. It’s just. That’s intense.
Can passengers typically use the airplane bathrooms before takeoff? On my last flight, we were forbidden from doing so before the plane reached cruising altitude. Maybe it’s just because I was flying Swiss Airlines and the Swiss are noted for their ruthless efficiency and discipline.
I know! It is a totally nuts story. Thankfully the boarding process was suuuuuper slow so I had enough time to figure out that this was a no-good, very bad situation. I don’t think you are supposed to use the bathrooms but, you know, who’s going to stand in the way of an enormous stumbling/puking man?
(It was Turkish airlines, incidentally, who seem to furnish me with a new weird horror story every time I fly with them.)
The very first time I ever flew it was as an unaccompanied minor on a cross-country trip. Before takeoff, I started writing a letter (by hand! it was the 90s) to my two best friends detailing my experiences thus far. I had ended up in a middle seat, between two middle-aged men. The man in the window seat shut the blind over the window as soon as he sat down. In my letter I wrote something along the lines of how this “bozo” had shut the window (I remember that was the exact word I used to describe him). Well, Bozo must have thought the ramblings of a pre-teen were worth reading because he huffed and slammed the window shade open. I was embarrassed for maybe 2 seconds before realizing the delight of my small triumph over this man, who said not one word for the entirety of the flight.
Bozo is a word that needs to come back into vogue; even “what a total Boze” could work, given the right time and place.
Hahahaha! This story made my day.
This is making me realize that I’ve never used the arm rest. However, I’m just now remembering that I did once successfully barf all over a business guy in a suit on my way off a plane. I didn’t sit next to him, but I’m one thousand percent sure he stole the armrest from someone else. Justice delivered.
I am flying for business next week and I am SUPER PUMPED.
The best part of being a Strong Business Dyke is that sometimes I happen to wear the same outfit a man in my personal proximity (1/16th of a mile radius). The lesser men shrivel a little, unsure what do, how to be.
It is my greatest dream to sit next to man–not a good one–on a plane who is wearing the exact same outfit as me. We would have three glorious hours together where he could enjoy watching me lounge on my arm rest–the full of it, not half–with foot-over-knee in such a way that my foot is a little, just a little, on his side, so that it’s uncomfortable but not so uncomfortable that he feels he can say something, particularly because we are wearing the same outfit and we even have similar haircuts, but I am lady? Just a lady?
Just a lady indeed, I will think to myself, slipping my elbow a little further onto his side.
The only fault in this otherwise perfect fantasy is that you and douchebag have the same fashion sense.
Yes, but Samburgers looks amazing in it, while the douchebag does not.
This is wonderful, but I am picturing you in a better version of this outfit. His pants – ill fitting, wrinkled. Your pants- perfectly tailored, straight creases. His belt- cheap and shiny. Your belt- tasteful and of quality materials. And so on. He will NEVER muster the self respect to say anything about your elbow.
And he has grease stains on his shirt!
Strong Business Dyke
<3
You are a hero. That is all.
I did all of this at a movie premiere for Cloud Atlas and the MAN kept inching towards me. Then I realized he was actually trying to touch me. Like, he put his hand on my seat where my leg had been a second earlier. I mean really, did he think me pushing back on his arm meant I wanted to ‘s’ his ‘d’?
Perhaps he was the great-great-great grandson of the 18th-century Nice Guy who was trying to find the woman who had touched his arm at the theater.
Grind them down wherever you can, sisters. On planes and on subways and wherever humans jostle with one another for territory.
I’ve been silently, civilly waging a one-woman war against white male encroachment* on my space for, oh, a year or so. I just plain got tired of men taking up extra space on the bus and subway, on the shared armrest in theaters and airplanes and waiting areas, walking blithely in front of me on the street and in the grocery store, trying to stake out what is obviously my allotment of space wherever we happen to sit adjacent.
It’s pretty simple: I just do. not. yield. They move their elbows and feet and legs into my space, expecting me to silently pull back and… and I don’t. We collide. They collide with my soft, aging flesh. Their legs bump and jostle my legs; their elbows bonk into my arm, firmly seated where it belongs. They step unmindfully, assuredly into my path on the sidewalk and instead of dramatically altering my course, I let them walk into me.
And they will: white men everywhere will plow into me full speed if I don’t step out of their way. It’s bizarre: a snapshot of absolute entitlement to move through space, to take space from fellow adults.
A (younger female) friend and I were sitting in an expensive bar, talking about how men expect us to cede space to them wherever we go, and I mentioned this quiet, persistent effort I’m making and admitted: it’s hard. My upbringing, my socialization, my careful courtesy all urges me to yield space when someone else claims it.
I illustrated my efforts by nodding toward my outside elbow, firmly planted on the bar just in front of my glass, taking up only the modest sliver of space allotted to each patron: “For example,” I murmured, “this guy [a well-dressed silver fox accompanied by a well-dressed woman, and superficially unaware of us seated next to them] next to me keeps slamming his elbow into me. He’s done it five or six times since he sat down. He’s so used to women giving up space to him that he can’t believe it’s not going to work.” I predicted that he wouldn’t stop, and he didn’t. But I didn’t give up my reasonable amount of space, and that felt good.
Another time, I might say that same thing louder. Loudly enough so that the man slamming his elbow into my back and my arm and my shoulder can’t fail to hear me observe his entitlement.
*At the same time, I’m trying to become more aware of not claiming space through societal privilege. Some people I follow on Twitter had a long conversation about white people breezily walking into their paths, stepping in front of them in grocery stores, taking up extra space on the subway and bus and theater and airplane. That made me think hard about space as an expression of social privilege and how I use it.
My mom is right there in the trenches with you, and my sister and I are her foot soldiers. Keep fighting the good fight!
You are my hero and I will join your campaign for taking up our fair share of space. I’ve done the walking thing and it is amazing how BAFFLED they are. I can see in men’s faces the amazed moment when they realise I’m not going to move out of their way and yet they still don’t change their course.
It’s astonishing! They’ll plow right into me on the sidewalk! Usually they stagger and I don’t, because I’m braced for it but he’s not; he still expects me to cede space. It took a lot of training to stop stepping out of the way of men who careen every which way expecting me to accommodate their unpredictable paths; it took a great deal more determination to not apologize when it is clearly their fault.
I have a chronic back problem, so it’s a constant question: am I in good enough shape to let this big guy slam full-speed into me? Or am I going to bark out “EXCUSE ME” just before he walks into me, startling him into stopping short?
I’ve also had to train myself out of a default apologetic tone when saying “Excuse me” to dudes walking three abreast on a city sidewalk and blocking foot traffic; now I bark it in a flat, startling monotone before curtly cutting through. I’m considering stepping that up from “EXCUSE ME” to “BEHIND YOU,” but I’m not quiiiiiite there yet.
Never apologize, always cut your own path (through a swathe of confused and emasculated men).
Rock on!! I am also waging this war and while it can be painful and awkward at times, the sense of satisfaction I get from a dude’s arm slamming into mine and then pulling back is wonderful.
It is so awkward, and the acknowledgement that we’re in this together gives me the strength to let it be awkward, to allow them to keep making it awkward, to force them to confront the awkwardness they’ve instigated. I say “acknowledgement” and not “knowledge” because we all know some of us are silently standing against that encroachment, but to make the invisible resistance visible to each other is a gift.
This is a delightful and very thoughtful comment that has inspired me to do the same. Thank you for the game plan!
Is it just my white obliviousness in not noticing that path-obstructing behaviour is something white people do to non-white people? Because people do that to me all the time. I hope I don’t do it to others. I sincerely want to know.
I honestly haven’t seen any difference in space-taking between white- and non-white men. The legs-four-feet-apart-on-the-bus thing seems to be an equal-opportunity sign of douchebaggery; this might be an intersectionality-free issue.
I’ve also been avoiding giving up space on the sidewalk and I’m continually amazed that someone can see me coming and not move out of the way. I’m quite tall, broad-shouldered and -hipped, and not slender either. I’m also usually wearing a backpack, and the shoulder straps naturally push my arms out slightly so I look even bigger. I take up not only physical but also visual space is what I’m saying.
I also stand my ground at concerts, where men will stand in front of me and then attempt to gain room for themselves by “dancing” with their elbows out or just backing up into me. I do not move an inch, though I will sometimes tap them on the shoulder and ask them politely to stop elbowing my boobs.
Hopefully uncommon addendum, but what about the outright stealing of seats, not just armrests? My mother told me back when she was flying regularly, and always had the aisle seat so she could exit quickly, she boarded once to find a businessman in her seat. “Wouldn’t you rather look out the window?” he said, like it was some special treat, like she hadn’t made this commuter flight tons of times. She said no. He moved.
I thought that was maybe a symptom of a bygone less air-regulated time, but boarding a cross-country flight last month, I found a dad has put his young son in the aisle seat, and to be fair, asked me if he could stay there, and I just went “FINE WHATEVER” in a way that clearly wasn’t. Thankfully there was a flight attendant standing nearby who rescued me from my fear on confrontation, and said, you know you don’t have to give up your seat. I recanted, said, actually, I’m gonna need to get up. I went to the bathroom three times on that flight, them only the once, so I felt justified.
“Wouldn’t you rather look out the window?” he said, like it was some special treat, like she hadn’t made this commuter flight tons of times.
UGH I WOULD BURST INTO RIGHTEOUS FIRE. Your mother is a hero for not having challenged him to a duel (and doubly a hero if she did).
The fiction of “Wouldn’t you prefer the window seat?” is a double micro-aggression: first, he’s pretending that the public space in which they’ve each selected a seat is his to dole out; second, he’s tacitly asserting that the flight is a novelty to her but of course not to him and, like a child on their first flight, she’ll be so enchanted by the view that she won’t mind the discomfort of a tighter space, all based on that split-second glimpse of her when she walks up to the seat. I dare anyone to tell me that’s not a gendered expectation.
In short, FUCK HIM.
I went to the bathroom three times on that flight, them only the once, so I felt justified.
I will echo your comfort at feeling justified by circumstances like these and then remind myself (and you, only if you want the reminder) that having booked/been allotted that seat is enough justification. We’re often made to feel like we need more justification, but we really, really don’t.
There was a woman on the last flight I took who moved twice at the request of two men who did not have the foresight to make appropriate arrangements for themselves. It was only an hour, but still.
I am late to the party here, but one of my prouder moments occurred as I was boarding a 10 hour flight for which I reserved the aisle seat months prior, for I am only claustrophobic on airplanes. As soon as I sat down, the gentleman in the middle seat started his pitch: “As you can see,” he began, gesturing to his legs, “I am a very tall man and am very uncomfortable here. May I have the aisle seat?”
“No,” I said, fighting the urge to apologize. “I will get claustrophobic and have a panic attack. Ask the flight attendant if there are free seats somewhere else on the plane.”
He was aghast and furious that I, a small person with a vagina, would not cede his request. He immediately got up and, without even asking me to move, leapt over me to whine to the flight attendant. He did not return, and I can only assume he was moved to a bathroom-adjacent aisle seat.
I beamed for the rest of the flight, and the window seat passenger and I shared the spoils of my victory by curling our legs into the now-empty middle seat.
HAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GOOOOOD.
Is it OK to use these tactics when the male is not yet a man? let us say, perhaps eight or nine years old? CONS: it might be wrong. but PROS: it’s super easy.
(I am the unfriendliest woman you will ever meet and I never bother children by being an unctuous grownup who unfairly makes them talk to me by trading on their training to be polite to their elders. but this boy wanted to talk to ME, by god. So he asks me how many times I’ve flown in a plane before, and I pick a number at random and say, ten. and he looks disappointed! like, sorry I have not travelled in the belly of this great steel bird enough times to impress you kid. and then, then, he pulls out his phone and shows me a picture of two baby rabbits in his cupped hands, which I admit is adorable so I say so. “I caught them yesterday!” he said. I say how cute they are and he agrees. “Are they your pets now?” I ask. He looks overwhelmingly confused and says “….no.” and then I am overcome with horror and resolve never to chat with a child again.)
Let’s all pretend that he let them go home to their mother.
Can we discuss guidelines for how to reclaim your share of a seat when a Man similarly invades your space on non-armrest-enabled transportation vehicles such as the bus or subway? I know that men are committed to spreading their legs as wide as possible in all scenarios to make it clear that they having giant penises, but I am really sick of having to make myself as small as possible in order to accommodate their inferiority complexes. I recently openly elbowed someone, and while I’m not opposed to using this tactic literally all the time, it didn’t even work. HELP.
Lead. You are made of solid lead. Your legs cannot be moved–they are too heavy. Your arms are stiff and cannot cede room. Your torso is solid and cannot be budged. That is what I do every single morning and afternoon, and BOY do those businessmen commuters hate it but they deal because they have no choice.
For practice, follow the excellent guidelines of the academic goddess above, who puts her bookbag on the floor in between her legs. Practice this maneuver on your own and unveil it when you are ready. Good luck.
The same thing happened to me! I don’t know what went wrong 🙁 Maybe I didn’t elbow him hard enough? I just want disgusting men (spoiler: all men are disgusting, except for my husband and a few friends and the men in my family) not to space-invade in public. HALP
I have the habit of jittering my legs when I’m bored, so I’ve started doing it violently whenever a man has his leg pressed against mine on the bus.
Sir, your irritated sigh and side-eye is just telling me that I’m winning.
I found it often works to put a bag on your knees and let it (and not your actual leg) touch the guy’s legs. So you won’t feel uncomfortable by touching a stranger, but he (with any luck) will.
(And I’m so, so, glad to read from so many other women coming up with all sorts of (passive-)aggressive schemes about this! I feel much more validated and not so much like a bitter, horrible person now)
Variation: let your bag rest ever so lightly on his leg while you root through it looking for your lipstick/receipts/wallet/phone/etc, preferably while muttering to yourself.
Oversized umbrellas are good ways to demarcate space. Even when it’s not raining. The pointy kind that can come down on encroaching toes. They are a weapon in this war. Just pretend you’re a dowager.
Best way to get dudes (and occasional ladies) with splayed legs to stop encroaching your space? Jiggle your adjoining leg. This usually works within in the first 10 seconds on the subway. When they creep back, give them more of the same.
“Courtesy is contagious and it begins [when you stop pushing my leg!!!]”
I am for sure going to add leg-jiggling to my repertoire of space-claiming measures.
I once sat next to a male US soldier in uniform who was tiny and looked about 12. Halfway through the flight he closed his eyes and proceeded to very deliberately lean his beady little head and arms on my shoulder, like a full-on cuddle maneuver. I shrugged him off and said “Excuse me?” in disbelief. He looked shocked and mumbled an apology. I turned from him and made it clear that I was not his fucking cuddle bunny. I still have no idea what that was about or why he would have thought that was normal.
Brings a whole new meaning to support our troops!
(I’m sorry, I had to. It was teed up so nicely.)
Wha????
Maaaybe he’d taken some sort of drug? But yeah, weird alright.
The first piece of life advice I remember my father giving me was along the lines of “Never cede your aeroplane armrest to a man. So many women give up on this too soon. Claim your territory and defend it, for 12 hours if necessary.”
I was ten, and that has stuck with me ever since. There are some really useful elaborations on both claim and defend here, so that’s great.
Your father sounds excellent.
Make sure that the image on your phone/tablet/laptop wallpaper is suitably frightening, too. This will also help discourage sneak reading and create a sphere of peace around you.
(I might have had someone recoil a bit when they peeked at my computer and noticed that I had the image of Misha pouring kefir on his face as my background. Armrest and peace were mine to be had.)
You just reminded me of a scene in The Bridge where the female cop takes a guy home and after sex opens her laptop in bed to catch up on some work. She is a homicide detective. Her work involves closely inspecting autopsy photos. I still have not decided if she was trying to get him to go home or if she really just didn’t care what he thought, either is satisfactory.
Related: when someone (almost always a male) insists on sitting in the aisle seat on the bus. Ok, sometimes, you know you’re getting off very soon, and it’s easier to be on the aisle. But acknowledge that you are making everyone else’s life harder, and make it as easy as possible for them to access the window seat (i.e. stand the fuck up) Do not just barely twist your body aside so that I am forced to practically climb over you. I WILL WHACK YOU IN THE HEAD WITH WHATEVER I HAPPEN TO BE CARRYING. Today it was a large purse, a backpack with a metal water bottle in the side pocket and I am pretty sure I stepped on his foot.
A+ whacking game!
Once a middle-aged white dude tried to convince me that we didn’t need the armrest because we would have more space to spread out without it. You mean, so *you* can spread out *into my space*. No thanks, dude.
Maybe so he can try and snuggle with your unwilling self!
GROSS! I’m late to the thread, but GROSS!
I am totally sympathetic to all this but I have an honest question for the esteemed commentariat in that I, A Man, am very tall (6′ 8″, so ignore Mallory’s previous admonishments as those are clearly reserved for 6′ 7″ and under), and by necessity occupy large volumes of air on planes, buses, subways, etc. Walking down the street, too, it is hard to get out of anyone’s way.
What are my general guidelines here? I try not to be horrid about anything but the laws of physics demand greater displacement. My shoulders are absolutely the worst and I apologize in advance for probably having jostled you with one. If, god forbid, I find myself in a middle seat, I will usually be the guy who then rests his head on the seat in front of him so as to avoid the ooching, thumb-war-style Siege of the Shoulders.
Anyways this is all a long-winded way of saying I AM VERY SORRY
I think your awareness means you’re probably doing just fine. My advice would be that if you move and find yourself bumping into someone, then just try move your appendage back to where it was before. Also, an honest “Sorry!” makes everything better and makes it clear you are not trying to invade.
I’m not convinced that it is hard to get out of someone’s way on the sidewalk if you’re very tall. It’s a shift of the hips and shoulders, it rarely requires a change of trajectory. Sit and watch a crowd sometime, the women will give you a master class.
Oh, what I mean is that I do that and sometimes it isn’t enough and then I get THE DEATH STARE but at least I’m used to stares, I guess.
Oh, that happens to all of us. People are always walking into me and then glaring like I’m at fault, mostly people on phones or talking to a friend. C’est la vie.
What do you do when you have to get up for the bathroom? I mean, he’ll have claimed it by the time you get back. Distract him and knock his arm off when he’s not looking?
(off the armrest, off his body)
Maybe the answer is to wear a diaper, so you can outlast him.
I start with a rear attack, placing just my elbow at the very back of the armrest, then slowly capturing territory as he inevitably cedes it by, say, reaching with the wrong hand to accept a drink from the fight attendant or reaching to turn the page in his book or whatnot.
Urinate in place. Do more if you must. Do not cede the armrest for the largest of biological pressures.
Maintaining control of the shared armrest IS the largest of biological pressures, as far as I’m concerned.
One thing: if you’re seated beside a couple who has the armrest between them drawn up, you have rights to the shared armrest because you don’t have anybody to canoodle with, regardless of the gender of your neighbor. I flew from Panama to Houston as a petite 20 year old, seated between the window and a married couple. The woman to my right was fierce. We stayed locked in silent battle for over an hour, gaining and losing millimeters. Soon, lunch was served, and I was pleasantly surprised by the savory herbed focaccia sandwich I ate while keeping my elbow in place. When the pilot announced that a crack had developed in the cockpit window, air pressure was dropping, and we would be making an emergency landing in Nicaragua, the woman started to cry and clutched her husband, relinquishing her half of the armrest. The lush volcanic valleys below were becoming clearer by the second. I was eating an amazing sandwich, and I had won the armrest. We slept on cots in the airport, but the armrest thing really lifted my spirits throughout it.
Stay and comment forever, please.
<3
Oh, I like to slice the space between me and seat companion if they abuse the armrest-up idea, as well. It reminds me of using the paper cutter in my grade school’s office. I think if we’re going for the long-game here, see if you can start with the armrest up, because they will always use it to enter your seat space and then you get to slice slice slice and they never come back after the slice.
1) The worst: the time an obviously-honeymooning couple had BOTH the aisle and window seats on my transatlantic flight, and laughingly refused my offer to switch with either of them. “Oh, no, that’s not necessary!” And proceeded to spend eight hours talking ACROSS me about their honeymoon plans, and food preferences and and and. I will regret for the rest of my life being young and polite and not knowing, deep in my soul, that I had the right to make demands of the flight crew.
2) I AM DONE MOVING ON THE STREET FOR YOU. Yes you, teenagers walking eight abreast on a pedestrian thoroughfare. Yes you, MEN, walking directly into my path, utterly confident that I will simply move. All of you. You now get the elbow to the side, subtly braced for impact. You get the shoulder, backed by an expertly-timed body thrust. I will time your strides and mine, prepared for the moment of impact. You will not expect it, but someday you may learn.
I’ve learned a lot about claiming my space by living in the former Soviet Union. Nobody moves aside for nobody, they’ve been taken over for too long by other countries claiming their space. Back in the US I’m probably perceived as rude but I’m a middle-aged woman who doesn’t move aside for no man.
The last time I flew, the man seated next me was VAPING. He also dropped his iPad on my kneecap twice. Any advice for this situation, O Wise One?
I suggest staring at him contemptuously without saying anything, as if in disbelief that he’s continuing to exist within your space.
Excellent, that is what I did.
Good god, what a dick! I feel like if someone is smoking next to you (given that vaping *is* smoking & carries the associated health risks) you are entirely within your rights to a)demand that they stop and b) request assistance from flight attendants.
(De-lurking so that I may finally ask: what is this lovely Toast font? Such lovely toasty font!)
Now I feel a vague guilt. Armrests are for my elbows, and I chant myself to sleep for most of the flight, even if it lasts for 9 hours, so that I don’t throw up weird-tasting plane food.
at 4 foot 10 inches, i am the type of bitch that will walk straight through groups taking up all of the sidewalk, will hit you with my bag if you refuse to move enough to allow passage on a bus or train, and will call out everyone on public transport for not getting out of their seat for the elderly, pregnant, and disabled. it causes much embarrassment to the male partner but he's british so he's embarrassed by anyone that is assertive and direct. he'd rather be pushed around at the time and moan about the rude people after the fact. we little women learn to assert ourselves and our space early, as everyone else is bigger than you and assumes they deserve ALL THE SPACE.
I’m a big fan of, if possible, taking up one seat on the subway and then stretching your arm out across the seat-back next to you. I will retreat the arm invitingly for other women who look like they know how to sit properly in public spaces, but I have yet to find a man who will challenge my open arm for the empty seat. Apparently it has something to do with challenging-signals and body language.
One guy (oh, the NQR) stood in front of me for 30 minutes rather than sit in the empty seat in front of me. It was GLORIOUS.
I don’t think I’ve ever faced this problem. Probably all of my airplane seatmates have hated me.
I have been playing the Misandry Sidewalk Game for a few years now, and it goes like this: every time I walk directly at an oncoming man on the sidewalk and make him change his course to avoid me, I get a point. Every time I change my own course to allow an oncoming woman to go past me unhassled, I get a point. Every time I fail to intimidate an oncoming man with my direct walk and awkward staredown and we end up jostling shoulders or full-on colliding, I lose five points.
Someday this game may concuss or kill me, but it does make walks to the bus stop a lot more fun!
Therefore, being seated next to a tall, thin gentleman who invaded my space was inevitable. He also talked. A lot. He was a proud minimalist, fresh back from selling his condo somewhere, and had the kind of watch that I… resent, in others. He talked and talked and invaded my book-space and took the armrest, and finally, the stress was too much! I flew from Panama to Houston as a petite 20 year old, seated between the window and a married couple. The woman to my right was fierce. We stayed locked in silent battle for over an hour, gaining and losing millimeters. Soon, lunch was served, and I was pleasantly surprised by the savory herbed focaccia sandwich I ate while keeping my elbow in place.