Mansplaining the manspread

Now I know you will have all been thinking, "Just what does Tim think about the manspreading problem"? Manspreading, the scourge that is sweeping our civilisation from one side of the train seat to the other! Well, it's certainly keeping me up at night. Just what can we do about it? What does it even mean? Why can't we just do away with the manspread and replace it with something nicer, like a tablespread (jam, anyone? Spot of marmalade?) MANSPREAD MANSPREAD MANSPREAD!

The whole phenomena (phenomenon? I don't even know anymore) is full of mysteries. Are we able to call women manspreaders? What if a manspreader manspreads and takes a picture of himself while doing his manspreading; is it really a manspread, then, or a selfie? If a manspreader manspreads in a train and a social justice warrior is not there to photograph the man in full, er, spread,  does it really happen? What if the carriage is empty? What if the train isn't going anywhere and the manspreader is dead and anyway we were all having dinner at the time? Does that absolve him of his responsibilities?

I don't know! I just don't know! Personally I'm more a 'leaving the bags on the seat next to me' kind of guy, but who knows, if a social justice warrior appeared with their iPhone, I might just feel compelled to manspread in order to give them material for a tweet.

Let us consider this ad. Ostensibly a powerful statement about racism in our society, is it not actually a subtle drama about a man who is nobly abstaining from manspreading, and a social justice warrior who is clearly afraid he will manspread on her at the last moment?



Perhaps it is time to start a campaign. #I'llmanspreadwithyou? Come on, people! If we don't do it Twitter will explode!