Vintage Subway Etiquette Posters Reveal Manspreading Has Always Been Annoying
Poster by Hideya Kawakita, Japan (1976) (image courtesy Tokyo Metro Cultural Foundation/New York Transit Museum)
When the New York Transit authority rolled out a
courtesy campaign targeting manspreading last year,
Men’s Rights Activists and angry netizens accused “anti-spread” crusaders of being whiny “
pseudo-feminists.” More debate followed when the word “manspreading” was
added to the
Oxford English Dictionary.
But though the word itself is new, the practice of manspreading —
whereby a man spreads his legs while sitting on public transit, taking
up too much space — has apparently been pissing people off since around
the time public transit became a thing.
Amelia Opdyke Jones, anti-manspreading poster for New York City subway (1947), New York Transit Museum Collection
In the New York Transit Museum’s current exhibit, Transit Etiquette or: How I Learned to Stop Spitting and Step Aside in 25 Languages, courtesy
campaigns spanning decades and continents reveal a nearly universal
anti-manspreading sentiment. A poster on the New York City subway in
1947, featuring cartoons of flagrant manspreaders in fedoras, implored
commuters not to be “space hogs” or “leg pests.” Another ad simply
labels manspreaders “BAD!”. Both these designs were by cartoonist
Amelia Opdyke Jones, who signed her work “
Oppy.”
From 1946 to 1966, Jones illustrated etiquette posters with
Monopoly-like characters for the “Subway Sun,” a faux-newspaper
plastered in train cars. The term “litterbug” is said to have originated
from one of Oppy’s subway posters. The New York MTA’s current “
Dude… Stop the Spread”
campaign, which caused so much internet kerfuffle when installed,
is only a watered-down rehash of these earlier designs, with boring
pictograms instead of Oppy’s retro comic book flair.
Amelia Opdyke Jones, Subway Sun, New York City (1953) (image courtesy the New York Transit Museum Collection)
And manspreading is an international plague, according to the designs
on view: A disturbing poster on the Japan Metro in 1976 depicted
Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator as “The Seat Monopolizer,”
squishing smaller Charlie Chaplins seated next to him. An ad from Tokyo
trains in 2012 featured a cartoon manspreader encroaching on the space
of a child inexplicably wearing a bear suit. “I’d like to sit too. There
should be enough room,” she says.
Tokyo (2012) (image courtesy Tokyo Metro Cultural Foundation)
If you’re a
Men’s Rights Activist
and these ads hurt your feelings, please get some help and don’t freak
out at the New York Transit Museum: The exhibition also features retro
ads scolding “Birdy Big Bags,” discouraging what’s now called “
she-bagging,”
whereby people (according to some, mostly women) hog seats with their
bags. There’s also a poster from the London Underground in 1986,
depicting a rare example of womanspreading: A female punk with a rainbow
mohawk splays her legs on a bus seat while an elderly gentleman stands
and waits for a chance to sit.
London Underground (1986) (image © TfL from the London Transport Museum collection)
The rest of the exhibit, with posters from Barcelona, Brussels,
Chicago, London, Madrid, New York, Philadelphia, Rio de Janiero, Taipei,
and Tokyo, colorfully illustrates the laws of how not to be an asshole
on public transit, laws that apparently transcend time and place.
Subway
etiquette posters by Amelia Opdyke Jones at the New York Transit
Museum, installation view (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)
Trinh Loi, poster for Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (2014) (image courtesy the New York Transit Museum)
Transit Etiquette at the New York Transit Museum (image courtesy the New York Transit Museum)
Transit Etiquette Or: How I Learned To Stop Spitting And Step Aside In 25 Languages continues at the New York Transit Museum in the Gallery Annex at Grand Central Terminal (89 E 42nd St, Midtown East, Manhattan) through October 20.
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