Mini-rant!
For the purposes of today, pretend he’s a lady owl, because while there certainly are a few men in the world who try to squeeze into the tiniest space possible on public transport, they’re the vast minority.
Remember a while back when I mentioned that girls in my classes ummed and maybe’d and sort of’d infinitely more often than the boys, and then said that that was a rant for another day? Welcome to that day! It’s a symptom of a larger problem that leads to women overapologizing and discounting our ideas and spending our time in public trying to take up the least possible amount of space, and it’s bullshit. We’re taught to be submissive and quiet and tidy and small, and never to be bossy (a word that is only ever used for girls). It doesn’t matter how hard we fight against that early conditioning — it’s sunk in too deep, and it’s incredibly hard to slough off. Men in the plane or the theatre seat or on the subway feel free to spread; we pull in on ourselves and try to disappear.
Sucks, don’t it?
Neurotic Owl 