An old blogging friend I just rediscovered, who took her blog private a few years ago (it’s here but you need a login) says
You all may know that I’m kind of handsy. Tactile. PDA machine. But. I have recently decided to start being more assertive about my personal space. I think most women struggle with this because we’re always making ourselves smaller based on some old patriarchal something or other — cross your arms, cross your legs, let someone pass before you go, move to the side when you pass someone, etc. Well, fuck that. Men don’t do that. They just walk past. They spread out their legs. And I want to do that to.
So I am. I stand my ground on the sidewalk and in halls. Make space for me — ESPECIALLY if you are part of a group! Suck it up and realize you’re in a town with narrow sidewalks and you can’t walk in a group like in Reservoir Dogs. I go first. I make eye contact with drivers (the law says you MUST stop for pedestrians in crosswalks in MA … yeah, ALL crosswalks without lights) and cross in front of them. I take the FULL seat on the T. I even do the spread leg thing (not the huge obtuse angle version that some guys do that goes beyond their seat boundary.
I am reclaiming my space. Not all the space. Just what I can rightfully grab.
I understand why she’s private, and she’s always been more of a diarist than a pundit anyway. But it’s great how she can just put her finger on the pulse.
What’s great about it is that while I’m a big guy I tended small and sickly for my age as a kid. I still see myself as almost invisibly small (when I sat sideway in class the teacher counted me absent, ba-da-da-bump.) It’s only been the last few years that I realized I ought to occupy my own space more responsibly.
As a woman, you really do
Submitted by Lynn (not verified) on Thu, 2010-09-02 13:00.As a woman, you really do have to pay attention to your personal space if you don’t want to cede it entirely. Some years back I realized I was tired of scrunching and crossing and moving out of the way and began consciously claiming my space.
There is power in claiming space. I learned this quickly when I began claiming and defending mine. Even though I’m politely or quietly doing so, reclaiming space earns doubletakes and sometimes worse.
Once on a bus a man sat next to me, spreading his legs wide. I spread mine nearly as wide in response, to the width of my seat, marking the space as mine.
He became angry and called me a bitch.
This is such a powerful post.
Submitted by Lydia (not verified) on Tue, 2010-09-07 10:53.This is such a powerful post. I’ve been struggling with this a lot lately. There’s part of me that wants to always come across as polite and kind…but I also want to be able to get to the other side of the street or sit down in my subway seat or get onto or off the elevator without someone else annexing my personal space because I’m a (petite) woman.
It’s so frustrating.
Americans have a different
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 2010-10-07 17:28.Americans have a different version of "personal space" than people from India or China. We are a vast country and we can spread out. Other countries are by nature more crowded together and it is natural for their "personal space' to be much smaller than an American's. I don't think it has so much to do with male and female or fat or thin, as it does nationality.