Something About Respect

Hopefully it will not be necessary in the future to do this but I will add in a disclaimer right now, because men can take these discussions personally, I am not referring to ALL MEN, it is not all men but there are enough of them to warrant generalisation.

Just recently I went to see Michael McIntyre live because there were seats available in the first three rows.  I don’t generally like large auditoriums and would rather see Sarah Millican because she does smaller venues, however I find both comedians equally funny (albeit Sarah is cleverer in her delivery).  So off I trot for my second row seat.

I find I am sitting next to a man who I don’t know.  The evening started off ok, as it generally does, I had to ask him to vacate my seat so I could sit down, but whatever, then we were both rotated 45 degrees to our left, on our seats in order to see the stage.  As the first half progressed he inches towards me, I try to hold my position but he is stronger and pushes me past the edge of my seat so that my right arse cheek is in mid air with my right leg out trying to support me.  I get frustrated and ask him to move off of my seat. The seats look like dining chairs linked together.  He looks at me and shuffles back, by the end of the first half we are back to me awkwardly balancing again.  

For the second half I am determined to have my full bottom on the chair for the rest of the show, my back is now sore from twisting and perching.  I stay in my seat for the interval and make sure I have positioned myself comfortably for when he returns.  The second half starts well, I am no longer rotated to watch Michael, so I can only listen, but I do have my own seat…..for about 5 minutes…then I am physically being slowly inched sideways until i am half off my seat and Mr in the seat next to me has one and half seats again.

My choice at this point is to create a fuss in the middle of the performance, or sit with half my arse on the chair.  Guess what I chose, guess what women have been told to choose or have chosen throughout their lifetimes, keep the peace, make sure the men are comfortable, keep everyone happy by sacrificing.  

I am cross, in fact I am livid.  I paid as much for my ticket as he did and he showed no respect for me or my right to have my own entire seat for myself.  I ask you women who are reading this, is this an isolated seat incident?  I know all of you will, on a regular basis, have this happen.  Regularly we experience being inched, pushed from our seat or the inevitable manspreading on the tube, bus or on a plane, in fact manspreading anywhere.  Even to the point where we have given it a cute name ‘manspreading’, to make it less disrespectful and less ‘his fault’.  If you need to work out whether men need to manspread, look at a man sitting next to another man he doesn’t know,  definitely no manspreading there.

So why is it an issue, why not just suck it up as I always have? Well, because it tells us we, as women, are not as important to men as men are, they have no objection to taking our space and making us feel uncomfortable.  It is not about them needing more space than us (as seen when they sit next to other men) it is about not valuing or respecting women, not caring or noticing if they make us uncomfortable, or worse, stamping their power and dominance by taking whatever space they want.

We as women weigh up the risk of touching the stranger next to us, yes I find it gross to have a warm sweaty man pushing up against me for a whole performance but isn’t it more than that? What if I stand my ground and stay in contact with him for the show, am I then seen as flirting with my thigh resting against his and my shoulder leaning into him.  Even if, by some spontaneous clarity of thought, he knows I am not enjoying it, it doesn’t stop him from getting pleasure or a feeling of power.  Will the contact encourage further conversation or be thought of as an invitation?  What about when I leave the venue, will he try to walk with me trying to talk or touch as I am trying to get safely home?

If you think I am getting a bit off of the point here or exaggerating consider a full pub or bar on a Friday night.  It is heaving and you go to the bar to get drinks.  You get the bar and lean forward to get the barkeep’s attention, during this time others come up to try to get to the bar and before you know it you have a man behind and one to either side, all pressed against you.  It’s a position you have been in every Friday/Saturday night that you've been in a bar, you know the feeling of the cock pressed into your arse and the chest pushed against your back, the shoulder and hips pressed against each side, it’s just what happens.  Or is it?  Look around you, again look at the space men give other men they don’t know.  What makes it ‘OK’ to do this to women?

For forever men have not had to change their behaviour, they have been used to taking what they want when they want to.  I am not saying this is an outright desire to rob or hurt women, but I am saying that we are not thought of at all in these situations or worse we are used as a bit of ‘harmless’ titillation and entertainment.  What men don’t think of  is the level of distress, subjugation, loss of autonomy and actual feelings of harm we as women feel when this is done to  us.  If they do, they continue with their behaviour regardless perhaps adding in some gaslighting ‘no need to be so touchy’, ‘can’t even exist nowadays’, ‘sorry love’ with a smirk, ‘bet you liked it really’ another smirk, or my personal favourite ‘ #metoo has gone too far’ so the level of disrespect continues.  They don’t do this to other men, so are in fact, perfectly capable of assessing these situations and acting appropriately.  

Me, I just wanted to sit in the seat I had paid for and watch a show without being touched by a strange man for 2 hours, who had decided he had more right to comfort and to my seat than I did.