Gender inequality is still a major issue and women are still expected to shrink themselves in order to accommodate men.

 Please close your legs.


No, it’s not what you think… You’ve heard of mansplaining, manflu and all those other deeply annoying habits or behaviour attributed to men, right?

On the whole I don’t hate men, but to make a sweeping statement, they are problematic. You know, patriarchy, misogyny, sexism, etc - and I do know that there are women who advance these ideologies and yes, yes, yes #notallmen.

It seems like women continue to have to shrink, to accept having our rights encroached on and generally change our behaviour to suit men’s proclivities.
For those who don’t know what manspreading is, think about the last time you used public transport and had to rethink your seating plan because a man had splayed his legs invading your (or someone else’s) personal space.

We don’t wear short dresses to avoid rape, we take longer routes home to avoid the street corners that are notorious for being littered with catcallers and harassers, we don’t breastfeed our children in public, and we don’t talk about our periods publicly to avoid contempt and disgust.

The way in which girls and boys are socialized contributes to how we eventually behave as adults – from manspreading to having to hide sanitary towels on your way to the bathroom at work.

We learn there are things that boys can do but that girls cannot. As a child, my mother would scold me each time she found me lying on the couch with my legs spread while watching television. “Musatigarire beya” she would shout – Sit properly like a girl!

Photographer Marianne Wex’s photobook has around 5000 images that document men and women in different contexts and the differences between their body language – women have for decades, actually centuries, sat or stood to make themselves take up less space.

Why? Because men have a long history of social conditioning to sprawl out across as large an expanse as their testicles need ventilation.

It seems like women continue to have to shrink, to accept having our rights encroached on and generally change our behaviour to suit men’s proclivities.

Or tucking in or twisting our limbs around us to accommodate others.

But we don’t.

We need to take back our spaces. Men, join us, by closing your legs and accepting women as equals.Bottom of Form