{"id":2741,"date":"2009-02-24T13:38:11","date_gmt":"2009-02-24T17:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/batesviews.net\/?p=2741"},"modified":"2015-03-27T13:16:39","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T17:16:39","slug":"gendered-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2009\/02\/24\/gendered-territory\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arm Rest: Gendered Territory?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Stephanie: So, on my way back to Bates at the end of February break I realized something about armrests. Everyone knows the quandry of armrests when using public transportation like planes, trains and buses. I\u2019m not sure if buses have armrests\u2026 it\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve taken a bus but I\u2019m sure they do. The seats are so tiny and this is America so we must have a way to partition our little democratic spaces off. We worked hard for these very dirty rainbow patterned seats, you know the pulling bootstraps and the American dream and so on and goddess knows we shouldn\u2019t have to share. That\u2019s socialist. Anyway buses are of no matter because I want to talk about airplane armrests.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n


\n<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re a women and gender studies major you discuss oppression ALL THE TIME. And we\u2019re not just talking about the big time oppression of sexism in the American workplace, we\u2019re talking about theories down to how high heels were designed to cripple women and keep them in their place. (You can decide what you think of that, I must say I agree but I\u2019m unsure whether I can ascribe it to the Patriarchy or to the fact that for about 2 years now my feet cramp constantly. Perhaps they\u2019re one and the same. Too bad more potassium isn\u2019t the solution to both.)<\/p>\n

But anway, you learn all these little things that you\u2019ve always witnessed but never really looked upon as anything much, like how I tend to always sit cross legged. Well, this can be related to the idea which posits that in society, women are expected to take up as little room as possible. Hence why we sit cross legged, it\u2019s a gendered behavior. You don\u2019t see many men sitting cross legged and the ones that do are often viewed as less masculine. It is deemed more masculine to take up space. And whose space do they take? Mine, on an airplane flight from Chicago.<\/p>\n

I have never experienced an encroachment of space like this one before. Actually, that\u2019s a lie. I\u2019ve never before experienced such an encroachment of space where the person wasn\u2019t hitting on me. This man must have been the manliest man alive. He was all sorts of splayed, listening to his ipod. His suitcase was not under the seat in front if him but on the floor between his seat and the seat in front of him and his legs were stretched on either side of his suitcase. Not only was his right leg poking into my space but he wasn\u2019t following the safety rules. But that wasn\u2019t the worst of it, the worst of it was the arm rest. He had taken all of it and not just taken it but his elbow was poking into my space, poking me as I bitterly sat scrunched trying to avoid the point of his elbow. Two limbs out of four encroaching. That\u2019s half. That\u2019s a lot.<\/p>\n

So I got angry. And then I got angry that I was angry and not doing anything about it. What could I do? I crossed my legs and shrunk towards the aisle because I didn\u2019t want to touch him as I mulled over my options. I ended up using a three-fold approach. I would every once and a while jab his elbow with mine, sending a \u201cI know what you\u2019re doing and I\u2019m aware that this is my space too even though I\u2019m a frail looking tired woman, and ill even let you have the armrest how generous of me just move your elbow.\u201d I also would look scathingly down at the armrest every time his elbow poked me, willing his arm, not to burst into flame because we were on a plane, but to perhaps disintegrate into dust like the humans in Body Snatchers when they would get killed and replaced by alien clones in their sleep. My third approach (this one was my favorite) was to pretend I was asleep the whole way so he would have to \u201cwake me up\u201d to go to the bathroom because I had the aisle seat and it\u2019s SO awkward to attempt to wake up a stranger so you can urinate. I thought that would get him.<\/p>\n

Anyway, so that was my experience and it left me wondering if he saw me and thought that he could be disrespectful in that way or if he just had no clue what he was doing. I\u2019m not sure which one is worse. I also thought back to my other plane experiences and I realized that I\u2019ve always worked out an armrest compromise when I am seated next to another woman. Either she takes the front and I the back or vice versa. Her elbow doesn\u2019t sneak over, her legs aren\u2019t splayed, there\u2019s almost an unspoken understanding. Perhaps it results from her on her last flight having to pretend she was asleep so the man next to her would have to hold his pee for 2 and 1\/2 hours just to teach him a lesson he probably didn\u2019t get.<\/p>\n

So, moral of the story: Men, close your legs and keep your elbows in check. Women, don\u2019t feel afraid to take what\u2019s yours and when all else fails and your in the aisle seat, feign sleep. I know the arm rest isnt big but in the interest of gender equality, let\u2019s compromise.<\/p>\n

Shhhh,<\/p>\n

Steph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, moral of the story: Men, close your legs and keep your elbows in check. Women, don\u2019t feel afraid to take what\u2019s yours and when all else fails and you\u2019re in the aisle seat, feign sleep. I know the arm rest isn\u2019t big but in the interest of gender equality, let\u2019s compromise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[224],"tags":[3498,3773],"class_list":["post-2741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society-culture","tag-feminism","tag-gender"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93169,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2741\/revisions\/93169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}