Complaining About Manspreading Is Just as Bad as Fat Shaming

Article here. Excerpt:

'Alright, we’ve got our two buzzwords to play with; consider “fat shaming” with the following scenario: There is a larger bodied person boarding public transport, say a bus. This person is wider than the pre-molded seats. This person sits down and takes up the two-person row.

In one current Internet narrative, this person is doing nothing wrong, but merely taking up the space their body requires. You’re a jerk if you then get on the bus and find annoyance that the fat person is taking up more than one seat and you have to stand. To shame this person with mean words or glares or a passive-aggressive Facebook post would be to remove their bodily autonomy. Let’s please agree on this, okay?

To insist a fat person stand so two thin people might sit is wrong and rude. To suggest that the fat person’s body is at fault is appalling, and some might even claim it is discrimination.

And yet, if it was the same bus, with a passenger that is not obese but male-presenting, suddenly it’s fine to shame him online, to take his photo without permission, and even to come into nonconsensual, unprovoked physically contact with him.'

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