There is a vitally important issue that needs to be addressed on New York subways and we should be grateful that feminists are leading the charge against it.

The issue is "manspreading" - the vile, patriarchal practice of men spreading their legs while sitting down so that innocent women are prevented from taking their rightful seat.

Is there nothing the patriarchy isn't guilty of?

CBS New York:

If you take the subway, bus or train, you’ve probably seen men who take up more than just their seat.

As CBS2’s Vladimir Duthiers reported, the issues is now the focus of a new MTA campaign.

Sitting on a crowded subway can be a lesson in sharing. Each person is allotted 17.5 inches — the width of an average seat.

But for some, that’s simply not enough.

So what is “manspreading?”

“Manspreading is when men take up too much room on the subway by spreading their legs in a wide V. Like geese traveling,” explained actress Kelley Rae O’Donnell.

O’Donnell has become an anti-manspreading activist, making stopping the spread a personal mission.

“I guess you would call it subway shaming? It’s what my friends accuse me doing,” she said.

Three years ago O’Donnell started taking pictures of people — mostly men — spreading out, and posting them on Twitter.

“I spend a lot of time commuting back and forth into Manhattan from Brooklyn,” she said. “And there was so much of it on these crowded trains that I just starting taking pictures. Mostly because they wouldn’t move for people or allow other people to sit down.”

O’Donnell said manspreading comes in many different forms, from the “hard day at work manspread” to the “multi-manspreaders,” and even the “I’m giving my reindeer a rest manspread.”

Entire blogs are dedicated to pointing out egregious seating, including one where cats are superimposed between men’s wide open stances.

I think that woman should be led away in a straitjacket.

Note: I used to ride the subway all the time in Washington and,. as I recall, the way you dealt with manspreaders was simple. You would say "excuse me" to the violator and start to sit down. At that time, 99.9% of manspreaders would close their legs and allow you your seat.

How hard can it be, ladies?

But simple manners won't suffice in this campaign, as Katherine Timf at NRO points out:

Here’s what’s really going on with manspreading, as explained by some of the bright, forward-thinking minds on the Feminist Internet:

1. Manspreading is saying, “Who gives a f**k if you can’t sit, [we] are men. See [our] balls.”

This is as explained by a man, Mychal Denzel Smith, for the blog Feministing. (Finally a man courageous enough to cue the rest of the world in to the secret language of the subway brotherhood!)

2. Manspreading is “an assertion of male dominance,” and “every one” of the manspreaders does it because he feels like he has to “claim [his] territory and [his] manhood in this public space, even at the discomfort of all the other passengers.”

Another great point by Smith. Who, by the way, also wrote: “When I stand, I sometimes cross my legs.” Sexy, sexy, sexy! Amirite ladies?!

3. “Let’s talk about these f***ing guys for a second because they’re f***ing everywhere. The MTA is full of them.”

Madeleine Davies of Jezebel really makes a great point here. In her brilliant piece, titled “F*** You, Dudes Who Sit With Their Legs Spread So Wide That They Take Up Two Seats,” Davies explains that it’s not just like two or three dudes who sit this way. Seeing as literally millions of people ride the subway every day, I might have been able to use context clues to figure out that probably there are a lot of people doing this, but she deserves praise for putting it so eloquently.

4. “There is no worse, man-centric behavior than manspreading on the subway.”

Seriously — Brian Moylan is totally right. There is nothing worse than manspreading. I would much rather be sneezed on or purposely verbally sexually harassed. I wonder if he crosses his legs when he stands the way Smith does. If so, there are wayyyyy more sexy men in NYC than I thought! 

These cretins are to be laughed at - and then hauled off to the funny farm. They are a danger to themselves and to others and need to be committed.

Next target for feminist gals with way too little to occupy their time; male-female segregated seating on buses. No woman should have to sit next to a man if she doesn't want to.