A British student won a national prize for designing chairs forcing men to sit with their legs closed, and women to sit with their legs spread open. Laila Laurel, a 2019 graduate of the University of Brighton, won the Belmond Award, granted at the New Designers Event in London this week, for her work entitled, “A Solution for Man Spreading.” The men's chair has legs that narrow in width, forcing the sitter’s legs to press into each other, while the women’s chair does the opposite, forcing their legs to be spread widely.According to the New Designers website, the competition’s judges found Laurel’s work to be a “bold, purpose-driven design that explores the important role of design in informing space, a person’s behavior and societal issues of today.” Ms Laurel's prize includes a £1,000 bursary and the chance to design a product for a hotel and leisure company.Laurel said the "concept" chair was inspired by her experiences of men "infringing on my space in public". She also said, "I was also hugely inspired by Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism Project where I read about the struggles and frustrations of women around the world pertaining to men infringing on their space. I think encouraging women to consider the way in which they move through the world or the space they take up in relation to men is powerful because it is such an intrinsic and huge issue, and yet one that perhaps is not always considered. I think men have a tendency to command space and require women to move for them far more than vice versa. In order to achieve gender equality it is imperative to consider... political gendered issues around seating."
Since the award, she says: "I have received a lot of explicit messages from men who seem to be under the impression that I hate all men." The University of Brighton student said this "couldn't be further from the truth frankly". What do you reckon?
Woman wins National Design Award for chairs forcing men to close their legs, and women to spread their legs. Thoughts?
Our genitals all just float around down there and closing your legs shut can over time be uncomfortable and puts pressure on things. Additionally, to produce healthy sperm, the testicle need to be at a lower temperature than the rest of the body, which is why they hang out like they do ala the Scrotum. Keeping your legs together pushes them back towards the body and surrounds them with that body temperature they are trying to avoid.
Its natural for men to be more comfortable "Manspreading" because that's just the way it is.
Women complain a lot about their breasts getting in the way or being uncomfortable in certain positions etc... They stick out, so if you're stuck on a crowded bus or train, should they have a device that compresses their boobs flat so they're not in the way of other people and infringing on My personal space?
In a confined area, Exactly who's personal space is more important?
People need to educate themselves and simply accept the differences the male and female bodies have.
The whole argument above for these idiotic chairs and for her winning the bandwagon gender movement of the month completely overlooks the actual biological reasons why men spread their legs.
I don't do it as some stupid form of dominance, because if I wanted to proclaim my dominance in something, the last thing I would want to do is position myself in a way that allows me to receive a good swift kick in the nuts.
Its about being comfortable. If I am in a crowded area and someone needs space, I will close my legs or just stand. Honestly, I would rather stand and have more personal space than have people right up against my body touching me.
A guy sitting for long periods of time with their legs closed the whole time is simply uncomfortable... If a girl wants to know what it's like, the closest thing they could do is stretch their arms out in front of them, then cross their arms so they they compress their breasts... Now hold that position the whole time you're sitting and see how uncomfortable that becomes.
Or imagine that your ovaries dangled outside of your vagina 24/7 and you were forced to mash them together between your legs every time you sat. There would be global outrage for a man inventing a chair that put women in this awkward position and deemed sexist. But because men are evil and it's a girl who made these dumb ass chairs over ignorant sexism, it's OK.
If society started rolling out these idiotic chairs, I won't buy them and I won't use them. I'd rather stand, but now that gives the impression that men don't deserve to sit anymore... Or were allowed to sit but have to remain in an uncomfortable position the whole time, which defeats the purpose of sitting in the first place.
Oh and hey, maybe instead of this girl inventing chairs to close the legs of men, maybe she can invent something to fix women taking up two seats on transit, where her ass takes one seat and her bag takes the other.
Oh and one last thing... If these ever did get mass produced, how long do we wait until we get scientific results of the long term damage done to men's reprodictivity and everybody starts to sue her ass off?
Yeah, brilliant design. With all the various chemicals like BPA and PVCs in many of the everyday products surrounding us, and various climate and genetic issues at play that have already shown men's sperm counts and fertility have dramatically declined over the last 80-100 years... This is all we need to add onto the pile. A chair to make things worse for men.
Does this woman even know why we spread our legs when we sit down? It's not because we want to necessarily it's because we have to because we'll crush our balls if we don't which is quite painful and uncomfortable.
The chairs themselves have multiple flaws, the back of them is going to cause back issues and force people to slouch forward, promoting poor posture. The men chair forces men to sit in a position that isn't natural to combat a problem that isn't a problem and is due to physiology not choice.
The female chair forces women to sit with their legs spread open, yet every woman I know sits with their legs closed purposely and doesn't like sitting with their legs forced open.
How about instead we make a chair that prevents a woman from putting her purse or her shopping bags on it, which I have seen a lot just one woman out shopping can take up to 2-3 additional chairs with their bags.
Or better yet just keep making chairs how they've always been made, with comfort in mind and let people sit however the hell they want to.
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I don't think people understood this. This isn't a chair that's going to be marketed and sold off to the public. It's for design, purely for design, one that specifically challenges space. As an design & architect student, we were given many projects that required us to take on space. How we can create interspace, the importance of space, how can you as the designer/architect command movement within designed space. It wasn't to put a leash around humans and force them to do just that by selling of these random ass designs😂 It was a challenge and experience in learning how to build something that achieves its goals within the design alone.
We learnt how to make people move throughout a room exactlyy the way we want, but it's not like we're gonna release space obstacle courses for houses now😂 Next you'll say that interior designers are sexist for making a baby's room pink or blue because you're pushing gender roles on to a baby. Jesus christ, people just want to complain now.
I get the design comcept and I though the same when I saw the work but her comments just show how she is very self centered and focused of dumb first world problems having no understanding of human anatomy.
@morimeme1 I'm not denying she might have a few screws loose or shit priorities and whatnot, simply because I have no idea who she is. If she in fact is how you say, then sure. But just from the information given in the text the Asker gave us alone, I don't see anything self-centered. But again, she may very well be. As a designer though, I'm not sure why she created the female manspreading chair though, as that has nothing to do with her focus/challenge. If anything it would distract from it. It makes me think "why? What was the need for that? You're trying to challenge how to prevent manspreading, so what the hell is the purpose of creating a woman's manspreading chair?" That's probably my biggest criticism.
I get that. My objection to the chair is that it’s meant to force a man to sit in a way he wouldn’t naturally sit, that tends to be uncomfortable for most men. And any chair designed to be uncomfortable to sit in is a poorly designed chair. We don’t sit with our legs spread to take up more space. We sit with our legs spread because we’ve got parts there that women don’t and it’s more comfortable to sit that way.
It's completely misandristic and if it's exactly what she made it for it's also misandristic.
Why? Both, Men and women can sit inconsiderately making a chair specifically to combat men doing it while ignoring men have a biological reason to do so is ignorant.
If they aren't trying to attack men they would have called it "sitting inconsiderately".
@A-man-22 Perhaps I missed a sentence she said, she very well could have used off-putting terms. Yeahh, I agree with that, I've seen many girls (& guys) who purposely take up two seats on a bus & it pissed me off, for instance.
I guess I don't mind it being called manspreading since it's a terms guys I know use too. Like my boyfriend & I always see people doing it when we're on public transportation , so we're not that sensitive to the wording. But yeah, you have a valid point, it could've been worded more nicely.
Men spread legs due to their physiology so ot's not fair to just make them sit uncomfortably and if she had such a problem I will make a wild guess and say that she never politely asked the man for some space in public transport. Yet I have not really seen such bad examples that it would go as far as to infringe on my personal space.
Anti-manspreading is anti-men. It's taking away one men's freedoms. Sad, really. Those who believe manspreading to need a solution obviously never had a pair of balls between their legs.
So, in order to "stop men from infringing on her personal space" she made chairs that makes men keep their legs crossed and then woman's chairs that makes them spread their legs so they can invade other people's personal space? That's pretty confusing and quite frankly, stupid. How about the fact that men have a bulge between their legs that get in the way when they cross their legs? You know what, I am all up for equality and decency for all, but this new form of people who ask for equity by throwing piles of shit towards the other group is really starting to feel exhausting.
What feminists fail to grasp is that women are the prime incentivizers of men's shitty behavior. Ask yourself: How many women even notice men who are shy, soft-spoken, quiet, harmless, and don't take up any space in the environment? The answer is: Very few. Why do you think pickup artists tell men to improve their posture and employ a more expansive body language? For fun? Obviously not. It's because being submissive doesn't work with most women. You don't even register on their radar. What are the odds you're gonna date or have kids? Pretty slim.
What is the most effective aphrodisiac for women? Fame. Teenage girls don't stand outside male pop stars' hotels screaming and crying for fun. They do it because they're practically in a trance.
And what does fame mean? It means taking up space. On billboards. In the news. In conversations. Financially. Etc. etc. etc.
Women keep making babies with assholes, and then they blame all men when the world fills up with assholes.
My mom studied physiology in college and she explained to me why that is harmful for men to sit that way. She can't believe this is something women are complaining about and hates that we are even talking about it.
She cares about more important things like making sure everyone has healthcare and a roof over their head, not dismantling "the patriarchy" by forcing men to feel uncomfortable and knocking them down a peg. That doesn't solve the social problems between the sexes.
Men actually need to spread their legs to keep from damaging their reproductive organs, so this nonsense about it being because a man just wants to take up space is ridiculous, those chairs would be both, painful and harmful for men to sit in, and yet she gets an award for it...😒
An Award, for this? really? Sounds like some meaningless nonsense to me!! I don't care how a person sits, and it doesn't change my perception of them, or their gender!! Gods!! I would love it, if more women would sit, more openly, not showing anything, but just not sitting like they were super-uptight and nervous/uncomfortable!! Look at how little kids sit, boys or girls, and they don't know the 'Social Crap' They sit, comfortably, to them, and little girls, in skirts, don't even think about what might 'show' but rather, just sit, comfortably. I think it is only later, when parents, and society teach the stigmas, the SHAME, the 'Proper' things, and then, it messes them up! Men often sit, with their legs apart, just for comfort, and not CRUSHING, parts of their anatomy. I think her chair is a punishment, a sexist JOKE, at best, but a HUMILIATION, and Punishment to men!
This is the group thought similar to when Sharon Osbourne made the joke at the man getting his penis cut off and all the women laughed at it. The award is proof that in a world where women perceive not needing men, their hate for man is amplified. I mean you would do this shit to animals without having the ASPCA after you. Damn they are hateful.
Men have a thing called a penis. It hangs between their legs, and makes it very uncomfortable to sit with the legs closed. Yes, some men take up a ridiculous amount of space and I agree that it is unecessary, but men cannot comfortable sit with their legs closed. Winning an award for designing a chair to specifcally make someone uncomfortable is quite frankly insulting and disgusting. She's being rewarded for purposefully making people of a specific gender be as uncomfortable as possible. Call me old fashioned, but where I come from we call that sexist.
It's amusing how many people are commenting as if they are going into common circulation. It was a design meant to challenge how design effected genders and how they interact with each other. It's about as likely to end up being sold to you in your local high street as a catwalk dress
No, they are pointing out rightly that its really sexist and ignores physiology (hip to shoulder ratio is different in men then in women, males have external reproductive organs which affect how they sit women don't etc.) and is specifically designed to be sexist. Sexism was the goal and the fact that this got noticed for anything other then it being incredibly sexist is what bothers people. Might as well attach a collar and leash to men because that's how she views us.
@hellionthesagereborn it's not anti male, its not a statement about punishing a gender, after all a chair that makes a woman sit with her legs apart is also an awful thing. It's about design being able to shape or control behaviours
It is anti male and it wouldn't control the behavior because its based off of physiology. That's like saying you can stop a wheel from ever rolling again by putting a block in front of it. Its not going to work. Its entirely about, by her own admission, being anti male, its a punishment, she is trying to punish men for what they have no control over, our physiology.
Whether it will be mass produced or not is irrelevant. The issue is her argument / justification for making the chair in the first place, which ignores that men have their reproductive organs hanging outside of their body which get uncomfortable very easily, as well as injured quite easily.
Its not a dominance thing and it's not about men trying to command the space around them.
Its purpose it to send a message that "Manspreading" in itself is a negative thing and any guy who does it is a sexist asshole with no consideration for those around them... In reality, this is all about women's ignorance towards an every day issue men face all the time and are made to feel like the bad guys for not wanting to compact their genitals and bring their testicle temperature up towards standard body temperature, which has a negative effect on a man's reproductive health... Since the testicle are designed to hang outside of the body to produce healthy sperm, which requires a lower temperature than what is inside the body.
This woman is being praised for her sexist ignorance, and being rewarded for it too.
Well as I said on another post on the topic, if I saw that and wanted to sit, the first thing I’d do is pick it up and turn it around. Feminists don’t really think things through… The “artist” just got the notion to segregate people people like black and white water fountains and was like yeah that sounds good.
Thank you for pointing this out. That was literally my first thought. She’s trying to make a point about gender inequality, and here she is making the same product (a chair) and differentiating it by gender. How is this promoting gender equality?
It's an example of women's biases toward men. Women expect men to be aware of their particular needs, which are different from men, but disrespect the needs of men. I'm sure some men spread their legs out to be dominant. But most men simply spread their legs some, to give room so as to not squeeze their balls. Sitting with your balls squeezed is not comfortable.
I don't know of any man who spreads their legs as a sign of dominance... That's just a good way to get a swift kick in the nads... Then when they're on the ground, who's the dominant one then?
@LesterJester : I thought we were talking about when a guy is sitting. In such situations, it's a dominance thing to spread his legs farther than necessary. He's taking up more than his fair share of space, thus, showing dominance.
Does the chair also lift the guys balls up so he CAN put his legs together without sitting on them? And, what woman WANTS to sit with her legs spread apart? Are these chairs made for children? Those "back rests" are gonna do shit to help someone sit up straight!! If anything, people will be slouching and spreading their legs even farther!!
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