Last week, a fight broke out on a 5 train in the Bronx when a woman allegedly cursed & spit in a man's face during a verbal argument, and the man in turn pummeled the woman's boyfriend. The incident, which was captured on video, played out like a lot of other anonymous, violent, more-sad-than-anything-else subway fights. But a week later, both parties are talking about how a bare minimum of subway etiquette could have prevented the fisticuffs—because the fight, it turns out, was allegedly sparked by manspreading.
The incident happened around 3:30 p.m. last Wednesday on a northbound 5 train. Queen Muhammad, the woman who has been portrayed as initiating the fight, told the News that she never spit on alleged attacker Patrick Crow. "This manspread thing is getting out of control," she told tabloid. "I was embarrassed but now I'm quite happy that this video came out and I hope that men are willing to respect women on the subway and buses more."
Crow counters that Muhammad was rude from the moment she got onto the train at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue, announcing that everyone should "respect the Queen" and cramming beside him on the seat: "She just dropped down on my leg," he said. "She started to nudge me over with her elbow," which the Daily News says made him decide to "spread his legs to prevent the takeover of his space."
From Crow's perspective, this wasn't a matter of body dimensions or data-driven leg-shaming—this was about feeling threatened and exposed, and trying to limit that. It was about miscommunication in the most basic sense.
Muhammed argues that there was enough space, but Crow pushed and elbowed her as she sat down: "I wouldn't sit there if I didn't think there was enough room." For his part, Crow insists he would have given up his seat if she had just asked, "instead of rudely sitting down."
At that point, the tension boiled over into the alleged spitting, and ultimately into Crow beating Muhammad's husband. "I didn't want to do it, I was provoked," Crow admitted, adding that he was planning on turning himself over to police for the fight. He says ended up losing his job as a tax preparer for Jackson Hewitt because of the viral video, which he very much regrets: "I was in a different mind frame at that point. I should have been a bigger person and moved off to another side. She took me out of my character."
Muhammed, whom relatives say has a temper and has been known to start fights, hasn't expressed as much remorse: "That man is a monster and doesn't belong in society," she said of Crow.
Tempers will flare up in enclosed spaces, misunderstandings will happen in public, people will still find reasons to be annoyed with other people—but maybe we could avoid some of this violence if we tried to live a little more like the Human Cube.
