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How to Claim Your Physical Space (Especially if You Were Taught to Take Up Less of It)
With practice, women can unlearn the social cues that have made us smaller
When I was in elementary school, a teacher came up to me to quietly tell me that I was sitting incorrectly. I was reading a book and I had my ankle on my knee. She told me that it was impolite; that’s how men sit. According to her, women sit with their legs crossed more closely, one thigh over the other.
What? I remember feeling embarrassed but confused. It didn’t make sense to me. I was wearing baggy jeans, and I never wore skirts or dresses at that age, so I couldn’t think of any reason why it was impolite or improper.
From an early age, I started paying attention to how men and women take up space. I was an introvert who was morbidly shy, but to my surprise, people thought I was confident. They listened to me. A comment from a female friend helped me realized where these perceptions came from.
“You really own your space,” she said. “I want to start doing that.”
The schoolbus experiment
My bus route was long — a little over an hour. It was a very interesting place for social observations. Free from the authoritative presence of…
