… Ebola? Terrorism? Muggings? Elevators? Catcalls? Not exactly. The same city that apparently wants people to tolerate illegal protests in diners has now embarked on a campaign to get male public-transit customers to squeeze their legs together. The latest shaming campaign in New York City has targeted “manspreading,” thanks to one actress with way too much time on her hands:

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.”

Some of this falls to a basic etiquette question. In O’Donnell’s portfolio, there are a few obvious instances of rudeness, but at least some of the pictures shown in this clip look like rather normal seat postures for men. O’Donnell may scoff at the notion that physiology dictates position, but it’s not an unreasonable argument.

It’s curious, and somewhat suspicious, that this effort has been targeted at only men. If the issue is seat space, what about purses, shopping bags, backpacks, and the like that impact both genders more or less equally? The immediate solution to an egregious manspread would be to sit down in the space that the hips allow and claim some normal space. Bags and backpacks don’t allow for that. Are those no problem on New York’s subways?

Mostly, though, this looks like another strange priority for a city increasingly defined by them. The Big Apple wants to crack down on your leg spread and ability to buy a soft drink, but has nothing much to say about people hijacking restaurants to harass patrons about their pet political causes. Remind me again why anyone would want to live there.