On Metro - do you offer your seat to pregnant women?

[Anonymous]

Good for you! I agree --I would give up my seat to anyone who's pregnant, a young mom with a baby or small child, elderly, or with an obvious medical issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and I've been one of those people who make other people move (even though I'm normally pretty non-confrontational). I once was on the train with standing room only (I was standing) and watched as a family with a newborn got on. The father was pulling two pieces of luggage and the mother was holding the newborn, and NO ONE OFFERED HER A SEAT. I'd had a long day and couldn't believe my eye, even if this is DC where people are typically unfriendly (I've been here 10 years so I feel I have the right to make that observation). I looked at the 4 people sitting in the front seats and said "are you 4 seriously going to sit there and not offer this woman and her baby a seat?" They all jumped up and none of them sat back down the rest of the ride. Hopefully I shamed them enough into thinking about it on their own next time.

I'm the first person to give up my seat for anyone who needs it more than I do. But, your response is obnoxious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only if she is undeniably pregnant. There are plenty of women who look it, but just need to go on a diet, and I don't want to embarrass us both.

I got offered a seat last week by a man and I am not pregnant. I blame the jacket! (which by the way is hereby forever relegated to the back of the winter closet). I didn't tell him I wasn't pregnant because that would have been over the top humiliation. I had also just received news that I did not get a job I went on a second interview for. It was just the perfect topping on the cake!

[Anonymous]

I agree with another PP here. I also get really motion sick on the metro. More now that I've had kids. It's so bad that I often have to exit the train once or twice during my hour long commute, regain my bearings and get back on the next train (which makes for a hellish commute), but I would be way too embarassed not to give up my seat for someone who is overtly a "priority person."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's wrong with offering a seat to someone overweight? Surely they could use a break from standing up with the extra weight.

It depends. I'm pretty overweight and have been all my life. I'm active, though, and standing for long periods of time has never bothered me. I would probably look to see if the person looked like they were uncomfortable or struggling.

[SAM2]

Bumping once to see if I can get some suggestions.

SAM2 wrote:DCUM, I need some help. When I read this thread, I wondered whether certain demographic groups really are more or less likely to give up subway seats, or instead if it's an issue of perception. I spent some time looking for academic research and studies on the topic, but found nothing on-point. I found a few studies that look into how people react when you flat-out ask for their seat, but that's not really what's at issue here.

Now I am thinking I will conduct my own study. I've started keeping a tally on the Metro whenever I see someone offer her seat. I'm also tracking some other data according to the rules below. Once I have a decent-sized sample, I can look at the results to see what's there. What I need from you, DCUM, is advice on how to structure the data-collection, and whether I should track any additional details. I've never done this sort of data collection before, so if anyone has actual experience, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Here are the rules I'm following:
I track the sex, ethnicity, and age of the person offering her seat, and the person accepting the offer. Sometimes I must make judgment calls. I'm pretty comfortable discerning sex. For ethnicity, I am using a simple breakdown of AA, Hispanic, Caucasian, and Asian/Indian. It's often difficult to pigeonhole some people into one category, but I'm doing my best. For age, I am just estimating the general age of each person (20s, 30s, 40s, etc). I only count a seat exchange if a swap actually occurs. I decided not to count the data if one person merely offers, but the other person doesn't accept, because it's too hard for me to judge whether the offer was genuine. I only count a seat exchange if I actually see an offer and swap. I see plenty of times when one person just gets up and stands as a needy person approaches the spot, and allows the needy person to take the seat. But I don't count those, because it's too subjective to tell why the person was standing up. It often looks a lot like giving up a seat, but I can't be sure since there was no verbal offer. I don't count any exchanges at all if I know (even just by sight) any person involved in the exchange. I worry that if an offerer knows me, that might have encouraged her to give up her seat, since she might want to look like a good citizen in front of someone who knows her. This is probably being paranoid, but it doesn't happen too often. If I count one seat exchange, I don't count another until at least one full ride segment later (meaning the doors must open twice to let passengers on and off). I use this limitation because I've noticed that if one person offers a seat, it's more likely that someone else who witnessed the exchange will also offer her seat a few minutes later. I don't want to taint the data with "peer pressure" offers. I'm not tracking pregnancy specifically, because it's too hard (especially in winter) to know for sure whether someone's pregnant. I'm not tracking in any way failures to offer a seat. When I started this project, I wanted to track how often able-bodied people failed to give up their seats to someone in need. But that's just too subjective to track, because I'd need to judge whether the person who needs the seat is more or less needy than every person who failed to stand up. Since I've started keeping track, I've seen lots of times when half a dozen people of all different sexes, ethnicities, and ages all fail to give up their seats to someone clearly in need. But there's still no feasible way I can think of to track this in an organized fashion. I need a baseline to compare my results to. I think my Metro train is pretty well mixed, but I can't know for sure. So I've started tallying up the sex, ethnicity, and age of the entire population. I am trying to make a full demographic tally once every week or two, at random segments of my ride. When the project is complete, I will total those up to develop a demographic baseline I can compare against the seat exchange data. I don't keep close watch on every trip. Sometimes I have work to do, or I'm riding with someone, or I just have a good book. But when I am able, I keep watch. I plan on counting at least until I reach 100 exchanges. After that, I will tally up the results and report them. Maybe I'll keep counting after that, but I think 100 exchanges is a pretty robust sample.
So what do you think? Are there other rules I should add? Are any of these rules unnecessary? I need your help to improve the data collection before I get too far into the project. All thoughts appreciated.

(I know I sound like some freak, but it's actually a pretty minimal investment of time, and it makes the ride go faster. I'm also very curious to see the results.)

[Anonymous]

Are you a sociologist? An accountant by training? Do you really have this much time to dedicate to thinking about this? Amazing. If you do your "study" please come back and tell us.

[Anonymous]

Yes, and I've been one of those people who make other people move (even though I'm normally pretty non-confrontational). I once was on the train with standing room only (I was standing) and watched as a family with a newborn got on. The father was pulling two pieces of luggage and the mother was holding the newborn, and NO ONE OFFERED HER A SEAT. I'd had a long day and couldn't believe my eye, even if this is DC where people are typically unfriendly (I've been here 10 years so I feel I have the right to make that observation). I looked at the 4 people sitting in the front seats and said "are you 4 seriously going to sit there and not offer this woman and her baby a seat?" They all jumped up and none of them sat back down the rest of the ride. Hopefully I shamed them enough into thinking about it on their own next time.

I'm the first person to give up my seat for anyone who needs it more than I do. But, your response is obnoxious.

I don't see how PP's comment is out of line. It's forward, but these people NEED some public shaming to call attention to their horrendous lack of manners and thoughtlessness.
Yes, it's POSSIBLE that occassionally an able-bodied-looking person does in fact need the seat, but that's not what's going on the vast majority of the time. If it is, it's pretty easy to explain you're sorry, but have a health condition, and remain seated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, and I've been one of those people who make other people move (even though I'm normally pretty non-confrontational). I once was on the train with standing room only (I was standing) and watched as a family with a newborn got on. The father was pulling two pieces of luggage and the mother was holding the newborn, and NO ONE OFFERED HER A SEAT. I'd had a long day and couldn't believe my eye, even if this is DC where people are typically unfriendly (I've been here 10 years so I feel I have the right to make that observation). I looked at the 4 people sitting in the front seats and said "are you 4 seriously going to sit there and not offer this woman and her baby a seat?" They all jumped up and none of them sat back down the rest of the ride. Hopefully I shamed them enough into thinking about it on their own next time.

I'm the first person to give up my seat for anyone who needs it more than I do. But, your response is obnoxious.

I disagree. As a mother who has held her newborn on the metro when noone has stood to give me a seat, I believe this is total called for. If you are ablebodied and to lazy and rude to get up, I'm glad there are people to call you out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you a sociologist? An accountant by training? Do you really have this much time to dedicate to thinking about this? Amazing. If you do your "study" please come back and tell us.

I'm just a curious person with a "show me" streak. You would be even more disturbed if you knew how many random (and effectively useless) tangents I follow. The topics I post on DCUM barely scratch the surface. But humor me a little, since I don't hurt anyone.

[Anonymous]

With all the fatties, it's difficult to tell who is pregnant....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With all the fatties, it's difficult to tell who is pregnant....

Speaking of obnoxious...

[Anonymous]

I don't what the big deal is, when I was pregnant, even towards the end, I was perfectly capable of standing on the metro. I could see offering a seat to someone disabled or on crutches and physically has trouble to stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't what the big deal is, when I was pregnant, even towards the end, I was perfectly capable of standing on the metro. I could see offering a seat to someone disabled or on crutches and physically has trouble to stand.

I'd imagine this is one of those examples where everyone's experience is different. I wouldn't assume that no pregnant woman needs a seat just because you didn't.

[Anonymous]

Or assume that every pregnant woman needs a seat?

Maybe those pregnant women who want seats should take responsibility for asking for them.