The winter can be a tough time to be pregnant on the subway. Everyone is so cold and tired that they can barely register anyone else, and let's face it, those bulky winter coats make it hard to tell if a woman is actually pregnant or just packing a few extra pounds. For the final four months of her pregnancy, Elizabeth Carey Smith tracked her subway commute (below) from Greenpoint to West 65th Street in Manhattan to see just how often she was offered a seat or left to stand. And it turns out the G train is selfish and the L train is full of chivalrous men!
Smith reports that more people offered seats in the morning, and that on average an equal number men and women gave up their seats. However, more women gave up seats on the 6 and M trains while the L train's helpers were overwhelmingly male. The G train ranked as the least chivalrous train in the city, but the numbers turned out in favor of New Yorkers being polite. Of the 108 packed trains she was on, she was offered a seat 88 times, and she told the WSJ, “New Yorkers aren’t as rude as we like to think that we are, or as other people think that we are. I was sure that I was going to find out that people were terrible."
In more pregnancy data, another city mom said that while she was pregnant, Latino men were most likely to offer seats, followed by black women, older women, women with young children. Men in business suits and Hasidic men were reportedly the least likely to offer a seat. But then again, some think that if a pregnant woman wants a seat she should take her search to the Midwest.
