Since I started to show, I took notice of whether or not New Yorkers are actually good at giving up their seats for pregnant women. I started to get a terrible impression, estimating in my head that about 60% of the time, people would not give up their seat for me. Then it increased to 70% after more time passed. Once, I and another pregnant woman got on, and neither of us were offered a seat. I was appalled. It's not that I need one all the time, but it's the right thing to do. So I decided I should do this scientifically and start taking down data. Here are the results for the past week.
Note that I don't count the times when the train is just way too crowded for anybody to take notice ("impossible"). I combined this with the "unnecessary" category, which is when there are enough available seats for me to just take one should I want one.
Of the times when there is an opportunity to give up a seat, New Yorkers have offered 17% of the time. So 83% of the time, they do nothing but stare into their mobile devices or ignore me. I fault people for being oblivious, so being engrossed in your book or iPhone is no excuse.
Of the one instance when someone offered me a seat, it was a woman. From my observations before my experiment started, I estimated that 95% of the time, it was women who offered a seat. Only 2 men have ever offered me a seat. Shame on you, d-bag New York men.
I'm going to run this experiment through the month, so stay tuned!
