Friday 23 February 2007

Ladies’ Carriages


In most countries the scourge (in this case gropers and perverts) would be dealt with.

In Japan the potential victims are dealt with, or rather removed, and kept beast-like in the cage marked “Ladies Carriage. From the first train until 9am and from 5pm until 9pm this carriage is only for the use of females.” Perhaps this keeps the chikan and sukebe under control but why not just deal with the bloody chikan and sukebe rather than force women - who want to arrive at work without undergoing the slim, but significant, risk of having an erect penis thrust against your arse or a hand against your vagina in the crush – to endure a whole carriage full of clashing perfume, stiletto trammelling on peep-toe and fake Louis Vuitton thrust into your vagina in the crush.

An eighteen year old arrived at my previous job, a College of marginally Higher Education with some semen down the back of her coat. A gallant male colleague spotted it and wiped it off telling her that a bird must’ve crapped on her. Yes, the problem of train pervs does exist in Japan, but that hasn’t stopped it being exploited by some for financial gain. The whisper of “I’ll announce to the whole carriage that you just touched me unless you give me \20,000” has many a middle-aged man clutching the hanging straps with both hands in a “Look all, my hands are here and nowhere near the school girls” desperate gesture.

My favourite? When a last second leaper realizes to his horror that he has trespassed into the female preserve and watches despairingly as the doors slide together and he is trapped in the glare of fifty (Fifty what? Homogenists? Why isn’t there a clear antonym of misogynist?) Fifty pairs of female eyes that, for the two minute ride to the next station and freedom, direct all wrath at being stuck in this bloody oestrogen hell-hole in his hapless direction.

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