ACTTJ - Carriage Manners
Magazine derails over women only carriages being used as make-up rooms
It's hard not to feel sorry for Japan's downtrodden female train commuters considering the nasty attack Shukan Post (2/9) lets loose on them in its latest edition.
After being pinched and pounded by lecherous male train travelers for decades, they finally got some relief in the form of carriages they could ride on by themselves. But now, the latest edition of Shukan Post (2/9), the country's biggest selling men's magazine, has launched into a laughable attack on female commuters for their "undignified manners."
Groping of female commuters had become such a nationwide problem late in the last century that railroad companies decided they had to do something to stop it. Rather than alleviate the horrendous crowding of cars that made carriages breeding grounds for molestation, however, the solution was seen as providing sections that only women commuters could use.
Japanese trains got their first women only carriages in 2000 when the Keio Line started them on a trial basis.
By the following year, women only carriages were being used on the JR Saikyo Line serving the link between Tokyo and Saitama (and generally regarded as the line where gropers were most notoriously active). By 2005, train services in all Japan's major cities had women's only carriages in operation for at least the busy morning rush hour.
Women have widely welcomed the sex segregated services.
"You can feel at ease during the morning rush hour because there are no gropers about," one woman tells Shukan Post.
Another adds: "I'm glad I can ride the trains at night now without having to worry anymore about some drunk trying to come onto me."
Others haven't been too happy. Opponents of women only carriages have pointed out that crowding is nowhere near as bad in the segregated carriages, which gives women unfair treatment in what is public transport with a duty to be equal to all. Other fringe elements have also formed organizations opposed to the preferential treatment. Nonetheless, society at large has strongly supported the women's only car concept.
Except, it seems, Shukan Post, which unleashes its attack in a pictorial spread over three pages (featuring women whose behavior would hardly offend most sensibilities) and writes its story in indignant tones like the following:
"Women start applying make-up here, there and everywhere in the carriage as though they're sitting in front of the mirror of their dressing board at home! Office ladies are slathering on foundation and you can see their office face appearing right before your own eyes. I bet you'd never see this happening in a carriage where there were men around," Shukan Post rants.
The men's magazine continues in the same up-in-arms tone: "You can even see some women eating! And others blab away for ages on their mobile phones. There's no end to their poor manners."
The men's weekly then rounds off its article quoting writer Chiaki Aso to back up its claims.
"These women don't realize that they could be making some people uncomfortable when they're putting on their make-up, but I guess the lack of awareness of other people's feelings is a sign of the times. They're like that in carriages where men and women ride together, so when they get in a place where there're only other women, it's no wonder they get lazy," the incensed writer gripes to Shukan Post. "I think they should be more concerned about their own adherence to public morality before they do their make-up."
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