In various countries around the world, women and teenage girls are regularly groped while riding commuter trains. This, I suspect, is not news to most of you; indeed, I know one reader of this blog who’s had this happen to her. In Japan, one survey found that two-thirds of female passengers in their twenties and thirties had been groped. Because the problem is so prevalent in that country — and the authorities are so ineffective at controlling it – some train lines have instituted women-only train cars in an attempt to cut down on groping (and on false accusations of groping as well). “Women-only” train cars have also introduced, in a limited way, in India, where harassment of women in public – known as “Eve teasing” – is distressingly common.
So what’s more appalling – the fact that groping on trains is so common in Japan that two-thirds of young women commuters have had to endure it themselves, or the fact that a small number of train cars have been set aside for women in a fairly half-assed attempt to curtail some of this groping?
For a lot of MRAs, the latter. The subject came up on Reddit’s Men’s Rights subreddit recently, inspiring some of the regulars to fulminate against this allegedly misandrist outrage. Fatalistic pulled out the n-word and this facile comparision:
Here’s what I’m seeing here: “At least we let you in the back of the bus, nigger.”
ExpendableOne, meanwhile, managed to work in a staggering number of standard-issue MRA complaints into this one sentence:
I think it’s discrimination and subjugation entirely based on misandry, negative male type-casting/stereotyping and anti-male heterophobia.
Ztakn seemed to suggest that it was all part of some oddly indirect money-making scheme on the part of, I guess, women:
To keep it short they exploit and propagate fears not only demonizing men in society but also terrorizing women and scaring the shit out of them making them more paranoid than they need to be.
And then they do it for money.
How would that work exactly?
1) Get groped
2) Set up women-only train cars
3) ???
4) Profit?
Given that the Men’s Rights subreddit is one of the few Men’s Rights forums online that is not completely overrun with misogynist fanatics, there were others who responded more reasonably. Alienblonde noted:
In Japan it’s a massive problem where school girls get groped by older males on trains in peak hour.
Happened to me in Europe too when I was back packing. Some old Spanish guy sat beside me and decided to feel me up.
Women shouldn’t have to deal with this and unfortunately, until it stops happening, I think [women only train cars are] justified.
Naturally, this being a Men’s Rights forum, she quickly found herself the focus of a game of “blame the victim.” Fatalistic accused her of “[j]ustifying discrimination with this all men are potential criminals feminist dogma.” When she pointed out that she was not, in fact, doing this, he moved on to castigating her for not making a public scene when she was groped:
You should out the people who actually do these things rather than treat the rest of us as criminals by default with disgusting bigoted policies and the back of the bus mentality.
When she pointed out that this could have put her in more serious danger, he merely scoffed:
You would have to be paranoid and spoonfed the most egregious of feminist women are helpless, men are unstoppable beasts that need other men with guns to drag them away dogma to believe that all but the most psychopathic would persist or try to harm you if you outed them to a crowd for their actions.
Easy for you to say.
Of course, when women DO confront sexual harassers on trains, as I noted in a post on the infamous New York Subway flasher last November, they get reactions like this sarcastic Reddit comment from one member of the men-are-oppressed club.
Yes, because obviously her heterophobia needs to be glorified… Penises are so disgusting and scary, obviously women should totally be justified in fearing them and there couldn’t possibly be any kind of misandry involved with such contempt, befuddlement or “helplessness/horror” to the mere sigh[t] of male anatomy. /s
Yep, if you’re a woman on a train, not wanting to have some random dude pull his penis out and rub it on you is “heterophobia.” Who knew?
In the case of the subway flasher, the alleged perp did indeed flee when confronted. (He was later arrested.) That’s pretty much the best-case scenario. But it’s hardly the only possible result, and it’s understandable why a woman riding the train to work (much less one backpacking alone in a foreign country) would hesitate to publicly accuse a groper of groping her. Having women-only train cars cuts down on the number of times women are put in this difficult situation.
Yes, in an ideal world, there would be no need for women-only train cars. In an ideal world, men wouldn’t grope women on trains.
(Without me giving my opinion on AA, or even if it is what some ppl seem to think it is, and protip, don’t assume my opinion, it’s prolly not what you think xD ) There’s also that biases influence who ppl might consider to be more qualified or even equally qualified (like what Jeff Blair talks about and what Frank Robinson once said to him that the bias doesn’t come with the superstar (b/c you can’t deny phenomenal uncomparable talent), it comes with the interchangable players, that white players are perceived to have more “intangibles” than non-white ones. Bob McCown talks about this in his book “100 Greatest Hockey Arguments” too where he debunks the perception of European players as having less “leadership” and “hustle”. You hear this in sports talk radio a lot, with fans talking about the bit players differently, that slow white players have “hustle”, while slow PoCs are “lazy” (Wilner had an argument w/ a fan about Juan Rivera on Jays Talk just a few games ago)
Also, there’s a lot of great advice there and experiences and suggestions 🙂 But it often just seems he prefers (for whatever reasons or motivations xD ) just to react angrily at Pecunium xD I mean ppl have talked a lot about ways to help him interview.. and it’s just… screaming and swearing about women >_>;; Hopefully it’s sponging into him tho 🙂
@Mr. Kobold *casts ballot*
MRAL, have you ever considered a career as a right-wing talk radio host? You seem uniquely qualified.
I love privileging bitches. Giving them more pats than their male counterparts. Maliciously giving them longer tummy rubs while the male dog just watches and whines. I even like to give them more food (that’s why they become fat bitches).
*rolls eyes at MRAL who refuses to recognise his own privilege*
MRAL :
True or False?
“Unfortunately, sometimes the bad things that happen to me are the direct result of my own conscious or unconscious behavior”
and
“Sometimes when bad things happen to other people, those things occur due to influences outside of their control.”
Lyn, yes, there is something a little amusing about 20 year olds who assume that because they aren’t fat that staying slim forever is a piece of cake. Protip: People tend to gain weight as they age. Some, like me, go from being positively skinny to being fat.
Where do somewhat tallish but not really all that tall guys who are also fat fit in the greek system, I wonder?
They are Pi! 😀 Their existence is irrational to believers in the Greek System! 😀 (as are so many others, I think we should just call them Pi males from now on 😀 )
Hi David! *waves!* I know! When I was 20 I was at the bottom end of the healthy weight range while eating a steady diet of chips and pizza shapes and doing hardly any exercise. I am much healthier now all of six years later (woah – over the hill!) but not as slim *shock* (BMI = 26). Don’t quite get where in this process I turned evil.
Lyn: It’s obvious… you let yourself get “fat”, which shows you aren’t properly concerned with making sure no single man is ever offended by your looks.
Heartless, ergo evil.
I like pi!
I think the guys who suddenly get super angry and start swearing all over the place about women should be Gamma males cuz clearly they’ve been doused with gamma rays and become like Bruce Banner xD
YOU WOULDN’T LIKE ME WHEN I’M ANGRY
And the guys here besides being awesome alpha males (otherwise why would I or any other of the women be here right? xD ) are also Delta males b/c they are accepting of differences 😀
And MollyRen is a Sigma female b/c she was rly good at summing up what I said 😀
which shows you aren’t properly concerned with making sure no
singleworthless man is ever offended by your looks.Fixed.
Oh, I forgot it was my responsibility to ensure no single man is ever offended by my looks. Clearly evil. Or busy. That’s busy getting an education and not giving blow jobs to random passers by to ensure they don’t feel like they’re being ‘spat on’.
Oh wait…can you give blow jobs without using saliva? Even if you could I don’t know that they’d be very pleasant…?
@Johnny – great fix!
@Lyn I can breathe fire w/o using saliva… does that count? 😀
you know what MRAL? you win. Yup, you totally win. You’ve got me shaking with rage over here*, and that was your goal right? … so here’s your prize, now can you fuck off and stop disrespecting the women and men that post here?
How dare you? I honestly mean this. Can you do us all a favor and have your mother read these forums and read what you’ve said to everyone here? Or your father? Or your profs? There’s got to be someone in the reality based community that you respect who could give you an honest opinion of how you come across here. Maybe some of them can talk some sense into you that no one else here has managed before you start acting out your “ill concieved fantasies” or whatever bullshit you’re calling your violent tendencies.
Do you understand that reading what you said about that girl in the elevator (and on this thread the imaginary girl in the mosh pit) confirms to every woman here that even if a guy gets on the elevator looking put together and trustworthy HE MIGHT NOT BE, and she has no way to tell, and forgetting that for even a second could get her assaulted if he can’t reign in his violent entitlements?
So ya, many here have been way too kind to you imho. I think that you’re a boy who gets off on terrifying people. The way you act here conveys that almost every time you post.
And even though I know you’ll ignore this, here’s one more voice telling you that you’re FRIGHTENING to women and if you’re really as young as you say (why should I believe you about that? everything else you say is hyperbolic) then you should get help NOW or all of your tomorrows will be the same as your today. Not because of the women, but because you aren’t willing to even think that terrifying people and acting creepy is not appropriate behavior.
Then again, you seem so married to the idea that you are perfect and correct exactly as you are that you probably want all your tomorrows to be the same as today… you don’t have to grow or change or anything to make that happen… go poke your mushrooms…
apologies to everyone else for being ranty… sometimes it gets too much to read past and skip over.
*because some of us have women in our lives who we believe when they tell us about the jackasses they’ve encountered that day, and when they open up to us and show us how much worse it was than we might have expected, when we see the bruises left on delicate (as in sensitive areas not normally calloused or mistreated) skin by someone who was “only” groping her on the train… damn I wish I could find you and sit you down and show you the pictures (multiple occasions) that we took to the police and to the transit authorities and the support groups, and see if you think that black fingermarks are “cupping and running”. Bruises that took weeks to finally vanish… But that’s solid physical evidence and you can’t handwave that away, so I’m sure you’re glad you’re clinging to your anonymity.
nb: By single I did not mean without a partner, I am meant individual.
Lyn… hey, I don’t mind a bit of spit here and there.
*applauds Kodiak* whether he listens or not (or whether he is just being hyperbolic as you and others suspect or not) that was AMAZING 😀 such a good rant! 😀
@Ami There’s an idea for my new blog tag! Sigma Fat Female. 😀
@Ami – I think it only counts as not spitting *metaphorically* if you’re using the fire breathing to cook a man something.
@kodiak – please rant. I’ve only retreated into sarcasm cos otherwise it’s too hard. And yeah – the idea that no-one has told MRAL about abuse they’ve suffered so it doesn’t exist? wtf? It takes a great deal to share that stuff with anyone (and good on your friends for taking it to the cops, but damn that must’ve been hard!) – the only times anyone has told me about being molested (and there have been many, many times) is after I’ve told them what I’ve gone through. It’s difficult in most other circumstances to know you’re in a safe space and won’t be ridiculed as oversensitive etc.
thx ami. I like your humor, but can’t match it… and by the time I hit the end of reading this thread I was at the end of my rope.
Can we please start teaching kids in kindergarten that boys and girls are of the same species and react to the same stimuli and aren’t actually all that different? maybe then MRAL won’t be acting like a MARTIAN just came and stole away the job he tots deserved.
Also, MRAL, if you don’t want ppl to read your violent comments, just read to them Pecunium’s comment and your follow up. One of you is being rational, one is being frightening. 2 guesses which is which.
Yeah, I’m not showing anyone in real life my posts here, not because I’m ashamed, but because we live in a highly misandric society and this could get me in trouble, again simply for not sucking up to the mighty women.
Sorry for pissing people off, but I’m quite simply unimpressed with anything told here. Again: get over it. No one cares that 30 years ago some man accidentally-on-purpose brushed your side. Jesus Christ. Experience some real hardship and some real bad luck, idiot. Add this to the fact that I think a lot of them are heavily exaggerated and I don’t believe there’s too much credibility floating around here. Somehow that’s like a horrible thing to say, but I really don’t understand why.
Ya, I don’t have permission to go into all the details, nor would I want to, but we’re lucky that the city I’m in takes these kinds of things pretty seriously. But we also knew who the guy was, and considering we had another friend who had been stalked* and not being able to get any kind of restraining order/protection because she hadn’t reported the incidents that led up to the more frightening behavior** she had to wait until there was a better paper trail, which is NOT a position anyone should have to be in. So ya… she went to the police. She knew his name, where he went to school and everything… no charges were ever laid. And she pretty much realized going in that this would be the “best case” result. I’m hella proud that she did it anyways for her own personal safety… ’cause even with sympathetic female officers interviewing you… that’s gotta be just more crap ontop of everything that happened before.
*not by the same guy or anything, just another shitty situation that had happened.
**ya, getting groped on the train is apparently low on the scale of scarey stalkery behavior… sometimes I want to hang my head and cry…
You’re being vague again. xD Care to elaborate? 😀
Or are you just trolling to troll? xD
When you get trapped into not being able to answer questions and that you yourself can’t substantiate your grand theory of the universe, you just go right back to the vague aggressive statements hoping to upset ppl and hide xD You’re like the bad Maple Leaf teams in the 90s, get trapped, dump the puck xD
Real hardship like girls saying “hi” in the wrong tone of voice? Ohhh, how terrible! Clearly you are soooooo oppressed!