By David Futrelle
The dudes who hang out in the Men Going Their Own Way subreddit are ever alert to the dangers posed to men by their sworn enemies of the female persuasion — from false rape accusers to the duplicitous harpies who try to make themselves look prettier than they really are with “fakeup.”
Not long ago, one MGTOW Redditor warned his collegues of a heretofore unknown danger to men: fat women pretending to be pregnant in order to force innocent men to give up their seats for them on public transportation.
In a post with the self-explanatory title “Fat women and their ability to fake pregnancies on public transport to get seats,” a man possibly named Jay_ellsworth told a horrifying story:
So i was on the commuter train earlier and it was super busy meaning a lot of people had to stand. There was this fat woman that had a pin saying baby onboard to indicate that she’s pregnant. She then asked the couple that was sat next to me if she could have one of their seats, and she got one of their seats.
As Patsy from AbFab might say (if she were an angry dude posting on Reddit):
Jay continued his tale of terror:
Now I’m not going to say she was lying about being pregnant, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt but because she was fat i thought to myself, this could be the easiest hustle ever for fat women that don’t get a seat on public transport. No one will ever question them and they will just give them their seat. I wonder how many fat, non pregnant women do that.
Clearly Jay has his female-fraud-detector turned up to 11, as we all should in these perilous times for men. He’s so sensitive to signals of possible female fraud that he’s able to witness an apparently pregnant women WHO MIGHT JUST BE FAT and NOT PREGNANT AT ALL getting a seat on a train, and to deduce from this that FAT LADIES PRETENDING TO BE PREGNANT to get seats on trains MIGHT JUST BE some sort of WORLDWIDE EPIDEMIC OF FEMALE SEAT-STEALING FRAUD!
Besides. even is she WAS pregnant, she was still FAT.
Even if she is legitimately pregnant, you can tell that she was fat before she got pregnant and she looks no different to any random fat chick that’s not pregnant, in fact there have been some fat women that have gone into labour without even knowing they were pregnant at all .
Yes, let’s all get mad about the hypothetical possibility that some fat woman who doesn’t know she’s pregnant will pretend to be pregnant (even though she actually is pregnant and just doesn’t know it) in order to steal his seat on the train?
So yeah i just wanted to share that, there are probably a few fat women out there exploiting being fat by lying about being pregnant to get seats on public transport.
Damn those being-fat-exploiters out there taking advantage of the non-fat!
Side note, what kind of pissed me off about the whole encounter is the fact that when the pregnant woman got the seat, she said thank you, and the woman in the couple is the one that responded by saying you’re welcome, but she’s not even the one that gave up her seat, it was her boyfriend that gave his seat up. Yet another woman taking credit for a man’s actions
I think we all owe a hearty “thank you” to the REAL HERO here, the dude who watched an apparently pregnant woman ask for a seat on a train and decided she might not really be pregnant and then got so mad about it that he sat down hours later and wrote a long post about it on Reddit.
Thankfully, Jay’s colleagues on the MGTOW subreddit appreciated his insights on this important issue.
“They’re just fat and wanting free seats then there are none,” replied DangZagnut. “Standard female entitlement.”
Another added his own evidence of this ongoing female fraud.
Many a time I have heard women on public transport say “I’ll just say I am pregnant” to their friend. Not sure how it works elsewhere but there’s apparaently a fine for not giving up your seat for a pregnant lady here. There’s like stickers inserted on train (or tram) windows as a notification.
Stay frosty, men! You never know when a fake-pregnant lady is going to steal your seat — or maybe have you arrested and sent to the cuck farms if you don’t give it up quickly enough,
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@Ikeke35 and @Moon_custafer,
I think you’re both right. I hate riding public transit; if it’s a long ride, it’s just about guaranteed that someone will give me a hard time (ranging from persistent microagressions of the “but where are you really from?!” variety, to outright scary bigotry). It’s sad for me because I love meeting people and public transit is great for that, but as I’m lucky enough to have a car, I rely on that — it’s safer. I totally agree with you both that that woman was probably just itching for the chance to be loudly racist in public.
What do folks here think of the “women only” subway cars that I believe some cities in Japan have introduced?
It’s hard for me to formulate a reaction without knowing the culture well enough. I think it would be a bad thing here because it would likely set off dudes and increase the risk of violence against women as a result. I feel like a small subset of dudes are looking for reasons to be angry at women (wonder where I got that impression? ?), and that kind of solution would escalate things.
@Kupo,
It doesn’t help that I can’t find the link to where I read about this! I agree that it’s hard for anyone outside the culture in question to assess; I at least have no experience of Japan.
Personally, I feel like those cars in North America/ western Europe (these are where I have lived) would very quickly get trashed by MRA-type men who would be, as you say, looking for reasons to get angry.
In my experience, people of any gender are equally likely to ask me rude and intrusive questions, but I have personally found that white cis men are the ones who get outright aggressive towards me (sexism + racism/Islamophobia). So in my experience I wonder if a women-only car would help me feel physically safer — assuming no dudes tried to cause problems for the passengers — but wouldn’t be a help in terms of feeling emotionally safer…
I would be interested to find out what are the experiences of people who live in places where this kind if transportation is a common thing.
Based on my (very limited) understanding of the matter, the women-only cars were created because the groping and such from the male subway riders got that bad during rush hours. So that was the solution the transit folks came up with. Whether that was the best solution possible (as opposed to making the men keep their hands to themselves, say), is up for debate, as I understand things there.
@Redsilkphoenix:
That was my understanding as well: women-only cars were created because groping women on the subway was utterly endemic. Of course, contributing to the problem are:
– Rush hour trains in Tokyo go beyond ‘standing room only’ to ‘we employ people just to help squeeze other folks onto the train’. If a woman gets groped, good luck figuring out which of the three or more men within arm’s reach did it.
– The whole ‘face’ culture which makes raising a public fuss the worst possible thing for someone to do.
@ Rhuu;
Besides misogyny not being a mental illness, I believe a lot of people don’t realize that “one […] short of a […]” is ableist. They think it means “ignorant”, and, regardless of how creative it sounds, it’s still demeaning.
Now, I could be comfortable saying that it looks like “Jay_ellsworth’s” RESEARCH on the subject in question definitely ended one block short of the bus stop!
Sure, but Chris Oakley specifically has a documented history of making statements that insinuate that manospherians are either mentally ill or mentally handicapped:
From a cursory Google:
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Right, but Chris Oakley has a history of making comments insinuating that manospherians are either mentally impaired or mentally ill. And it’s always attached to people behaving “oddly”, not to their ignorance.
I had an entire post full of examples, but it got eaten by the spam filter I think, so here’s a shorter one of just the posts he’s been called out on:
February 3, 2019
January 28, 2019
October 2, 2018
August 3, 2018
I lived in Japan. Because being late is so incredibly unacceptable, the trains don’t appear to have limits on how many people can be in a car. Lots of times we were so packed together that people are just sort of a giant mass all jammed together. You literally can’t move in some situations. This, of course, makes sexual harassment and assault really easy. It happened to me multiple times.
Right, but Chris Oakley has a history of making comments insinuating that manospherians are either mentally impaired or mentally ill. And it’s always attached to people behaving “oddly”, not to their ignorance.
I had an entire post full of examples, but it got eaten by the spam filter (I think), so here’s a shorter one of just the posts he’s been called out on:
Example
Called out by me
Example:
Called out by @Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
Example
Called out (kinda?) by @Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
A clearer call out, also by @Surplus to Requirements, Observer of the Vast Blight-Wing Enstupidation
Example:
Called out by Catalpa
These Tokyo rush hour trains sound very uncomfortable, even assuming a) you aren’t being sexually assaulted b) the air conditioning can keep the mass of people from fatally overheating.
I imagine there’s sometimes only a subtle difference between “this guy is humping me” and “this guy accidentally got an erection while someone shoves his body against my butt and the train sways”. Like, you can probably tell the difference but anyone else observing the situation couldn’t.
And every single one of my comments finally posted. Sorry for the mess. ?♂️
Lukas Xavier:
I once overheard two teen girls joking about being fake pregnant while taking disability seats on a bus. This was just one time many years ago (and only one of them was going to be fake pregnant, the other was going to have a fake handicap unrelated to sex or gender).
Now, discussing it out loud does suggest that either they were indeed joking and/or the issue is highly unimportant. The latter is certainly true, since those seats are only marginally more accessible than regular seats (of which there were plenty available). It’s even more of a non-issue than asking some presumed able-bodied person to stand up.
I take public transportation rarely. We only have buses available. The bus system is pretty good and have a pod of seats at the front facing the isle for people with limited mobility or otherwise need easy access. Being physically able to do so and not a jerk, I’ve given up my seat more than once. When I took my toddlers on the bus, which they disproportionally loved, people in the accessibility seats would quickly give up their seats for me, without my asking. Most people seem to go out of their way to be observant and considerate of other’s needs. I’ve also had (mostly younger) people avoid eye contact and refuse to move their backpacks from the seat next to them. I assume that they bought a second ticket for the pack?
A friend of mine with an “invisible illness” that makes standing for extended periods of time painful has had a number of negative experiences because she doesn’t *look* disabled. Maybe that’s the other side of people being observant and quick to accommodate “worthy” or “real” needs. They’re quick to police people they think are cheating and taking advantage. I wonder if MGTOW-boy would have jumped to give up his seat for a “worthy” (read: conventionally attractive) pregnant woman.
It sounds like an idea for a quick solution to a problem with Japan’s subways. I don’t have direct experience, not having been to Japan. I’ve read some articles about how much of a problem groping has become, even for girls as young as 10. Which, yuck.
I don’t think it would work in the US, because we have that whole population who says, “Well, you wanted to be *equal* and now you’re asking for special treatment? Hypocrite!” MRAs are sincerely angry that some women’s bathrooms have more toilet stalls than men’s bathrooms. Women might also push back against it, because we’ve pretty clearly established that “separate but equal” never stays equal for long.
I’ve commuted via public light rail for 6 years, including two pregnancies. In my experience, women and teens of all genders offered me seats when I was visibly pregnant. Teenagers also delightfully didn’t then want to ask about the due date/baby’s sex/birth plan, so they were my favorite transit demographic. At least on my commute route, I’ve noticed the teens are highly considerate of elderly riders too; it’s charming. I had no idea I was supposed to use the massive inconvenience of pregnancy to mildly annoy random men. Pity it’s too late now.
Adult men, on the other hand, tend to offer me seats when I am not obviously pregnant and wearing a dress and heels.
Every demographic offers a seat when I have a toddler and no stroller.
I’ve marched in 10 or 15 “Take Back the Night!” protests.
I’m not about to advocate “Give Up the Subway!”
Yes, we have to balance harm reduction and eradication.
No, I don’t think that I’d go for that in Vancouver or anywhere in Canada, and having lived most of my life in the USA I wouldn’t want it there either.
Women-only isn’t a solution to an harassment problem. It’s at best a temporary fix while the problem is being worked on. When you have a broken leg, being given a crutch to still be able to walk isn’t a solution to the broken leg either.
It’s also an action that actually don’t inconvenience the sexual harasser, since there isn’t space for all the women in the woman only car(s) (not to mention other reasons to not go here, like not having the time to go to thoses cars or even being a transgender that don’t feel welcome here).
Thoses guys still get to harass, and they have the added bonus that the women are that much less likely to fight back, since the responsability of avoiding harassment have been even more than before shifted on the women. Of course, it’s par for the course of the patriarchy …
It’s also pretty likely to bury the topic and halt other attempt to tackle the problem, for the same reason. It’s probably why it have been done in Japan and not in the US or Europa ; not really by fear of the crybabies but because thoses country are ever so slightly more progressive and likely to actually try to solve the problem.
That being said, women car may be necessary even with actual goodwill to end the problem. I don’t think it’s good policies to say to harassment victim “wait several years that our strong anti-harassment efforts have cowed thoses assholes into behaving”, and for all their flaws, women only car are the only policy that have a decent chance to have an effect after only several weeks ; eduction is better but even with a lot of effort it likely take months or year for that to work.
@Ohlman, @Crip Dyke,
Indeed; I’m not necessarily an advocate for these cars, I was just interested if anyone else had any thoughts about them.
For me personally, such cars *could*, *maybe*, help me feel physically safer, but I kinda feel like the downsides outweigh the upsides, at least in places where I have lived…
@Ohlman, I reread your comment and I thought it did a great job looking at both sides of this topic. 😀
Oh, and @Crip Dyke, I have been meaning to tell you for ages that I love your octopus pic! (And also your comments.)
Ok. No more random multi-posts from me for a bit!! *wanders off whistling with hands in pockets*
@Bookworm in hijab:
Absolutely the context matters, and there’s an important place for harm reduction measures like this. If the problem is bad enough and local women want it, I wouldn’t stand in the way.
I’m just not going to advocate for it and I don’t believe that in the places *i’ve* lived that it would be a productive step forward. In some places sure, but not Vancouver, Boston, Minneapolis, or Portland.
I think we’re on the same page.
Thank you! I love that pic as well. I’ve been a big octopus, starfish, & dragonfly fan for years. I used to have a dragonfly as an avatar on a couple messageboards, but the octopus has since superseded it & I love it so much.
POCKETS!
I’m from Mexico City where we have women-only carts in the subway. I can tell you loads of people hate on them but that ever since I learned to use them I stopped veing groped almost daily on my way to work.
So whether it’s a bandaid solution to a bigger problem or a bad idea in general, for me they have been a lifesaver!