I Just Know I Didn’t Like It
Posted by gansie on June 9, 2010
Last month my boyfriend and I took a two week vacation to Japan and South Korea. (You can read about my eating adventures at Endless Simmer.) It was an awesome break from work, and really, from life. I didn’t have to worry about a thing, except where to eat and what to see that day. And that is a pleasure.
But I was shaken back to my gender lens when I saw the above sign in the Osaka, Japan subway. I’m not exactly sure why grown women need their own subway car. But there it is. Readily separating women from everyone else. Does this belittle them? Protect them? I don’t know. I just know I didn’t like it.
Sherry Saunders said
Years ago when I was in Mexico I saw a similar sign. Evidently women needed to be protected from groping men. My thought is: correct the men’s behavior. We don’t embarrass them on the subway so why should they be allowed to embarrass us. As a mother I say, didn’t their mothers teach them better?
gansie said
i hear you sherry. i guess to me it was very shocking. japan seemed like THE safest place on earth. i never once felt unsafe. no guy ever looked at me the wrong way. it was very different from this country. very refreshing. and probably why i was so shocked to see something like this. but i will note, this was in osaka and i never saw anything like this in tokyo. maybe there was in issue in osaka?