21st Century Sexism?

What is discrimination and what is sexism? Not hiring women for certain positions, or intentionally paying women less for the same job as a man, is clearly gender discrimination. That’s an easy one—but the lines aren’t always so finely drawn.

When Sir Younghusband and I lived in the Kansai region of Japan, West Japan Rail introduced “Women Only” train cars. The purpose was to thwart chikan—men who fondle ladies on crowded trains, where they have nowhere to flee and often cannot tell who the perpetrator is—and the cars only operated during rush hour, when the trains were notoriously crowded. Like many civil rights issues, there was some history to this:

Women-only carriages were first introduced in 1947, under the Japan National Railways. In a bid to protect women and children from crowding on trains on the Chuo Line, “women and children only” carriages were introduced on the line, but they were abolished in 1973 because they did not “suit the times.” However, a recent rise in the number of molestation incidents on trains revived talk on the introduction of the carriages, and from December 2000, the Keio Electric Railway Co. began to gradually increase them after installing them on a test basis. The majority of women-only carriages are used in the Kansai area, with 23 lines operated by eight firms. However, in the Kanto area they are used only on Keio lines and the JR Saikyo Line.

To me, the idea of “separate-but-equal” cars was and is pretty offensive. Had I been a little younger when these cars came out, I might have intentionally sat in one of these cars and then made a constitutional argument when asked to leave. But as a grumpy old man in my early 20s, I confined my resentment to conversation with friends. As Sir Younghusband quipped at the time: “What’s next, Burkas?”

Now, Tokyo is under pressure to introduce similar train cars. Am I alone in thinking this is so offensive? I don’t see this ever happening in America.