Skip to main content

Ladies-only carriages

I'm no big-time women's rights lobbyist or anything but there was this letter in yesterday's Sunday Times that has brought out the feminist in me. The writer took exception to the suggestion that there be ladies-only MRT carriages to prevent molestation, etc, when the train is crowded. Apparently there was also a suggestion that women be asked for their views on this and the writer similarly objected to the idea, because it was unfair to men!

Oh, please! Of course it is unfair, but it should be. The whole point is that molest victims are generally female, and the perpetrators are generally male (isn't that unfair??), and actually, even if molest victims were (the rare) male, the perpetrators are also generally male (fair??) anyway. It's not about fairness or whatever; it's about protection for the vulnerable. Just like how the law protects females and young persons differently from how it does males and older persons. Because they need it more than the males and older persons. Duh!

Well, my guess is that if you asked women for their views, most would vote FOR ladies-only carriages, unfair or not. When are we going to get this?

Anyway, I realise that this is my historic 100th post, and I certainly have no apologies for it being about women.

Comments

Anonymous said…
yo! i would give such a move my fullest support...because i have seen the way girls and some ladies sit when on the train...it's terrible when there are men sitting just opposite them. Also, when we separate females from males, then those hollywood kissing and smooching scenes on the train are likely to be less frequent.
Anonymous said…
Heh heh heh...
the couples would have to fight for a place in the unisex carriages.

Popular posts from this blog

A lesson in love

I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world. -Mother Teresa Most of the time my eyes just glaze over when I see article upon article of football news. One caught my glazing eye over the weekend, though - 'De la Cruz - Mother Theresa in boots' , because of the familiar name. Mother Teresa, that is. It was the first time I’d ever heard of this de la Cruz guy, an EPL player who hails from Ecuador (GNI per capita US$2,630; as a comparison, Singapore’s is US$27, 490 – source: BBC country profiles ). His is a great story to illustrate that famous Chinese saying about not forgetting your roots. According to the article, ‘Each month a proportion of that salary (about S$150,000) Reading pay him - be it 10 per cent in January or 20 per cent in February - goes direct to the village’ (where he grew up). (Picture and profile from here ) Here's what he has been credited for: 1. 'The 2002 World Cup,' de la Cruz reflects, 'finan

True train school

‘Having eyes, but not seeing beauty; having ears, but not hearing music; having minds, but not perceiving truth; having hearts that are never moved and therefore never set on fire. These are the things to fear, said the headmaster.’ How would you like to have such a headmaster? I finally re-read (read it first as a teenager) Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window , a ‘school story’ by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, translated by Dorothy Britton. Totto-chan is the name Tesuko Kuroyanagi called herself, and the book is about her life during her school days at Tomoe Gakuen. Totto-chan was expelled from her first elementary school because of her ‘disruptive’ behaviour, which included constantly opening and closing her desk top (because she was so thrilled by it), ‘vandalising’ her desk (because there wasn’t enough space on the piece of paper to draw) and standing by the classroom window waiting for street musicians to pass by or talking to swallows. Her mother, although probably alarmed about the

No wonder

According to a poll of about 300 people, reported in yesterday's Sunday Times, (how come nobody ever asks me these things?) , the Seven Wonders of Singapore are (in order of merit): 1. The Esplanade (a whopping 82 votes) 2. Changi Airport (53 votes) 3. Sentosa 4. The Merlion 5. The Singapore River 6. Food 7. Mount Faber and LKY (tie - 10 votes each) Some 'offbeat choices' which didn't make it to the top 7: aunties selling tissue paper at coffee shops, Singlish, kiasuism, 4D-Toto outlets and Newater (said someone of Newater: 'We are probably the only country with branded recycled sewage.' Well said, ha ha.). Maybe it's a personal bias but I feel that a 'Wonder' must also have strong historical and cultural/social value (so I'm rather miffed that Angkor Wat didn't make it to the 7 Wonders of the World; in fact it was never in the running for the top 7). Therefore, these choices are a little too modern for me. The Esplanade, for example, is a