Freelancette

I stepped onto my first women-only car by accident. It was the heat of p.m. rush hour on a Tuesday evening in downtown Osaka, and I was taking the busy Midosuji subway line to meet friends for dinner. Not wanting to keep them waiting, I pushed my way into the train as soon as it stopped. I hadn't noticed any pastel stickers or specially-marked platforms, but as the doors slid shut behind me and about fifty other women, I knew without a doubt that I'd boarded the Ladies Only car.

The sea of female faces wasn't the only thing that made the car unusual. Not only did everyone look pretty, but they also smelled delightful. See, I'd learned a rather unpleasant thing about Japanese men during the year I lived there: after a long day of drinking tea and a long night of chugging beer, all while wrapped in the same seasonally-inappropriate business suit like a human maki roll, salarymen don't smell very fresh. And their odor tends to expand like a water droplet, seeking out other man-odors and seeping into them, until, by the end of your ride, you feel like your own clothes and belongings have been soaking in the rank smell of the rank-and-file salarymen.

But everything was coming up roses on the ladies-only car!

Another benefit to being sequestered with my own kind: it was easy to get a seat. Unlike the guys, whose angular elbows and wide-spread legs tend to take up more than their fair share of seat real estate, the ladies were sitting prim and proper, knees in front, purses on the floor. I had no problem squeezing between a schoolgirl snoozing in her pleats and an office lady touching up her lipstick.

It was delightful! No one so much as gave me a second glance, never mind a probing, squirm-inducing stare. Of all the things people were reading, none depicted naked pre-teens or saucer-eyed warrior sluts. I didn't have to worry about hacking old men, yakking young men, or sleazy, slacking middle-agers. The sleeping schoolgirl to my side did dip a little onto my shoulder, but hey, better her than some stankariffic suit. The worst thing my nose had to deal with was an overly enthusiastic application of Estee Lauder Beautiful perfume.

I let my guard down and switched off my "chikan alert." I could totally see why women seeking a little peace and quiet (not to mention, peace of mind) would flock to sit with their sisters. As my fellow females faded into a blur around me, I pulled out a map and lost myself in the intricacies of the Osaka train system.

This was not to last. At the next major station, a large crowd entered the car, and I noticed a shift in atmosphere. No one said anything, no one made any aggressive movements, but it was obvious that something had dispelled the heady estrogen cloud surrounding us. When the train rounded a sharp corner and the skirted bodies swayed apart, I spotted him. I could tell even from ten people away that he was different, or "special," as we like to say in the U.S. He had an abnormally large, egg-shaped head, criss-crossed by greasy strands of graying hair, and there was a "Dora the Explorer" pack strapped securely around his keg-shaped middle. His eyes bulged like those on a mackerel, his lids stretched halfway over them, and they didn't appear to see much of anything -- least of all the lack of a single man among the couple dozen people crammed into the car with him. Any normal man would surely have felt weirded out by this scene, but this guy either didn't notice, didn't care, or (ew) secretly enjoyed it.

While I sat there gawking, the other women in the car actively ignored him. Even the women standing next to him stared ahead with steely resolve, or buried their noses even deeper into their paperbacks. I was surprised that no one so much as gave this guy a dirty--or puzzled, or surprised--look. This was our car, and he was the odd man out (or in, as it were). Why didn't we let him know that? I'm not saying we should have tossed the dude off the moving train, but certainly, we could have made it a little uncomfortable for him to stay there, right? Or even politely clued him in to his mistake?

Finally, the weird little man bobbled out the door. The car breathed a collective sigh of relief, and everyone's posture seemed to subtlely soften. But things had changed. The sanctity of the Ladies Only car had been violated, and, even worse, we ladies hadn't done anything about it.

Later, I brought this up to Myong. It's true that the man didn't actually do anything, but his very presence on the train clearly bothered everyone around him. "Well, you said he looked weird," she suggested. "So maybe the women worried that there was something wrong with him. Maybe if they said something, he would do something." But he did do something: he got on the Ladies Only car! He destroyed the peace! Finally, I got it. They were afraid to make waves.

If Japanese women can't bring themselves to even point at the only man on the a voluntary all-women train cars, how can they be expected to finger a real perp? (Side note: I recently heard that there's been an increase in reports of harassment, and authorities think it may have less to do with the actual number of chikan than with the number of women willing to speak out -- hooray!) The single-sex cars in Japan don't really do much to prevent harassment, as people are still technically free to ride whichever train they please. The cars also do nothing to encourage women to address their problems with men head-on. Instead of teaching women to speak up and get angry, they present the unspoken message, "Well, if it bothers you so much, go sit by yourselves." True, the car may provide women with a haven of sorts, but it's only temporary. From my experience, it was idyllic and soothing and pleasant...until the unwelcome and unwanted hopped aboard. And that's when the concept of Ladies Only cars went right off the rails.