I was going to come up with specific replies to specific people, but upon consideration I decided not to bother.
What I have seen in this thread is frankly disgusting. While there are some people who are discussing the merits of the topic, the majority of contributors seem to be using it as a way to claim that they, white males, are being discriminated against, and that the cause is feminists and/or sexual minorities.
What a load of Mk3 droppings.
Discrimination is not about those in the majority versus those in the minority, it's about those in power versus those without. On the playground that's called bullying, and that's really all it ever is. Institutionalised bullying. I imagine that most people commenting here have had experiences of being bullied at school, now imagine that that bullying never stopped. It doesn't stop when you go home at the end of the day. It doesn't stop when you leave school. It doesn't stop when you get a job. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, a perpetual rain of people implying that you are not good enough, that your being your own person is an insult to them. That is what it is to be in a group which is discriminated against.
You no doubt think you're a modern, urbane, upstanding citizen who is never discriminatory.
You're wrong.
I am a racist.
It's not intentional, but I feel a little more tense when a black man walks past than when a white man does.
I am a sexist.
I look at women out and about and I consider how much I would like to have sex with them. Despite being pansexual, this doesn't happen to me with men.
I am a religiophobe.
I see people of faith, and I automatically assume that they are not smart people.
These are what are called "
microaggressions", they are pretty much unconscious, but they're there. People think less highly of a CV from "Abdul" or "Agatha" than they would an identical one from "Adam". Even people who are of the minority are not necessarily immune to such things, such is the strength of societal learning.
I am lucky.
I am white, I am quite obviously male, I generally pass as straight. I am a member of the powerful group, I do not get discriminated against. But in that I am a minority.
Equality is obviously what we should strive for, however given the systematic biases present, equality of opportunity alone cannot help. I am reminded of a cartoon I saw recently. A group of animals - a rabbit, an elephant, a goldfish, a seal and a monkey - are to be given a test. To ensure the fairness, they are to be given the same test. The test is to climb a tree. The point of this analogy is that equality of opportunity is not enough to ensure equality of outcome. Take two children, give them the same teachers, the same schools. That's all for naught if one of them can't concentrate on lessons because their parents are too poor to provide them breakfast.
This has been a very scatterbrained post, but I promise trains will appear soon. The point is that to ensure equality of outcome sometimes you need to be unequal. Positive discrimination, or quotas, do on their face seem unequal, and you know what, they are. Intentionally so. Because simply saying "we take the top candidates" just perpetuates a system where the powerful will always be the top candidates, and they will never hear from anyone outside that group, and thus, even with the best intentions, they will not enact policies which level the playing field.
Let me give a train analogy. A group formed of the heads of passenger franchises meets to discuss the railway. They decide what would be best and they implement it. Suddenly there are no longer any freight paths on the West Coast Main Line. Oops. This is obviously a facetious example, but the point is there - if you don't have all sorts in your group, you will lose important perspectives which would benefit the whole. I would encourage everyone here to try and see things from another's perspective, rather than just running in shouting about how something is obviously wrong.
So, women-only carriages.
Do I think they're workable? Probably not. Trains would need retrofitting, and the costs would likely be enormous. Would they help prevent sexual assault? They certainly wouldn't prevent the most violent forms of sexual assault, but they could well prevent the unwanted attention, the leers, the catcalls (anyone who doesn't think this is a problem, or things that women somehow invite this, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XGPvbWn0A).
But my real problem with it is that all it does is prevent the opportunity for sexual assault, it does nothing to prevent the desire for sexual assault. That unfortunately is something which goes far wider than the railway, though undoubtedly the railway could help in its own small ways, for instance by refusing to put up adverts which sexualise or demean women. To prevent sexual assault, we need to transform society itself. We need to
stop seeing sex as something we have a right to; we need to stop making sex into something which, if you're not "getting" any (see the creepy language?), makes you a lesser person. We need to see women in positions of power. We need to
stop basing women's worth on how attractive they are to men, but we also need to see
women who are over 40 as still being attractive. We need to
believe women when they say they were raped, and stop using the subtle sexist language such as "fight like a girl".
That is not going to be easy. Or quick. In the meantime, perhaps women-only carriages can provide a bit of respite?
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