Segregating women is not the solution

Segregating women is not the solution

Some methods of sex segregation are so well established that we no longer question them. In the case of public toilets and changing rooms, division of the sexes is predicated on the desire for privacy.

A State Railway of Thailand (SRT) policewoman chats with passengers in a women and children-only carriage. The special service was reintroduced to shore up public confidence after an SRT employee allegedly raped and killed a 13-year-old girl on an overnight train. PATIPAT JANTHONG

Likewise, some countries have reason to enforce more widespread public-sector sex segregation than others. In India there is "Eve teasing" — a deceptively innocuous term for public sexual harassment or molestation. In Japan there are "chikan" — men who publicly grope women. Both terms are uniquely informed by the cultures of the countries they occur in. Both practices are so prevalent that they almost forced the creation of women-only train cars, in 2001 and 2004 respectively.

Women-only train cars are also found in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, the UAE, Brazil, Mexico and Guatemala. These services were all introduced to prevent widespread sexual harassment in countries with poor records on women's rights, high levels of inequality, rampant violence against women and limited rape prosecutions.

Thailand introduced its own women-only cars on State Railway of Thailand (SRT) trains in 2001, but scrapped them shortly after when they proved unpopular. Following the brutal rape-murder of 13-year-old Nong Kaem on an SRT train last month, allegedly by an SRT employee, women-only cars were re-introduced on Aug 1.

The public backlash after the killing forced the SRT to try and salvage its reputation. The introduction of women-only carriages is a symbolic gesture to reduce public anger and convince passengers they are safe. It will also help the state railway deflect culpability should a similar tragedy occur. Beyond this, nothing has changed.

The Transport Ministry this week announced it is working with private operators to launch more women-only services after witnessing the SRT's successful transformation of public opinion. Airports of Thailand Plc unveiled women-only parking spaces at six airports. Bus operator Nakhon Chai Air will run a women-only service from Bangkok to the Northeast.

In Tokyo, the famously crowded trains afford chikan a level of unparalleled anonymity. In India, the seismic increase of women travelling into cities for education doubled the number of rail passengers almost overnight. These very specific cultural requirements made the case for women-only carriages. But Thailand's re-introduction of women-only cars — more than a decade after they were deemed unnecessary — is not progressive. It is a regressive move, and more to do with PR than policy.

We should not allow our anger over Nong Kaem's death to be abated with a band-aid solution.

Japan introduced its women's train cars only after intense campaigns to stop chikan by enforcing huge fines and seven-year prison sentences failed. Like any divisive practice, sex segregation is best avoided unless there is no other alternative. To remove women-only carriages in India and Japan would be impractical and dangerous, but to reintroduce them in a country that decided long ago it didn't need them is equally so.

Segregating transport into "safe zones", by definition, makes non-segregated areas, if not unsafe, then less safe. If we normalise segregation with women-only parking spaces and special pink buses we add a new element of danger to non-segregated areas.

There are already too many areas where visibility of women is limited — at the highest echelons of public and private power; within ultra-conservative religious groups — their public sphere should not be made narrower.

We should be addressing and dismantling the causes of rape, not simply reducing opportunities to rape. If the causes are not examined, and we use sex-segregation as a solution to sexual violence, we will create a pressure cooker that is doomed to explode.

Another huge flaw with sex segregation as a solution is that it perpetuates a culture of victim blaming where the onus is placed on victims not to get raped, rather than rapists not to rape.

This denies the agency of the perpetrator and sexualises women. We are so bombarded by images of objectified women gyrating on TV screens, staring dead-eyed from magazines, that we begin to conflate women with sex in non-sexual environments. A woman on a train is not engaging in a display of coquetry just by existing. Let's not objectify her as something so overtly carnal that she needs to be hidden away.

If it becomes the woman's responsibility not to get raped on sex-segregated public transport, what if something happens to her after she sits in a mixed-carriage because the women's car is full? What if she chose not to sit in the special compartment? Will she be blamed?

All areas should be anti-rape areas. Governments simply cannot build big enough women-only zones to keep everyone safe; they must look beyond the train window and see how changes can be made outside.

Instead of dividing the sexes and emphasising differences between them we need to encourage unity from the beginning of life. The world is starting to challenge previously unquestioned segregation. Mixed schools are considering non-segregated sports. Secular universities are refusing requests to segregate the sexes on religious grounds.

For real change, budgets for women-only services could instead be used to pay for the most effective, least expensive way to attack inequality: education. Better sex education could protect young people against the conflicting ideas they are exposed to while their sexual identities are developing. Similarly, community projects that unite the people could be more worthwhile than segregated transport.

At their best, women-only transport initiatives are temporary, last resorts to protect women. At their worst, they distract from the real causes of sexual violence and potentially complicate attitudes towards it. While reminding the powerful that they must seek real solutions to rape culture, let's not pretend that women-only transport makes the world a safer place.


Miriam Bentham is a sub-editor at the Bangkok Post and freelance writer.

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