Why Women-Only Transit Options Have Caught On

Article here. Excerpt:

'This year marks the 100th anniversary of Japan’s first women-only trains. The idea, back in 1912, was to spare young women the indignity of being ogled by admiring men.

Over the course of the century Japan’s women-only trains were discontinued and resurrected several times until they were at last fully restored in late 2000. At that time, the term sekuhara – ‘sexual harassment’ – had become a bit of buzzword in the Japanese media, as stories of just how often most women were subjected to public groping began to receive more attention.
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Japan is not the only country to offer women-only transportation. Cities in Indonesia, India, Brazil, and Russia operate similar programs, while women-only buses have gained popularity in cities in Guatemala, Mexico, and most recently, Pakistan.
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Some Japanese men don’t believe that women-only trains solve the groping problem. A few have even banded together to oppose the trains, claiming they aren’t effective and smack of gender discrimination (against men) to boot.

"We think women-only cars came about more for political reasons than protecting women from gropers," says Hiroshi Fukuyama, a 41-year-old office worker in Tokyo who heads an opposition group to women-only trains that boasts about 300 members. What these cars really accomplish, he says, is helping politicians curry favor with voters and the train companies sell ads targeting women.

In fact, some of the women I spoke to confessed that their main reason for riding them was comfort – they tend to be less crowded and less smelly.'