Why men have no shame riding Delhi Metro's ladies coach
Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport has been voted the best in the world for the second time this year, and Delhi Metro was named the second best Metro rail service in the world in 2014. While the news makes us proud, Delhi also has the reputation of being the "rape capital" and that should ideally make us hang our heads in shame.
In the Twitter era, where anyone who tweets pro-BJP, pro-Modi becomes a "bhakt" and anyone tweets pro-JNU, FTII, HCU becomes a sickular, there are also sets of people with misplaced anger, who label all those who call out men who take rules for granted and break it at will "feminazis" and cry foul. In one such case, a social media user who goes by the handle @inkroutes tweeted a photo taken inside the women's compartment in the Delhi Metro that shows many men comfortably occupying seats inside the ladies' coach and many standing at the intersection between the two coaches.
The tweet said "Delhi: Where starting 9pm men are convinced that they are in fact women and start spilling into the ladies' coach," and soon came arguments from all the corners, supporting "tired men who work hard" who violated rules. First such tweet read "yaar but it gets so crowded in the general compartment. I feel for the men too. They work. They get tired too.(sic)" and was backed by another one that said "agree. If they aren't forcibly taking seats and just minding their business, I don't see a problem. (sic)".
Twitter, where people have the luxury of hiding behind fake identities, is also a place where you can opine and abuse if someone counters it with logic. Tweets from a handle @defenseclooney does just that! First tweet read "awww...still seats are empty. You can sit instead of whining. (sic)"
Alarmed by such responses, @inkroutes decided to take a stand, and said, "To all those tweeting "so what, empty seats" - you have no idea how terrifying being the only woman in the compartment can be. Also, RULES." and this is the point we should discuss and debate about! Should we all be okay with men entering women's compartment and occupying seats, regardless of the time?
Can baseless arguments like "Why do we even have a separate compartment for women?", "Don't women enter general compartment and demand seats, even unreserved ones?", and "How many rapes have occurred inside Delhi Metro till now? (which, by the way, is as good as saying we will act once a crime has happened)" be supported and men be allowed to break rules?
One gentleman even went on to tweet "thanks to #women #empowerment, the trend is, sleep around wid some1 for 2 years and then report rape after breakups. Seriously (sic)" and even demonstrated what he understood about feminism:
In my opinion, it is simple. There is a ladies coach as of now on every Metro and by law, men are not supposed to enter it or occupy seats regardless of time or physical condition. Completely aware of the fact that majority of the men are well-mannered, might mind their own business and not indulge in catcalling, harassing and molesting women if they enter the ladies' coach, I would still say when there is a rule, men shouldn't break it.
The male ego that gets hurt when men are called out for making unwanted, uncalled-for mistakes should realise that countering this with questions like "have you ever seen a woman being harassed?" or statements like "funnily, the same woman will go out of the Metro and share a cab ride home with a stranger" is simply misogynistic.
And I'm all for calling out women who break rules as well, and before you can comment about it, I have done that!