On 11/11/06, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Nov 11, 2006, at 1:44 PM, michael a. lebowitz wrote:
> http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/campbell101106.html
"I sat in the women's section at the back..."
Doug, why are you so predictable? :->
If Christian Parenti gets to Iran, he ought to try the Metro:
<blockquote>Of the other, less-definable pleasures of the Metro are
the quiet and concerted availability of having a group of people to
watch. Iranians by nature are not acculturated in the pleasures of
looking at each other -- much less so than in many societies do you
catch an Iranian of any age or gender really staring, or obviously
looking at a passerby. Of course, side glancings, double takes, and
other varieties of careful voyeurism are everywhere; people do in the
end sneak peeks and more at one another.
But in the Metro one can -- from lack of other options -- look
carefully and thoroughly, and also feel oneself being watched, largely
in the dispassionate and unencumbered way that people who are sitting
in a doctor's waiting room end up taking each other in. A little
flirtation, or a meeting of the eyes, is not out of the question. It
bears mention that the Metro is not gender segregated (as the buses
are) but the first car of each train is reserved for women who choose
to ride in a car without men. Undoubtedly more of the same goes on in
that car. (Kamran Rastegar, "Metro Meets Tehran," The Iranian, 10 May
2002,
<http://www.iranian.com/Features/2002/May/Metro/index.html>)</blockquote>
In any case, women-only sections on transportation are not thought odd in Asia:
<blockquote>I travel alone in India all the time, on both a business
and personal level. I think it is very safe. If you have worries about
trains, India has "women only" cars on many trains and you can book
into those (Cicerone, 10 September 2006,
<http://www.fodors.com/forums/threadselect.jsp?fid=27&tid=34878304>)</blockquote>
Iran is more like Japan than America. If Iran becomes a post-Islamic
republic, it might do things like establish women-only sections in
porno theaters like in Japan:
<blockquote><http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200608120130.html>
Weekend Beat: 'Women only' train cars, restaurants: Is it fair?
08/12/2006
BY MARIKO SUGIYAMA, AERA
'Women only," reads the pink and white sign outside the Buon Viaggio
pasta restaurant on the second floor of the JR train station in
Hakodate, Hokkaido. For two hours every afternoon, from 2 to 4 p.m.,
the establishment is off-limits to men.
"Lately, places just for women are increasing. We thought there was a
need for a restaurant where women could relax and feel at ease even
when they're alone," says Shoji Hasegawa, head of the marketing
section of JR Hakodate Kaihatsu, which operates Buon Viaggio.
The hunch was correct, as the restaurant's growing popularity shows.
"Women only" facilities are nearly everywhere. For women who want to
spend time in a feminine world of their own there are spas, sports
clubs, convenience stores and pachinko parlors set up just for them.
Not all men are good sports about their exclusion. A sense of helpless
anger pervades the blogs that address the issue. The rallying cry is:
"This is discrimination against men."
"The 'women only' wave has gone too far," grumbles one blogger.
"A train station is a public place," fumes another. "What's the idea
of a train station restaurant selecting customers on the basis of
gender?"
"I'm a man and a smoker--pretty soon there won't be any place left for
me to go!" laments a third.
Buon Viaggio's original idea when it opened in April was to have its
"women only" hours run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. After 4 p.m., a man
would have to be accompanied by a woman to enter. In June, though, the
rules were loosened, not because men complained but in response to
women who wanted to bring their families.
The weekly magazine AERA conducted an online survey of its readers to
gauge their feelings toward Buon Viaggio's exclusion policy. Of 393
responses, 213 were from men, 180 from women. Fifty-five percent of
the men, and, somewhat surprisingly, just under 40 percent of the
women, said they felt the policy discriminated against men.
Of those who felt the policy unfair, roughly 50 percent of men and
women said, "I don't see the point of having a women-only restaurant."
This was the most frequent objection, followed by, "It seems strange
for a restaurant in such a public place to choose customers on the
basis of gender."
One 42-year-old man from Kanagawa Prefecture says seeing a "women
only" sign makes him wonder whether men really deserve the snub.
"I can understand it on trains, where groping is a problem, but when
restaurants start separating the sexes, I think everybody loses," he
says.
Just business
A 50-year-old man from Fukuoka Prefecture, however, disagrees.
Discrimination, he says, is not the issue. "It's simply a business
tactic," he says. "There's nothing unusual about businesses focusing
on particular kinds of customers."
Manga artist Nameko Shinsan says she finds herself drawn to women-only
spas and convenience stores and other facilities.
Shinsan explains: "Women will accept small quantities and high prices
if the food's good, but men insist on quantities that match the price.
At a spa, women go for aesthetic body treatment and aromatherapy, that
sort of thing, while men are happy with just a sauna. Women-only
businesses are more profitable than men-only ones, which I suppose is
why various entrepreneurs are setting them up."
For businesses pursuing the female market, a "women only" designation
can be the key to success. A woman who might hesitate to enter a
restaurant or spa because she doesn't want to deal with men staring at
her can breeze without a qualm into a facility exclusively for women,
notes Hiroyuki Murata, director of the Social Development Research
Center and an expert on new businesses.
The U.S.-based women-only fitness club Curves grasped the principle,
and now reaps the reward. Having opened its first club in Japan only
last year, it now has 138 outlets across the country.
A ramen restaurant can be particularly intimidating to a woman alone.
Menyasora, a ramen shop in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward, set aside its second
floor exclusively for women. It seemed an apt response to complaints
from women who said having to sit next to drunk men spoiled their
meals.
The second-floor atmosphere is more suggestive of a cafe than of a
noisy, cheek-by-jowl ramen eatery. There's plenty of space between
tables, and in addition, the women are offered free toppings of pork
filet and bamboo shoots in their soup. The attention to little things
has paid off, but the resulting popularity has created a problem of
its own: So comfortable are the premises that some women linger for as
long as three hours, slowing down the turnover more than the
management likes.
'Romance Porno'
A movie theater showing adult films seems a strange venue for "women
only" seating, but the Umeda Nikkatsu Gekijo in Osaka's Kita Ward
provides just that during its monthly Nikkatsu Romance Porno
screening. The last row in back is not only off-limits to men, it is
veiled from curious male eyes by a partition screen. Admission is
1,500 yen, but women in pairs get in for 1,000 yen each.
All the same, women are hardly flocking to the place--one or two
groups of two are about average, according to the theater's operators.
Still, they intend to continue the policy as its way of taking a stand
against what they see as a prejudice that porno is strictly for men.
Opinion polls surveying reactions to women-only facilities show both
men and women generally are favorably disposed.
"I've never once been to a pachinko parlor," says a 49-year-old woman
from Gifu Prefecture. "It's hard for a woman to walk into a place like
that. If there was a women-only pachinko place nearby, I wouldn't mind
trying a Fuyu no Sonata-type game." She refers to a pachinko game
based on the popular Korean drama "Winter Sonata."
More controversial is the notion of women's discounts.
"We have discounts for women at the video store where I work part
time," says a 19-year-old from Tokyo. "Men don't complain about it. I
suppose they understand it's just a business strategy."
On the other hand, a 46-year-old Kanagawa Prefecture man is less than
thrilled with the trend. "I love movies, and lately I've noticed a lot
of theaters have ladies' day discounts and women-only seats," he says.
"Those seats are mostly empty. It's very irritating. 'What about
having men's day?' I want to ask them."
A 35-year-old woman, also from Kanagawa Prefecture, understands how he
feels. "Why should service depend on gender?" she asks.
A 43-year-old Saitama Prefecture woman who once managed a movie
theater says she held out for two years against a ladies' day discount
because it was discriminatory. At last, though, she gave in to
persistent complaints. "Today is ladies' day everywhere else--why not
here?" customers would demand indignantly.
She says she pushed for a men's day to even things out, but her boss
opposed her because revenue would decline. She won a partial victory,
however, when the boss agreed to discounted admission--1,000 yen, the
same as for ladies' day--for men 40 or over on days when a war movie
was showing.
"Women only" should be applied carefully, Murata of the Social
Development Research Center, advises.
"If there's no specific reason for differentiation on the basis of
gender, there is the risk of it being construed as discriminatory. The
assumption regarding facilities in public places is that everyone is
entitled to use them," he says. "If a store or restaurant puts up a
'women only' sign, some people will say to themselves, 'What for?' It
would be fairer on the part of movie theaters if, instead of giving
gender-based discounts across the board, they awarded discounts to
frequent users, as the airlines do with their mileage discounts."
Fairness aside, there is an additional problem--the effect on a man
wandering by mistake into a "women only" establishment.
A few years ago, a Kanagawa Prefecture senior high school boy, now 17,
rode up a shopping center escalator and unwittingly found himself,
when he got off the escalator, in a purikura photo booth center
exclusively for girls and women. The manager ran up to him, grabbed
his arm, and dragged him to the down escalator. He says he felt like
an apprehended shoplifter. Since then, he says, every "women only"
sign he sees brings back the dreadful experience.
A big surprise
Keio University professor Naoyuki Agawa went through a similar ordeal.
One evening last summer, he was at a train station and, hearing the
bell signaling the train's imminent departure, he dashed down the
stairs and into the train. As he was setting his luggage down on an
empty seat, an elderly woman tapped him on the shoulder. She glared at
him. "You can't use this car," she said. It was a "women only" car.
Apologizing profusely, Agawa gathered up his bags and made his way
into the next car, but the episode remains an unpleasant memory. It
reminded him, he says, of the United States in the days of
segregation, when blacks were not allowed to ride in the same train
cars as whites. If the point is to protect women from groping, is
gender segregation, he wonders, the best way to go about it?
Once, when he was living in the United States, Agawa blundered into a
women's restroom. Meeting a woman and realizing his mistake, he
stammered an apology. The woman, for her part, was quite composed.
"It's nothing," she said, laughing.
"As a man, I feel, at least, OK, you make a mistake, why get angry?"
Agawa says. "Respond with a sense of humor, and everyone feels so much
better."
'Men only'
The AERA survey also charted responses to "women only" train cars and
buses. It found that 43 percent of men, as against only 13 percent of
women, felt this constituted discrimination against men.
A 34-year-old man from Wakayama Prefecture makes the point that, with
women winning approximate equality with men in terms of social status
and wages, the use of public facilities should also be equal.
"Women nowadays who turn their backs on 'women only' train cars and
ride with the rest of us, really make a good impression," he says.
A 53-year-old Saitama Prefecture woman, a public official, declares
herself unable to decide the question either way. One thing she knows
for certain is that when her parents, in their 80s with some physical
disabilities, visit the hospital during morning rush hour, trains are
difficult for them to manage.
"Use the silver seats in the women's car," she told her parents, but
the thought apparently made them uncomfortable. On the other hand, she
herself is happy enough to take refuge in the "women only" cars on the
way home from work--it's an appreciated haven from drunken male
passengers, she says. But isn't something wrong, she catches herself
thinking, with a society in which that kind of enforced separation is
necessary?
The trend toward "women only" facilities is in full swing. A similar
move toward "men only" may be just beginning. Matchan, a yakitori
restaurant in Tokyo's Kunitachi, used to be frequented almost
exclusively by men. That began to change 20 years ago, and since then
there has been a steady increase in female customers. This is fine,
except that women--unlike men, apparently--think nothing of lingering
at their tables long after they've finished eating.
"It's a question of survival," the owner explains. "I hated to do it,
but we are now 'men only.'"
Except on Saturday, when women are served as usual--a compromise that
does little to appease at least some female customers.
"The food's good. I like eating there," says a 48-year-old local
homemaker. "But you can't expect me to arrange it so that the mood to
eat yakitori only comes over me on Saturday, can you?"
The experience has enriched her in one way, though. Now, she says, she
understands how men feel about "women only." </blockquote>
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>
