What’s sauce for the goose …
As I understand it from media reports overnight, Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn – who was once in favour of them on principle, has now rejected the proposal made earlier this week by shadow fire minister Chris Williamson, MP for Derby North, that ‘women only’ railways carriages should be re-introduced on Britain’s railways.
Mr Williamson has made his suggestion following new figures issued by British Transport police showing that no fewer than 1,448 sexual offences on trains had been reported in 2016-17, compared to just 650 such incidents in 2012-13.
Mr Corbyn’s latest statement mentions to the fact that the majority of the public do not want ‘women only’ carriages. Certainly, Mr Williamson’s suggestion prompted a great deal of comment and indeed criticism, e.g. on radio phone-ins and in the media, not least from female academics and opinion formers.
Here’s a link a representative example of the sort of thing I’m referring to – a piece by Laura Bates, as appears today upon the website of – THE INDEPENDENT
You can call me old-fashioned if you wish, but for me in many ways this news story sums up much about modern British society and the domination of the media by the PC-correct brigade.
Some of the issues it raised included people taking offence at the suggestion implied by the suggested reintroduction of ‘women only’ carriages that all men are potential rapists; that women are so inferior and weak that they need special privileges – and, by the way, is segregating them off from society in special pens the right way to protect them even if that is what you’re trying to do?; that de facto sometimes women commit sexual offences on trains against other women, so ‘women only carriages’ might actually encourage women so inclined to commit more offences; that surely – when it comes to sexual offences on trains – the way to deal with the problem is not to segregate women away from everyone else, but actually to deal with the men (and it is mainly men) who commit sexual offences against women?
And so on.
And I hadn’t even mentioned the PC-correct issues of what to do in this context about transgender people – so I’ll do that now.
If you’re a man transitioning into a woman (or indeed you have already made the transition) … would you be allowed to sit in a ‘women only’ carriage?
Similarly, if you’re a woman who is transitioning into a man … can you still sit in a ‘women only’ carriage, perhaps unless and until you have finally ‘made it to the other side’ of your transition, whereupon you then have to sit all the time in normal public train carriages?
And what about men who ‘identify’ as a woman, or who are in touch with their feminine side, or who are even ‘gender fluid’ … (for I think an example of one of these is whom I saw interviewed on the ITV Morning Show sofa recently by Eamon Holmes).
Furthermore, of course, what about the position of gay men?
If you are a gay man – i.e. someone who presumably, in most circumstances if not all, is not going to sexually assault women – why wouldn’t you be allowed to join a ‘women only’ carriage [i.e. if the specific purpose of any new law re-introducing ‘women only carriages’ to protect women from men’s sexual assaults]?
Obviously if you are a gay man who specifically hates women, that would be one thing, but I’m thinking of preventing discrimination against gay men who adore the company of women – and, indeed of the interests of those women who have gay men as some of their best friends: why should they not be allowed to invite their gay friends to join them in a ‘women only’ carriage?
Only last week I was chatting with some of my male friends down the pub when the subject of the BBC’s rabid, right-on, ‘PC-correct, women promoting’ policies and journalists right across its platforms from radio stations to TV channels and online presence came up. It wasn’t long after there was a preponderance of gay-friendly programming being broadcast across the board as part of the Gay Britannia celebrations of fifty years of the repeal of the homosexuality laws in Britain.
One of our number said he felt like calling up the BBC and asking someone if they could please possibly point him in the direction of any future heterosexual-friendly movies or programmes that they might be broadcasting one day soon, because he happened to belong to this general group and was feeling somewhat a presentative of a persecuted minority at the moment.
Well … his suggestion raised a laugh in our corner of the saloon bar, anyway.
When I was following this story about the prospect of re-introducing ‘women only’ railway carriages earlier this week, it did momentarily occur to me that a parallel initiative ought to be put forward for the introduction of railways carriages exclusively for the use of heterosexual men who just want to read a copy of a newspaper, or an issue of the Mojo music magazine, on their way commuting home of an evening.
I have no doubt that the implementation of such a facility would be a ‘diverse’, ‘inclusive’ and even ‘positive’ move in terms of asserting the human rights of this sometimes neglected and put-upon minority – and might indeed prove quite popular.
It would certainly mean that people like me would be free from the constant fear of being sexually assaulted by women, or indeed by gay men (if not others), when going about – and minding – my own daily business.
