It is a step backwar! While I understand that undividual women may look at a grope-free zone with relief,, one should really ask where such special treatment to "protect women" could end. What next? Special beaches as ogle-free zones? Or maybe, women having to wear regulation bathing suits or clothing that does not display too much skin?

One should keep in mind that many Saudis justify the complete segregation of men and women on the grounds of "protecting women". Has the first step on that slippery slope has been made in Rio?

The problem is not women but an accepted social culture where men are allowed to misbehave with total impunity. But since the members of the Rio City Council are probably all men, they obviously do not see it that way.

will be that men will think that women who don't use the women-only cars are women who don't mind being groped.

I recommend pepper spray.

Here's the problem as I see it. First- it once again makes women responsible for not getting groped. If you don't want to be treated like a piece of meat- you ride the special car. That means any woman who rides in the regular car is asking to be groped (hey- she has other choices- she must like the attention)But what if the pink cars don't run as often or to as many places? What if you're running late and the regular car is there first?

It is not a woman's responsibility to keep herself from being harrassed- it is men's responsibility to not harrass. There is nothing about these cars that puts the responsibility where it should be.

The world's second most populous city and the world's most densely populated city, Mumbay (Bombay), has had special cars for Women in its local trains (commuter trains) for at least the past 30 years. I am certain that at least half of the working women in Mumbay will quit their jobs the next day were the separate cars ever abolished.

The development in Rio just goes to show that people are just the same every where in world, whether it is India, Japan or Brazil. I would suspect that the only reason this has not been a huge issue in New York is that New York subways aren't anywhere as crowded as the subways in these other cities.

Women riding the "wrong car" - and Allah help the woman who isn't riding home during rush hour - will be in major trouble. A terrible idea, and one that indicates cultural surrender.

So let me get this straight, segregated buses for women's bodily protection is the wrong way to go about things, but by all means, there should be gyms just for women or days when only women work out because women can't feel comfortable excersizing alongside men. So segregation is ok if it's a womans's choice, but segregation based on the government trying to protect women is wrong?

...actually punishing the men who grope women on the cars, and it's a good idea.

Yeah, that's right. I went there. Many women in muslim countries say that they wear the burka for that very reason -- it sends a message to the men that this woman is not for groping, that she is respectable an pious. If you don't wear the burka, you'll be more likely to be groped.

Clearly, this is letting the gropers off the hook. Even as a short-term solution, this seems like a step backward, and no question about it, a horrible leap backward in the long-term.

Next, we can try to make women-only sidewalks at night so that women don't get raped walking alone. When that fails for obvious reasons, we can just make it illegal for women to walk outside alone :)

But of course, that's for their protetction!

Isn't that kind of like saying that building a shelter for battered women makes it seem like the women who choose to not use the shelter want to be battered? Or that teaching women self-defense against rapists is like giving permission to men to rape women indiscriminately? Come on people. There will always be people in society who don't play by the rules. Apparently some of these people are using the anonymity and crowding of public transportation to get their thrills by groping women. It can be hard to identify who is grabbing you when you're in a crowd, and even hard to prove that they did it intentionally. Having special vehicles for women who feel that they are the victims of this kind of abuse seems reasonable to me. It seems quite naive to claim that putting up posters will actually stop the perverts who are violating women in this way.

long, thin, light-weight blades that could easily be concealed in the folds of a dress. The blade was long and thin so it could go in easy, between the ribs, perhaps, and reach the interior organs. Women did this because they knew that some men needed to be stabbed from time to time.

It's a practice that should be revived.

I heard a story from a friend once about a friend of hers who got groped in the subway in NYC. She didn't have a stiletto, but she did have a cigarette lighter.

No Name Given writes:

"So let me get this straight, segregated buses for women's bodily protection is the wrong way to go about things, but by all means, there should be gyms just for women or days when only women work out because women can't feel comfortable excersizing alongside men. So segregation is ok if it's a womans's choice, but segregation based on the government trying to protect women is wrong?"

First of all, gyms just for women are created by the private sector, and there are lots of co-ed gyms. The government doesn't have anything to say about whether or not gyms have to, or should be single sex. Women who don't mind working out with men are free to do so. Men who want to work out at gyms with women may do so. Gyms that don't want to be single sex don't have to be. (Also, some Muslim women believe they are forbidden by their religion from working out with men, and the gym is just accomodating that belief for its own profit.)

Think of it like a high school or college. A state college or a public high school (with the possible exception of a charter school) could not be single-sex, but a private school may. The government cannot tell a private school that it must be single-sex, however. Students may choose to go to historically black colleges, such as Howard, but may not be *forced* by the government to go to racially segregated colleges.

Quite frankly, segregation to protect women is dangerous, because so many laws discriminating against women were for their protection. Are separate cars to protect women from sexual harassment a practical solution? I think many posters have already pointed out the big problem with that solution--namely, that women will have to ride in the segregated cars or be deemed to have consented to groping. If there aren't enough cars, or if a women wants to ride in the same car as the male friend or colleague she is travelling with, she is in big trouble.

The other problem is that it puts the focus on the wrong party. I remember reading something written by a girl in Victorian England, that went (vaguely) like this: "I was told that I could not walk outside at night alone because I was liable to be insulted by men. I was angered that, because men insulted women, society locked up the women instead of the men."