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Answerman - Is Subway Groping Really A Big Deal In Japan?

That might help, but I had a girl tell me she stabbed a gropers hand with a pencil and he still didn't stop. It sounds like you could have overpowered the guy which might have a part in why you were able to effectively send the scum slinking away. Your average high school girl (who seem like a highly targeted group) quite likely is not going to have the same amount of success with a few elbow jabs.

These gropers know what they're doing is wrong. They know they shouldn't do it. They just don't care. A sign telling them not to will change nothing. Any work hours and money that was put into that campaign is a giant waste, and you would have to be incredibly naive to think it would accomplish anything. So no, you don't really need to be wasting time and money telling these men "don't". Put that towards some effort that can actually contribute to a solution. If you want a sign, how about instead one advocating for other commuters to look out for each other.

That reminds me in a scene of the Love Hina Christmas Special. Motoko was molested by a dude and she beat the shit of the guy (with her bamboo sword I guess) and everyone in the train looked at her as if she was the one doing wrong. She even got scolded by the police in another scene for it. I found it weird back then.

chronos02 wrote:

This is indeed a big problem, and having visited Japan in 2004 when the chikan problem was being handled with full force, I was able to see a few cases as well as all the, at the time, innovations that came with it. Now, the cause of all this, unfortunately, does not lie on the occasional pervert trying or getting to cop a feel, the main issue stems from Japan's societal structure and education.

Not at all! There is too little evidence to say.

The major problem to solve is severe overcrowding on public transport. Japan's habitual use of public transport is massive compared to most other countries. "Chikan" if we call it that is a problem literally everywhere, even in countries where crowding and hence "anonymity" is much less of a problem. The predators just rely on intimidation and the knowledge that most victims don't report. I know several people that have been assaulted on public transport, and none of it was in Japan. Now migrate that same pattern to Japan and the severe overcrowding and the fact that chikan is a big problem is expected, unfortunately. It would be surprising if it didn't occur.

In fact 17% of women reporting having experienced chikan actually seems somewhat low for the situation. Remember these are people using public transport twice a day for the majority of their life. People in close proximity to strangers for several hours a day. It is unfortunate to say the situation is expected, but based on other countries, it comes across that way. The fact that reporting puts the number at 17% speaks volumes for Japan actually doing something about it and being at least somewhat successful.

Yeah, sure and if the man fights back because of continued verbal and mental abuse done by the woman, she gets defended by white knights.

And that's also a really unfair attack against gun owners. Most aren't nuts and just happen to have one or feel that owning one is necessary.

To be fair to gun owners/enthusiasts (which I am avowedly not), scientific evidence linking gun ownership rates to murder, violent crime rates, etc tends to be highly murky and mixed (although I believe the evidence is rather clearer when it comes to gun ownership's link to suicide). In the absence of evidence of a need to regulate a freedom it seems understandable that many people do not want it highly regulated (although this is not the way that objection is typically framed, of course).

It would also be very difficult and costly to implement gun regulation reform in the US that could make much of a dent in the total supply of guns in the US. Gun buyback programs, for example, look a lot less practical when your country has the highest per capita gun ownership rate in the world with the closest competition at still one-half your figure. I imagine it'd take decades for even the most enthusiastic efforts to reduce US gun ownership per capita noticeably (although the average is no doubt raised by families with their own bona fide weapons cache, and it'd probably be considerably easier to make a dent in suicide risk by discouraging gun ownership by families that currently just have a gun or two).

I will never understand the idea of being to ashamed to do anything while being groped. "Someone's fondling my ass. Let me just stand here and do nothing!" The Japanese are a strange people....

If one assumes said assault is underreported, then the same can be said for slander and libel.

Again, please don't blame this on public transportation. New Yorkers use public transportation as much as people in Tokyo do (if anything, our trains are probably less efficient, and therefore, our commutes are probably longer) and we don't have nearly the same amount of groping as Tokyo. In fact, you're more likely to see a guy with his privates out ("public lewdness") than feel a grope...which is its own grossness, but at least it doesn't involve another person! And yet, last year, NYC started a crack down campaign against sexual harassment on public transportation, including introducing an app in which you can send a picture or video of an unwanted act and send it to the MTA (which is a great idea that I didn't know about until I looked up the stats for this discussion, Tokyo should start it up, too!) Read more here: NYC Subway Riders Fight Back Against Groping, Grinding, and Lewd Acts