I’ve been riding the LRT for the four years of my college life. It’s usually a cramped up and quiet place, enough for me to notice peculiar behaviors of some of the people around me. Generally they’re influenced by the suggestive impositions of the LRT system, but analyzing it in a certain perspective there is an existing culture that dominates the boxcars before the first. Those are the boxcars occupied by the males.
The LRT boxcars are technically divided according to sex. The first boxcars are allotted for women, while the succeeding ones are for men. This is done as to prevent any sort of sexual harassments to women who ride the LRT. But in actuality women are still allowed to occupy the other boxcars. This is in order to accommodate the couples and families who’d prefer riding the same boxcar and those who are too lazy or too much in a hurry to walk to the front boxcar. So in reality, the first boxcar is for the women, while the others are for everyone.
This sort of situation somehow prompts the males to generally behave in a gentlemanly manner. One such common and dominantly occurring specific behavior is offering females their seats. While the gesture may be of good intention there are scenarios where the methods are overboard and non-progressive and becomes the males’ source of self-gratification.
The common gesture of a man offering a woman the seat they occupied is the simplest and most basic suggestion of gender discrimination that women are the weaker sex. Think about it, when a woman takes a man’s seat it’s usually the man who initiates the thought by standing up and letting the woman sit. (Well sometimes it takes a bit more of feminine attractiveness in the woman’s part for it to occur, that’s even more discriminating.) I’d understand if it was a pregnant woman since it’s for her safety while in labor, but why the normal everyday woman? Is she not capable of standing on her own two feet or, if she really needs to sit, ask on her own will without being pre-empted? Sure, go and give way to the little old lady, but what about the little old man? Think of it this way: two persons of opposite sexes standing while holding on to the safety handrails, same age, both tired. Who would men give their seat to? They go for the female. If it was me, I’d prefer giving it to the one who’s more tired and probably in the brink of collapsing from fatigue even if it was a man. If he’s too stubborn, I’ll let the other one have it. If they’re both stubborn then I’ll just take back my seat, thank you very much.
Some men choose to do things discreetly and indirectly. It’s really not that hard to miss. In fact, they’re always by your eye sight, you just either don’t notice it or don’t perceive it as such. They’re the men who just stand there even when there’re vacant seats around. It’s actually one-part gentlemanliness test and one-part endurance test. It’s as if by the dictation of their male gender that they always need to continue standing up and let someone else take the seat, bonus points if it was a woman. I’d understand if there was something preventing him from sitting down, but otherwise it’s just a display of male stubbornness and stupidity. Why not let your legs take a rest for that walk you’ll take after the ride? I’m pretty sure they’re feeling really tired the whole while you were standing. What’s wrong with standing up, you say? When you came from Baclaran going all the way to Monumento, that’s what’s wrong.
While being a gentleman is a good thing, it becomes a vain concept when men do things out of common sense for its sake. I say: get your Php15 its due worth and take that seat if no one else wants to.
