I'd just boarded the last car of the train for the 14 minute ride from home into Tokyo. Before the doors could close, a woman approached and spoke to me in Japanese: train, girls, men. (The "keywords" I caught.) While I pondered this haiku, she left, and another Japanese woman came up to me and spoke in English.

"This is the ladies-only car," she said.

"It's time," I replied.

"No it isn't," she said, "it's 8:30."

I looked around and spotted the sign and the helpful English:

On weekdays, this car is "Only[sic] for women" in trains that arrive at Oshiage before 9:20 a.m. from Minami-kurihashi to [sic] Hanzomon Line, when located at the last car of the train. All passengers can ride this car on the Hanzomon Line from 9:30 a.m.

A horde of crazed women advanced. Bags and briefcases hit the floor. These ladies couldn't wait to get their hands on me. The situation was looking...actually, not too bad.

Just kidding. I'm the only one who moved - into a man-ok car. Usually I don't take the train in the morning, so I'd not paid attention to the times on the signs on the platform where the train doors line-up. And those signs have been there two years now.

Now why would men be banned?

Women-only train carriages were created to combat gropers - "Chikan" (chee kan). The guys who use the jam-packed trains as the cause of their "accidental" gropings. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police department rates the Saikyo line the most popular for gropers. The Saikyo line was the first in the Tokyo area to implement the ladies only cars. Now the idea has spread. "My" line's got the pink signs, and it didn't even have a reputation!

While the gropers use the morning and evening rush crush to their advantage and claim their brush was accidental, men who really accidentally touch due to the crowding are being falsely accused. So some men favor gender segregation.

Japanese women, traditionally embarrassed to respond to the chikan, are becoming more assertive about the gropers. Molesters are now more often grabbed by the victim, and, obediently, he's taken off the train by the woman and turned over to railway security.

Links:

(click to see video)

Cell Phones Ward Off Gropers
Chikan Cho Choo
Girl Groper Scammers