@fongyun - "what's
to be scared of?! just elbow him" - that's what i used to think too -
until i was put into such situation and i'm afraid it's much, much, much easier said than done. the first
time i was too shocked that it was happening, and because my mum was
also present i wasn't sure if he was deliberate, until i tried to shift
to a different part of the carriage and he followed and pressed up
against me again. i was determined that i'd be braver and tougher if it
ever happened next time. but years later when it did, i was even more
scared and just sat there frozen. this time the guy even grabbed my hand
and waist, and touched my arm up and down. i started shaking like mad
and tears streamed down but still unable to move or scream, it was
obvious that i was in distress but nobody stepped up to help. i really
do think women-only carriages would really make a huge difference.

@fongyun - i know it's important to know how to protect ourselves but my point is that when things happen out of the blue it's not always that easy to stay calm and activate self-defense even though it isn't the first time. if there were the choice of seperate carriages, the chance of being subjected to such circumstances would be a lot smaller. it's irresponsible to simply ask the victims to be braver - how would you feel if your house gets burgled even if you've locked the house and windows, and when you go to the police all you get told is that you should have installed alarms and cctv and have all the access boarded up? i'm sure you would not be too happy because it's the burgler who is in the wrong, not you!

@fongyun - women asking for women's carriage is the house owner taking extra security measures willfully themselves rather than getting told by others to. this isn't unfair to men - from another perspective as @ClimbUpTreesToLookForFish suggested, you can suppose all the women would make false accusations. having seperate carriages would not only minimise the chance of sexual harassment but also help innocent men to avoid being involved in any misunderstandings and being wrongly prosecuted. indeed there are other places where crime can occur but it's just that compared to the bus, there are more people standing up against each other in a closed area and often for a relatively long time, and offenders get away with it more easily by shielding themselves from view and running away from the many doors. compared to being on the street, they can blame it on the train movement. it's often hard for the police to catch the offender even if the victim has raised her voice because it's too easily to get away. giving women a choice to use women-only carriages isn't locking all the men up but a temporary division to ensure the interest of both parties. besides, why do the two sexes have separate changing rooms? we can all walk in and take
our clothes off facing the wall and assume that no one would look - but
we won't. it's not just a matter of distrust. we know that there's bound to be somebody who would look, and we need the peace of mind.