"They're Oblivious" — Malaysians Divided Over Several Men Sitting In The Women's KTM Coach
"I mean, if you're using your phone the whole time, you wouldn't have seen the sign."
By Wayne Garreth — 20 Dec 2022, 12:31 PM
A recent post to the Malaysian subreddit group, r/Malaysia, has gained traction, showing a bunch of men sitting in the women's coach of a KTM train
Published by reddit user u/YoshidaKyo, the headline of the post reads, "What's your take on men who can't read?"
The user accompanies her post with a photo of three men, whose faces are covered by the clown emoji, sitting in a coach on the KTM train. Highlighting their presence, the user captions the photo with, "Lots of men just walk straight [after seeing that] this is [the] women's coach, but these men just ignored it."
In the photo, all three men can be seen sitting directly under a sign within the coach that reads, in translation, "This is the women's coach, women only," with the logos of the male stick figure crossed out.
The user also attaches a second photo to the post of the back of a policewoman, identifying the station as the KTM in Kajang. "This policewoman made rounds and chased off those men," the user wrote.
Receiving a 95% upvote on Reddit, multiple Malaysians stepped forward to chime in with their takes on the matter
A few users said that enforcement was definitely a contributing factor for this issue happening — or rather, a lack of it.
However, one user disagreed with the need for enforcement, saying that the primary problem lies with the mentality of Malaysians instead, making a comparison to the values of Japanese people.
"A society shouldn't have to function under enforcement. Look at Japan, there aren't a lot of public trash cans, but that doesn't mean the people litter all over the place. It's a mentality [and] culture thing."
Nonetheless, other users, presumably men, stepped forward and admitted to making a similar mistake in the past as well
One user asked if there was a chance that the men had entered the coach without looking at the "Women's coach only" sign. "I mean, if you're playing [with] your phone the whole time, you wouldn't have seen the sign.
Despite this, multiple users admitted to having made this mistake before as well, unknowingly.
"Once, I had to rush because the doors were closing, so I ran to the nearest door. It was a women's coach. People looked at me weird, but I played it off as if I didn't know anything, and just walked into the other coach."
On the other hand, multiple users also suggested ways to make the signage clearer for future instances, such as painting the exterior of the coach with the colour pink or painting the seats pink.
Giving his take, one man stated that he missed the sign saying the coach is strictly for women one time in the past, saying it was too small. "The one in the photo [of the post] is way bigger. What's worse is only the outside of the coach has the label."
Nevertheless, the most important lesson to take away from this issue is simple: be aware of your surroundings and make sure you do not step into a designated space meant for the safety and security for a specified group of individuals
Read the full Reddit post below:
This past August, KTMB addressed this issue after a Facebook video of men sitting in a women's coach went viral:
