On the same day that now former Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Kazuyoshi Nakanishi was arrested for indecent assault in Roppongi there was a similarly themed news story buried in the back of the dailies that put his misdemeanor in perspective. Officials of JR East Japan announced that they are planning to add women-only cars to the Saikyo Line for the morning commute into Tokyo due to incidents involving chikan (sex molesters).

The Saikyo already enjoys the dubious distinction of receiving more complaints of groping than any other train line in Japan, and has offered women-only cars on the evening rush leaving Tokyo for several years now. In fact, a number of railways throughout Japan have adopted similar systems as a means of helping women avoid the wandering hands of drunken salarymen. What's noteworthy is that by extending the program to the morning rush hour JR East implies that even sober salarymen can't be trusted.

When women-only cars were introduced the idea was sufficiently shocking: The problem must be really bad for railway operators to go to such lengths. But now that the practice is being extended and normalized, it brings up an even more shocking idea: There is no other solution to the problem except to isolate women. On the morning after the Nakanishi incident, while the disgraced pol was still sleeping off his hangover, the media were implying that he had manhandled the woman in question because he thought she was a "professional," meaning someone who solicited men off the street to patronize a drinking establishment where they could presumably do all the manhandling they wanted.