I think it's a "1st world" thing
More like "first world problem"
I think this is a Japanese cultural thing, just like they have women only carriages on peak hour trains, though the whole catering-for-women thing is definitely starting to carve out a niche. Examples do include women only gyms, doctors who will only see women and women only rooms (with unique accessories) in select floors of some hotels. To take a page from my work environment, there are several scholarships and prizes available to students but these are typically targeted to "special" or minority groups. Examples of such groups include international students, Indigenous students, students from lower socio-economic background and......female students (particularly for studies in traditionally male dominated vocations, e.g. Engineering).
As someone mentioned, doesn't VA have a women's only toilet on board as well? I can't remember it being specifically marketed, nor can I recall if it is specially fitted out for the fairer sex, but I do recall a launch or promo photo with VA FAs posing inside such a toilet. I don't recall anyone making a big deal then (then again, it's not as if VA, like Apple, could possibly do anything wrong, right?)
I think the more difficult thing rather than just debating the right/wrong about having a women-only toilet is the enforcement of it. A women-only train carriage is rather easy to enforce, and I wouldn't expect many Japanese men to defy the "rules" in this case (as being part of the culture as well as Japanese - a primarily shaming and humbling society - being much more well behaved than a majority of the Western world), so my main worry is some male who has not seen these before, or just doesn't care, uses the women-only toilets. And as we know on an aircraft, there are always tough considerations to be made with respect to non-legal matters in:
- How do you tell someone not to do something
- What do you do if someone breaks the rules
- How do you deal with someone who has a problem with the rules
Just like the reclining debate, addressing those concerns is never easy.
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This anat0l content, if it must be known,
Was sent via Aust Freq Fly app, but not from an iPhone.
and likewise a big chunk of their passengers are from their home country as well. I am sure it would appeal to local (and for that matter foreign) women and is probably not something that's going to worry Japanese men too much, in a country where segregation of sexes is not exactly unheard of. Indeed the vast majority of foreign men who probably have no idea that the plane has such an arrangement until they board are hardly going to alter their travel plans on the basis of this.
I say this in jest but when I was queuing at security in Manila the other day and someone who seemed to me obviously be a transgender or transvestite (M->F) was in the M queue and was evicted by security and moved across to the F queue (for those appalled by female only toilets on a plane, they have separate M & F security queues at Manila - and many other places - and guess which line is always longer ..)
