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Has anyone offered to give up their seat on public transport just for being a woman?

205 replies

Spookygoose · 18/08/2025 12:54

Was just watching this video clip of a debate about chivalry & feminism. Some guy said that he shouldn’t feel the need to give up his seat on a train for a woman, not a pregnant or elderly woman, just any woman. The other people acknowledged what he said as if this was an actual thing. Have you ever heard of this? Is it, or has it been in the last 20 years the expectation that a ‘gentleman’ should give up his seat if a woman is standing?? I have never heard of this in my life and would be seriously offended if a man ever tried to give up his seat for me just for being female!

OP posts:
Annoyeddd · 18/08/2025 13:00

I find it happens when I use public transport in the north of England - Londoners on the tube tend to just think of number one

LastKnownSurvivor · 18/08/2025 12:59

Once upon a time, it would have been - alongside other etiquette points such as men standing up when a woman enters the room, and if men are at a table with a woman, standing up whenever she does. 'Ladies first' is a still-surviving piece of this etiquette. It probably still survives in its entirety in 'posh' circles.

No, I would not expect to be offered a seat just for being female.

ioveelephants · 18/08/2025 12:59

Yes I had this before.

OhDorWheresthesalad · 18/08/2025 12:58

My dad is 81. Every time he comes to London he does it in the tube.

QPZM · 18/08/2025 12:56

No, I think it probably died out around the 1960s or 70s.

But even back then, a lot of elderly gentlemen would still give up their seat for a woman as that's just the way they'd been raised.

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