Absolutely outraged! Train drama

[Halfull]

So my 16 year old daughter was on the train going to college, busy service so standing. She fainted (as in full on dramatic woke up on the floor fainted), we don’t really know why. A nice lady nearby stopped her hitting the floor and helped her. However, she says all the men on the train stayed in their seats and so she sat on the floor the rest of the way into the city. Not one man offered her a seat although one of them did comment that he hoped her journey home was quieter so she could sit down! She said there weren’t any women sitting down anyway and they all just… sat there.

In the general sense of human decency, what the actual hell?

I remember finding a woman lying on the pavement years back (maybe thirty years ago). I stopped and gently shook her shoulder and she came round. She'd had an epileptic fit. People were quite literally stepping over her. I was so shocked, but she said it often happened - many people run in the opposite direction when they see someone fall.

I hope your DD is okay, OP. Maybe low blood pressure?

Male commuters are the worst. Selfish, they will elbow you out of the way if they think it will help them get a seat.

Hope your DD is okay, fainting randomly is scary.

You just never know how people will or will not react, and it can be eye -opening.
My late husband, suited and booted for a business meeting, had a epileptic fit on a train. Ambulance was called, and passengers collected up and collated his paperwork which had spilled across the carriage, neatly rolled up his tie ( taken off for first aid) and put everything in his briefcase. This was after they had managed to get him safely on his side across three seats. It was very kind of all concerned to take such care of a stranger.
In a different vein, I had been shopping in London and had masses of bags. Was struggling to get off the train and none of the three businessmen sitting alongside the exit bothered to offer to help, even though they could see me struggling. Then a young man, with huge spikey hair, chains, studded boots, piercing etc, moved me aside and got off the train. Turned round , held door open, told me to pass the bags down, helped me down the step, and then got back on the train. Certainly taught me not to judge on outward appearances.

Your poor DD. I hope she’s ok. Shame on those men for not offering a seat. When I was pregnant I found getting a seat really hard. I was absolutely massive and clearly pregnant. I wouldn’t wait for people to offer a seat in the end but would say I needed to sit down (more than their bag did).

Ironically, the sort of bloke who would have intervened in this situation is the sort of bloke who'd think nothing of trying to chat a girl/woman up in the street or shout catcalls. The ones who mind their own business in one situation will mind their own business in the other, because they don't want to risk being in the wrong by getting involved.

I think this is total rubbish. Most men in my family would intervene/ help if someone needed help, and none of them are sleazy cat callers! ( I really do know this of my partner at least as I have seen him at work in public without him knowing and he’s lovely manners!)

Missing the point, but I tend to faint quite easily when there is a lack of oxygen, so I have always kept a bar of chocolate in my pocket (I don't use public transport anymore), to quickly take few pieces if I am about to faint. Having said that, it would be very nice if someone gave up their seat for someone who is clearly unwell. Sorry about your DD's experience, OP

Most likely because they are taught as children that they don't need to give their seat to anyone nowadays.

If people expect children to keep a seat over adults, what do they expect these children to be like when they grow up?

Reap what you sow springs to mind here.

My mother fainted on the London underground while pregnant with me (so 38 years ago now). She came around to find she'd been chucked onto the platform - no one around her

This isn't a new thing 😥

No, it's not racist. I observed, consistently, that white men did not get up. However black men, asian men etc regularly did. Asian teenage boys were the ones who would leap up from the other side of the train while gesticulating wildly I should come down to their seat.

Observing that fact is not racist. It probably does say something about white privilege, and white male privilege in particular. But acknowledging white privilege is not racism.

I have visions of her saying "don't you need it too?" and pointing at your bump, then you looking down going "WTF?? Where did that come from?!" 😂

YANBU. I don't think the men part necessarily should make a difference but it is just general human decency in this situation to offer a seat.

When I used to go into London a lot once I saw a heavily pregnant woman come into our carriage and look around, no-one stood up for her so she sat down on the floor between the carriages. When I realised what happened I stood up to go and offer her my seat, and someone immediately tried to swipe it! I stopped them, and went down the carriage to where she was on the floor. When I offered her my seat she declined because her friend was with her. So I turned to the carriage and asked if someone else would stand so there would be two free seats. No-one would even meet my gaze, let alone answer. They let her sit on the floor like that all the way to Winchester, so like an hour 😔

Wow @OldLabMummy that’s disgraceful.

In a different vein - many years ago I was going off on holiday and for safety I was wearing a money belt with passport, tickets etc under my coat, which was buttoned. I got into the packed tube with my friend, caught sight of myself in the window and commented to my friend, laughing, that I looked like I was pregnant with twins.

Immediately a young man in business suit stood up and said 'I'm terribly sorry I didn't notice you, please have my seat'!

I was taken aback and could see my friend giggling near me but I didn't want to make him feel a fool - or not offer his seat to a genuinely pregnant woman next time - so I just said thank you very much and sat down.

What would you have done?

Last week I caught a bus at school closing time, we were absolutely packed in like sardines because they've got rid of school buses here, one mum asked me to give up seat my for her child! WTF 😂

@Janefx40

thanks for your reply. Maybe it's not just that life is easier for the very beautiful people in the world, or you're far more attractive than you take credit for?

maybe you just radiate super loveliness then😊

I was once sweating on the tube, big coat over good arm, big bag, other arm in a sling, clearly struggling. Sweat was dripping off my nose. No man would catch my eye. Another (standing) woman had to loudly ask “will nobody give this girl their F-ing seat?!” About ten men stood up as if they’d only suddenly been able to see me 🙄 love that woman.

But it was "clearly all gendered" because you said no women were sitting down anyway (which sounds like a huge coincidence but ok). So it would have been impossible for a woman to give up a seat because they didn't have one to give.
Therefore you don't know if its a case of men being rude/uncaring or just the people in those seats at that time being rude/uncaring. You don't know if women had been in those seats whether they'd have offered or not.

Sounds like it was a busy train and of everyone there only 1 person (who was female) helped your DD and you've extrapolated from that "only women are helpful, men don't care".

I'm not usually a "NAMALT" person but to some extent if we as women want equality then we have to accept the negatives as well as the positives. I, as a healthy woman have no more entitlement/priority to a seat than a man of the same age, and would consider myself to have less priority than an elderly man or man with additional needs (disability,unwell).

This specific scenario is an unwell person who it should have been objectively obvious that was more in need of a chair than most (accounting for hidden disabilities) of the people already in the chairs and so one of them should have offered their chair. The fact they didn't isn't nice BUT the sex of either party is irrelevant. I don't think we should be anymore "outraged" that it was men not giving up their chair to an unwell girl than if it had been a sixteen year old boy that had fainted and no middle aged women had got up to offer their seat.

When I was pregnant back in the 80s and commuting I had constant morning sickness and felt dreadful

I had to faint to be offered a sit (generally by women) and on the way home everyone hid behind their papers

I'm not very surprised that nothing's changed

My friend fainted on a London commuter train 20 years ago when she was heavily pregnant. She said people climbed over her to get off. That’s when she decided it was time to move out of London.

I have a heart condition that causes me to faint.

When I was 18, on my way to uni, I fainted at a busy train station at peak morning rush hour, after getting off the train. My satchel bag opened and my uni notebooks, books (no laptop in those days), lunchbox etc. spilled all over the ground. No one stopped to help me, and hundreds of men and women in business suits STEPPED OVER me on the ground as I regained consciousness.

I managed to call my friend to come and pick me up and take me to hospital. No one helped me as I gathered my belongings and literally crawled out of the way.

That was the day that I lost faith in humanity.

I find the young boys who use our local shop (in a reasonably rough area) very polite, hold the door open, let you go through, in fact, everyone is quite polite in that shop. I'm mentioning the boys as they all have their hoodies up and hang round together and so look a bit tough but in fact, they are always very considerate.

I think people commuting in London are hardened to the battle for seats and sometimes forget that it would be just fine to stand. Especially older males. They are the ones that tend to drive on whether there's room or not in their large cars as well, the women and the nicer men wave thanks or acknowledge you in some way, but there's always one ploughing through.

I trained my kids to always stand for someone less able, or to ask if unsure on public transport. Would be ashamed if they just sat there, but they wouldn't.

Re buses, which I use a lot, I’m afraid to say it’s most often very young women who plonk themselves in the disabled/elderly seats, and are too engrossed in their phones (or pretending to be) to notice that some evidently frail old person has just got on, and is having to stand, or make their way back - on a bumpy, jerky bus - to another free seat.

More than once I’ve asked them to move for some such person - the usual eye-roll bothers me not at all.

Please don’t anybody tell me they must all have hidden disabilities. I just refuse to believe it, when they hop on and off the bus like mountain goats.

And the woman who helped her presumably?