I had heard about women-only cars on the trains in Japan, as well as some women-only buses in Mexico. So when I saw this sign, I had to take a picture of it.

Not a minute after I sat down, in the mixed-gender car I had entered, an older man came up to me and started gesticulating wildly. I thought he wanted to pull down the shade behind me, or something? So I stood up. He and I were roughly the same height (that is to say, short, around 5’1″). Next thing I knew, he had ousted me from my seat. He pulled down the shade and then sat down, spreading his legs as wide as was humanly possible and holding up his newspaper as a literal shield.

I had been lava balled. I first learned this term last summer, but the experience wasn’t new to me. I’m sure you’ve experienced it, too:

it’s when someone sits on public transit and, presumably for reasons resulting from an unbearable, scorching heat in their groin, must spread their legs wide. The vast majority of the time, this is a man. The vast majority of the time, they encroach on the personal space of a woman.

I could laugh, because there was plenty of room on the car, an open seat across the aisle with my parents and my safety wasn’t compromised. I had the privilege and freedom to laugh about it. My gentle father wanted to sock him in the nose. We were all “dealing with it.”