the other day on the green line from park to copeley a woman who had just got onto the relatively crowded train began giving everyone a piece of her mind. if there's any man sitting down, she shouted, you should get up and give it to a lady. where's chivalry, she demanded, and on she went, for perhaps a full minute. nobody gave up their seat (i'm glad they did not) and most of the women were clearly embarrassed. i don't know what being a woman has to do with anything. certainly i should accept any seat any man offered to me readily and gratefully and continue to sleep untroubled by my conscience, but ceteris paribus why on earth should any man have to get up for any other perfectly healthy young woman? if it had been a doddy old biddy or a heavily pregnant woman who had got on and had to stand it's a matter of ordinary human kindness and consideration, not chivalry, that a seat is automatically and gracefully given. what was it the woman on the train had wanted, i wonder. perhaps she was especially tired that day and wanted to sit down badly, though she could hardly have thought that bullying the whole compartment was the way to it. she seemed genuinely angry too, especially after she heard someone tittering. i got off the next stop so there is no sequel to the tale. but i wonder what it was that drove her.