Barb Dvorak commutes to her downtown job from Des Plaines. And she thinks that most of the people on her regular train are jerks.
That’s because Mrs. Dvorak, 36, is pregnant. As she says: “At 5 feet 2, I’m very obviously pregnant.”
But the train is often crowded. Yet, she has never once been offered a seat by a man or a woman.
“I’ll stand there and stand there,” she says, “and they’ll be reading their papers or just sitting there half asleep.
“I don’t expect people to give me the world because I’m pregnant. I’ve never been like that. But all my life, when I see a pregnant woman or a very old person or a woman with small children, I’ve always offered them my seat.
“The way people are-it’s shocking, absolutely shocking.”
Because I drive, I’m not familiar with contemporary etiquette on trains, buses and subways.
However, I do know that when I was young it would have been unthinkable for an able-bodied male not to stand and offer his seat to a pregnant woman. Or just about any woman.
It was no big deal. It was normal behavior and you just did it.
But apparently that has changed, according to a survey of women I know who ride public transportation.
Susan, 49, rides the “L” from Evanston to Chicago every day.
“Hardly ever do I see anybody offer a seat. If a seat empties and there’s a young guy and, say, two middle-aged women, the guy will race to that seat. I guess they figure it’s a dog-eat-dog world. I’ll offer my seat if a person is old or disabled or pregnant or they have a kid in tow. But most people just sit there.”
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Ellen was living and working in Washington when she had her last child.
“Because I was pregnant, I was offered seats on the subway sometimes. But almost always it was by older guys, real geezers who would creak out of their seats and ask me to sit down.
“But I remember staring daggers at those young yuppie-lawyer types sitting there reading their papers. My eight-month pregnant stomach would be protruding into their Wall Street Journal and they’d look at me like: `Could you back up please, you are denting my market report.’
“I just wanted to reach over and pull them out of the seat by their little yellow power ties.”
Joan, 50, a marketing executive, has commuted from Evanston for 10 years.
“I’ve seen women offer other women a seat, and I’ve offered pregnant women my seat. But other than that, you don’t see it. Frankly, I’ve never seen a man offer anyone a seat.
“Wait, I think a few years ago I may have seen that, but I think the person he offered it to was on crutches or something extreme like that.
“It’s mostly the yuppie men who won’t get up. I think once they’re sitting down-and I include myself-unless the person is obviously frail, that’s it: You sit.”
Donna, 33, rides one of the lakefront buses that carry urban yuppies to and from their jobs.
“Twice out of thousands of rides. The first time, he was an elderly man and I thanked him, but I told him that I jog at least 3 miles a day and play tennis twice a week and I could probably stand from here to California. But I said it nicely because he seemed like such a gentleman.
“The second time, it was a younger guy, and within 10 seconds of my sitting down, he was leaning over and hitting on me. So I got up and told him he could have his seat back because I didn’t want him to faint from too much excitement.”
I asked a few men about this dying tradition and received mixed reactions.
Hank, a retired printer, is in his 80s but quite spry. He said: “A woman never stood on a streetcar when I was young. Men thought it was their duty to offer a seat to a woman. Even now, at my age, I would offer my seat to a pregnant or older woman, even though my feet hurt.”
Ed is in his early 50s. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to do. It’s not just on a bus or subway. I don’t know what to do on an elevator. Should I wait until the woman gets off? I’ve missed my floor standing there waiting for a woman to get off. Going through a revolving door, should I let her go first or should I go in and make the first shove so she doesn’t have to? Life used to be much more simple.”
But Les, also in his 50s and divorced, said: “Hey, they wanted equality, let them stand like anyone else. I used to open my wife’s car door for her. Then she packs up and leaves and says she has to find her own identity. Now, she opens her own car door.
“Besides, if I offered a woman my seat, she might think it is politically incorrect, that I’m treating her as a weaker, inferior person, and would take it as an insult. Today’s women, they’re a mean crowd.”
I’m glad I drive. Except when some young woman in a little red car cuts me off. But that is a different social issue.