'Gender apartheid' - risks and benefits

The law will be applied to cases where there is an institutionalised system of discrimination, oppression and domination as well as inhumane acts

But not only to those countries and not only to genuinely inhumane acts. There's perceived inhumanity as well. Australia for example.

They'll see gender as biological women and those who identify as women.

And that nails the problem - the second bit. Some of "those who identify as women" - mainly the ones who are not women - have so far proved to be very effective at promoting their cause at the expense of women and girls.

(edited to highlighted quotes)

You're right in practice, because transwomen are rare, but that doesn't mean that choosing the wrong word can't cause harm. It can undermine the message, or cause confusion, or perpetuate a bad idea.

As a thought experiment, imagine that half of all Afghan men have declared a female gender identity and forced their wives to declare a male gender identity, but nothing else changes. Et voilà, Gender Apartheid solved.

I suppose, when you think about it, anything is possible. That specialists in human rights haven't got a clue what a woman is and simply wouldn't be able to apply a law, because they can't work it out.

Why would the UN try to bring in a meaningless law?

Yes, I do believe that's possible.

See the post further up the thread which references Amnesty's take on the persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan.

I see. So you think that the UN are not aware of the difference and the law could apply to anyone? Even though they have reported on this situation and are perfectly aware it's the oppression of women and girls. Everyone will be hoodwinked by the word 'gender' and it will render the law meaningless.

Rendering the law meaningless will be the first benefit, but the UN have been doing the pharma and porn industries' work most diligently for some years.

Sex and gender have only been used interchangeably (in serious conversation, as opposed to arch or mildly smutty wordplay) in the last couple of decades - my best guess is 2003 - and I am increasingly convinced that doing so was part of a long-term mission to eradicate first sex, then women and girls.

I see. So you think that the UN are not aware of the difference and the law could apply to anyone? Even though they have reported on this situation and are perfectly aware it's the oppression of women and girls. Everyone will be hoodwinked by the word 'gender' and it will render the law meaningless.

You have used the word sex, the UN has used the word gender.

Sex and gender have been used interchangeably in the past but it would be foolish to trust that the UN are referring specifically to humans of the female sex when they use the word gender in relation to women and girls.

As Gender Apartheid, that would be:

The United Nations defines Gender apartheid as a crime against humanity that involves the systematic oppression of women and girls and the use of inhumane acts to establish and maintain domination by men over women and girls.

If it was about gender any woman or girl who didn't want to be oppressed could just self-define as a transman and all would fine and dandy. It is about sex.

And apartheid is a very weasely and dishonest word to use for this, on a planet where lack of single-sex provision of toilets and hospitals and other spaces is a facilitator of a lot of inhumane and violent acts and domination.

The groups of men who stage mass abductions of schoolgirls are not going to liberate them from their single-sex spaces..

@theilltemperedclavecinist

That's not how international law works. The law will be applied to cases where there is an institutionalised system of discrimination, oppression and domination as well as inhumane acts

They'll see gender as biological women and those who identify as women. If the law comes into effect, Afghanistan will be condemned as committing acts of Gender Apartheid and crimes against humanity.

Debates about gender ideology won't be taken into consideration because they're irrelevant. I also agree that the law can apply to other countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia and it's about time the international community made a stand.

As lots of others have said, meaningless and pointless unless they make it about sex. Gender is irrelevant.

IMO they've used the 'gender' word because it's part of the water in which they swim: they literally don't see it.

It's harmful.

It makes the predicament of Afghan women seem less horrifying because gender is a matter of choice and sex is not.

It promulgates the idea of gender as a real thing.

It annoys the hell out of me (a key consideration😉) because it implies that transwomen can suffer from misogyny. No. They can suffer from misandry, or transphobia, or perceptive misogyny, or from living in a society that enforces strict sex norms. But misogyny? No.

I wish I didn't, but I think it is deliberate.

Do you mind if I answer you with a couple of questions?

Are the women and girls of Afghanistan and Iran oppressed and brutalised because they have a feminine gender identity, or because they are female?

Would you describe the worldwide problem of male violence against women as sex-based violence or gender-based violence?

Is misogyny the hatred and fear of women, or of anyone with a feminine gender identity or sex characteristics?

can turn good intentions into a worse situation for women.

Could you explain how?

I don't think its at all deliberate. I am sure the UN and these organisations want to help women and girls in Afghanistan. But it's an example of the way that ideology - gender ideology in particular but also the "cut and paste" approach to taking one situation and applying it to another not just as analogy and for emotional resonance but literally and legally - can turn good intentions into a worse situation for women.

I can't for the life of me see how this isn't just hyperbole. 'Emotional pull of the situation of women in Afghanistan' It's a bit more than that I would have thought.
It has nothing to do with single sex spaces etc. How do you see it being employed increase women's oppression.

This is not for the benefit of women. They are using the emotional pull of the situation of women in Afghanistan + the word apartheid to garner unthinking support for the creation of a crime which would further oppress, silence and erase women and girls worldwide.

Yet Amnesty recently made a statement about the treatment, by the Taliban, of people who identified as women and girls. They changed it. But the fact that they even said it is a cause for concern.
As if those poor women could just identify as men and all their problems would be solved.

So the current legal meaning of the word is not as you say it is.

Yes I know. This discussion is about a proposal, there is currently no such thing as Gender Apartheid.

I can't believe you would say this in all seriousness, considering which MN board you are posting on.

Why not? Do you imagine the Taliban arguing that due to gender ideology there's no such thing as a woman? Or governments arguing that the definition can't apply as women don't exist?

And finally from the document...
"..we already have the crime of gender persecution as a crime against humanity."
Gender is defined as above - not sex alone but also sex characteristics.

I would say that the crime of persecution alongside slavery would be included under the definition of Apartheid.

You can roughly define Apartheid as:

(1) an intent to dominate by one racial group over another; (2) systematic oppression by the dominant group over the marginalized group; and (3) inhumane acts

This initiative is a Trojan horse.

That's an opinion.

.

Does it have to be one word? "Oppression, subjugation and dehumanisation of the female sex by those of the male sex" could at least be in the title.

Dunno. Same definition of "gender", more or less. Perhaps it's to do with what Amaryllis said: If the UN use the word "apartheid" hen they are appealing to emotion and analogy not to law or reality.
Effectively flipping the axis of oppression away from women to MCWs - anyone who wants single sex spaces is a proponent of gender apartheid?

Or maybe "transphobia" is losing its power and they want something more powerful?

Or just to act as a thought-terminating cliche.