'Gender apartheid' - risks and benefits

Brutalised is about right. Because it doesn't convey just cruelty, but also treatment intended to reduce its object to the state of being a brute (a beast, not human).

Apartheid is a legal definition under the law. Irrespective of what people think it means, it has a legal definition.

From the document posted above by ArabellaScott:
"The definition of apartheid under international law should be interpreted to include gender hierarchies, not just racial hierarchies."

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

As for Gender, that's another issue. If we apply common sense, we all know what women are and how they're being oppressed in Afghanistan.
I can't believe you would say this in all seriousness, considering which MN board you are posting on.
Plus this, again as posted above by Arabella:
'Targeting based on gender is not limited to women and can include victims who identify as women, girls, men, boys, nonbinary, and LGBTQI+ persons. Gender crimes target persons based on their sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression (e.g. woman/girl, man/boy, or nonbinary), or based on their sex. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court’s guidance on gender crimes defines gender as “sex characteristics and social constructs and criteria used to define maleness and femaleness, including roles, behaviours, activities and attributes.” These social constructs can vary between societies and can change over time. '

Common sense doesn't stand a chance.

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.

This initiative is a Trojan horse.

They are taking away the rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dehumanising. Treating as subhuman, or like animals. Treating inhumanely. It's hard to think of a single word or phrase that encapsulates it.

Oh FFS have these people never heard of a metonym? If they just said 'persecution of women and girls on the basis of their sex' it would cover 99.999% of cases, everyone would understand that trans people might indirectly benefit from the anti-persecution measures, and those of that turn of mind would read sex to include legal sex, gender identity, or acquired gender anyway.

Instead they employed a lawyer to try to define the precise boundaries of the problem. What a fool's errand!

Edited to remove solipsism.

The UN urgently needs to come up with its own words for whatever it actually means. "Apartheid" is dragging in a load of connotations that don't apply. Does any country forbid marriage between the sexes?

If the UN use the word "apartheid" hen they are appealing to emotion and analogy not to law or reality.

Oh, see? They're already at it...

My thoughts exactly

Saudi also pretty much erases women from public life too. There are some pretty awful regimes out there. We also need to ensure we do not import the cultures here too without realising it. I am not particularly against my nearest local primary school having tiny little girls in muslim head covering if the parents want it but it does limit their freedom and sight to the side and all kinds of other things.

Apartheid is not a new word. It already has associations and is widely reduced to the "separateness" aspect.
Gender has a special, or ambiguous, meaning.

Apartheid is a legal definition under the law. Irrespective of what people think it means, it has a legal definition. If a government body wasn't sure of the meaning, then they can look it up or consult a specialist. However that's not to say people can't willfully misconstrue it. People can and will misconstrue anything to suit their purpose.

As for Gender, that's another issue. If we apply common sense, we all know what women are and how they're being oppressed in Afghanistan.

What would be your suggestion? What law would you apply to the current oppression of women in Afghanistan?

poppyzbrite4

If you meant what title would I suggest, I would start with persecution and sex. There'd be arguments but I think it's a better starting point than the current title.

Well, we seem to have dissolved into pointless wrangling over whether the label will cause pointless wrangling. Maybe we should move on to wrangling about whether that wrangling is pointless?

Wait - poppyzbrite4 seems to have made a start.

Bottom line, it's ambiguous enough to cause wrangling right here, so surely there's something better.

I am completely in favour of an international treaty which would name and outlaw the persecution/subjugation of women - but with a title/name which expressed that in a way that could not be wilfully misconstrued.

Apartheid is not a new word. It already has associations and is widely reduced to the "separateness" aspect.
Gender has a special, or ambiguous, meaning.

It's hard enough to get any traction behind opposition to the treatment of women in Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere without giving bad faith actors or the uninvolved and ignorant an easy "out", or reason not to support. Or to use it as a weapon to turn on women.

Edited for grammar.

I think it’s important that extreme terms are used to describe what is extreme abuse. It’s all to easy for the world to dismiss terms such as ‘gender discrimination ‘ and its ilk as they are so commonplace and accepted.

The law isn't really for Afghanistan but to assert pressure on Afghanistan using the law.

Isn’t ‘slavery’ already a crime against humanity?

What else do you call it when a distinct group of people are deprived of basic human rights including the right to work, the right to education, the right to leave home without their owner or his permission, parental rights, the right to decline sex etc. Or is ‘slavery’ only a term that may be used when males are subject to it?

Well what do you suggest?

poppy

What I mean is that - as an example - CEDAW was ratified by Afghanistan 20 years ago. And yet here we are.

You're assuming way too much engagement and good faith, I'm afraid.