What would it look like if we treated the marginalisation of women the same way we treated apartheid?

[MrsChrisPratt]

And how would we do it?

On a number of threads recently, I've seen posters refer to the boycotting / shaming of South Africa during apartheid and comparing this to how we treat, for example, Saudi Arabia.

I'm too young to remember apartheid, but should we be doing this? What would it look like? How can we achieve it? What personal steps can I take to make a difference?

It shows how so many issues with the modern world intersect. We do need to cut down oil dependency for a whole load of environmental reasons that are also, you know, a little bit important.

How realistically when 'we' are more energy consuming? Reduce, reuse, recycle. Some of 'we' have been trying for years. We need everyone to do likewise, but particularly the more privileged who currently take the lions share of resources. Just do what you honestly can.

Realistically I cannot forsee a situation in which trade is cut off and sanctions imposed until a group of feminist scholars tour the land in question and issue a report saying whether the criteria for being "in the club" has been met or not, is ever going to work or happen.

The other issue as highlighted above is that despite the efforts of a tiny number, we live like kings and consume vastly more than our fair share of the worlds resources than is sustainable compared to the countries who we regard as having inhumane practices. We can't pretend that others can have all we have if they would only treat women fairly, they (rightly) regard us as immoral hypocrites.

Once the oil runs out in the ME, who knows how things will go, but it seems likely the west will lose interest.

The issue for a lot of women in the third world is the lack of cascade of wealth. Seeing fairtrade money given to farmers to distribute amongst the workers it is the female workers who get least. A lot of times if their husband works on the same farm/plantation the husbands gets all the money as head of the household. It will take years of education from fair trade organisations to change things and this will only happen if the white middle aged male negotiators get off their backsides and actual challenge the concepts. As long as the farmers get paid and can distribute the money as they see fit we will see no change.

As to religions controlling populations in such there is no freedom it will take parents not indoctrinating their children from a young age for any change to really happen and so we are centuries away from that change.