Which is the best country for women?

[RosaBonheur]

Something I've been pondering lately.

Is there a country anywhere in the world that really gets it right for women?

Anywhere that allows biologically male people into women's spaces or has self ID is putting women at risk and prioritising those peoples gender identities over women's right to have their own spaces and sports. But this is largely happening in rich, developed countries with good human rights records where the standard of living is high. I used to think of countries like Norway, Canada and New Zealand as being desirable places to live, but now...not so much.

On the other hand, in countries which haven't adopted this position, women's rights are often lagging behind in the traditional way. I'm not even talking about places like Afghanistan or Iran or Saudi Arabia, which clearly aren't good places to be a woman, but perhaps places like Poland and Malta and certain US states, where women's reproductive rights aren't respected.

Is anywhere getting it right? Is there a country anywhere in the world that was already a good place to be a woman and is managing to get it right on this particular issue by respecting trans people's human rights without taking anything away from women and girls?

I've heard from A Swedish feminist that it isnt the feminist utopia Brits think it is.

Swedish men apparently haven't taken up the domestic role in keeping with the more equal parental leave.

The trans thing isn't really an issue in day to day life for most women in developed countries. Not in the way that the Taliban, for example, is in places like Afghanistan.

It's more the threat posed by them getting their way that's the concern. Realistically, you could spend a whole week prowling every changing room in every gym/leisure centre in your local area and you'd probably not encounter a single transwoman.

In the wake of the TRA riot in Auckland someone posted a graph showing that New Zealand was the country with the highest rate of domestic violence.

Japan was near the bottom. I had always imagined Japan as an extremely sexist, porn-addled society (but then I don’t really know much about it), but it appears the men beat their wives less.

I think each country is bad for women in its own way.

For example, when my husband and I got a mortgage, he was named on all the paperwork as the borrower and described as his actual name, whereas I was described as the unnamed co-borrower. I was furious because I was the one who had applied for the mortgage, I was a current client of the bank and he wasn't, and I am the higher earner, but I was told, "this is France, madame".

Goodness, that would drive me mad! Did they change it or was that response their final word? I'm surprised French women would put up with that.

Re. the thread topic I would agree that the UK is high on the list, most of the rest of the world can be awful for women. The only one of Aphrathestorm's list that we do well in is life expectancy. Long lives filled with sexist misery.

Re the op I’d agree England is up there but I’m intrigued why ‘Disturbingly’?

Re England being one of the best... I'm reminded of the George Orwell line about fascism never taking route in Britain - not sure if he said England or Britain - because we would just laugh at them. I think we have a wonderful sense of humour in this country and no offence to anyone from any other part of the world. I've no idea how humour works in other countries but it appears to me that we are great piss takers here, refuse to take things too seriously, adore eccentrics and oddballs, cherish difference, and have very good bullshit detectors.

I think that's why an ideology such as the TRAs isn't doing as well here as in other places and why we've not only been labelled Terf Island but are proud to be Terf Island. We're cats who can't be herded.

They said that changing it would involve starting the whole application again which might delay things by up to a week. The implication was, "Do you really want to potentially fuck up your mortgage application on a silly point of principle?"

No, you probably wouldn't.

But for a country to be a good place for women, it has to protect all women, especially the most marginalised.

If we're throwing female prisoners to the wolves by incarcerating them with male rapists, we're not protecting all women. If female rape survivors can't access single sex support because rape crisis organisations have all deemed that the harm done to trans women by being excluded from just some women's services is greater than the harm done to biological women by not having access to single sex support after they've been raped, we're not protecting all women. If we are allowing lesbians to be intimidated, victimised and thrown out of pride events for asserting their right to be exclusively same sex-not-gender attracted, we're not protecting all women. If Muslim women and sexual assault survivors are self-excluding from public toilets and changing facilities, and girls are dehydrating themselves and staying off school when they're on their period because they don't feel able to share such spaces with members of the opposite sex, we're not protecting all women. If disabled women can't get guaranteed same sex intimate care, if female police officers are being required to body search transgender male suspects when they don't feel comfortable doing so, if women are being raped on single sex hospital wards and then gaslit by the NHS, claiming that it could not have happened because there were no males present, we're not protecting all women.

And that's before we even address the almost total lack of political representation for British women who refuse to fall into line and agree that trans women are women.

@MarshaBradyo, I'd say the word "disturbingly" is accurate, because all these things are happening in England at the moment. If these things are happening in England but most other places are worse, that is very disturbing indeed.

And yet, gender nonsense HAS taken hold in the UK.

My kind, empathetic, intelligent friend is firmly TWAW and gets very upset when I say they are men.

I'm glad that Terf Island is leading the resistance, but how the hell did it get this bad in the first place?

Because England is still pretty shit. Just comparatively less shit than other places. And with the constant threat that it could get shitter.

Singapore? Try renting there as a South Asian. Or doing anything if you are a poor S Asian.

It can be tricky to compare international statistics on something like domestic violence, because we cannot be sure that violence is defined the same way or that the victims would be equally likely to report it happening.

So it's possible that Japan has higher rates than those reported, or at least that the same event might be classified differently in NZ and in Japan (or any particular pair of countries you might wish to think about).

More publicity on domestic violence alone can raise reporting rates and change awareness and the way people define domestic or intimate partner violence (for instance, if slapping your wife is viewed as normal or a private matter within the family or not).

One way of finding more about this is to look at the data on the most extreme consequences of domestic violence in the countries you wish to compare: domestic killings. If those show the same differences as the other data than that reinforces my trust in the other data. If they show something different (and the countries we compare have the same access to guns etc.), then the data looks less reliable.

Yeah, I do agree that the actual real life impact is distinct from the principle and we shouldn't throw away women's rights just because the people who want to do this are a tiny minority.

That said, I'm far more concerned about the growing impact of Islamic culture on women's rights tbh. It frustrates me how so many feminists/liberals/woke people/etc almost mirror the view of the pro trans lobby and call anybody who dares question it 'racist' or 'islamophobic' much like how TRA's call people 'transphobes' for questioning trans ideology.

There was a good thread about this a few weeks back and I was going to post on it when I finished work but it had predictably been shut down by then. Was really annoyed as hadn't noted down the links I wanted to read.

@Aphrathestorm If you add "respect and safety" to your list, then France must be one of the worst countries. This is years ago, but I was regularly followed and threatened, strangers tried to grab my breasts in the streets pretty much daily. Friends of mine had their crotch grabbed in broad daylight. I have lived in several countries, none were remotely as bad as France. I have a sheer endless repertoire of horror stories about France in which men expose themselves, ejaculated into women's clothes, rape etc.
France is also awful if you belong to an ethnic minority. On a recent visit, we have experienced open racism not as an exception, but as the rule.

I have to say that isn't my experience at all, and I lived in one of the roughest parts of Paris for two years.

I'm not saying France is the best place in the world in that respect, but I've encountered far worse elsewhere.

Agree - here in England is probably the best when all factors are added up. We should eb more proud of our democracy here - checks and balances have seemed to work better in holding the line for women's rights here even though women have had to crowd fund so much of the enforcement. If we cannot idetify what women are or speak out as women for women then the rest cannot be discussed, defended (or defeated) or protected with an efficiency at all.

I don’t think we are that bad. The pandemic was terrible and we went straight into a blasted war we haven’t had that post pandemic feel good factor.

I’m pretty sure it will come.

Although the next GE might scupper that, hopefully not.

I'm actually really shocked that trans folk with male downstairs parts are allowed in women's prisons .
I thought the common sense arrangement would be male genitalia to male prison and female genitalia to female prisons

It's not clear whether any of them have actually had their penises removed. Obviously the ones convicted of rape haven't.

For what it's worth, I don't think any male should be incarcerated with female inmates even if they have had their penis removed. They're still male and can still physically overpower the average woman.

Don't like it? Don't commit crimes.

Fair point. Male puberty does give significant strength advantages even when testosterone is depleted.