Bill Maher Monologue on Gender Apartheid

[UtopiaPlanitia]

I’m catching up with this week’s episode of Real Time and I’m glad to see Maher addressing the unjust treatment of women in some countries that is ignored by a lot of Western progressive and human rights advocacy groups

'In many countries, one category of human beings don’t even have the right to show their face – that’s apartheid, and it should be the social justice issue of our time.'

Well, it’s sex apartheid isn’t it?

Totally on the nail.

Sex apartheid, not gender. On point though!

Yes, it’s definitely sex apartheid and I wish he’d said that but Americans seem to prefer to use the word gender to mean sex - it’s like their preference for ‘restroom' over 'toilet' and 'What the heck?' over 'What the hell?', it’s obscuring somewhat for the sake of politeness.

Sorry, Utopia, I didn’t mean to be that blunt. It’s an interesting watch. It definitely feels to me that the world is becoming a much less progressive place wrt women’s rights

No worries, I understood what you meant 👍

Maher has done an increasing number of monologues on issues we discuss here on the Feminism board and he seems to be largely in agreement with the views expressed here. He’s also trying to tell Democrat politicians in the US that they should jettison the 'woke bullshit' in favour of practical policies for working class voters. He also gets Republican politicians and pundits on his show and asks them why the hell they vote for Trump if they think so little of him.

I like the fact that he’s very much an old school American non-authoritarian Liberal and is horrified at how 'bonkers' the American Left and Right have got.

Well said Bill.

Indeed!

I gave up watching both John Oliver and The Daily Show years ago because I got fed up with being preached at every week. I switched to Bill Maher's Real Time because he features a mix of political views by design. I wanted to see discussion of issues that included people from outside the PC bubble, people who disagreed strongly but amicably, and people who might be considered infra dig by other shows - Maher's is the only type of comedy-politics show that I can find that does that.

I hadn't heard that description of the experience of wearing a niqab before, but it's as I'd imagined. Women wearing full veils have their humanity removed. It's harder to see them as real people.

I was really happy to watch this. Great commentary and just what the sensible left and moderates need to hear.

On a purely practical level it must be so bloody difficult to try and carry out any basic tasks while covered head to toe in fabric with only a small square of netting to look through. Women must be injured or have accidents at a much higher rate than normal. It also works to isolate women from each other as they can’t even communicate by gesture or facial expression. It destroys your sense of humanity, your sense of yourself as a person, every time you have to wear it.

It horrifies me so much to see men doing this to women and to see them blaming women’s bodies for making it necessary.

When he talked about how it strips you of community too - that when you walk down the street, simple human gestures of smiles, nods, acknowledging the people in your local shops is a daily human normalcy denied these women. He didn't go much into the greater implications of what that does to a society, but the kinds of things we take for granted - running into an acquaintance, having your child see a friend and you meet and greet their mom (with a smile likely) and you learn their face so you'd know them the next time you see them. These little things are building blocks of a healthy society.

I used to play sport at a park near a wealthy tourist area. I'd sometimes see fully veiled women from the Middle East while I was running around in shorts and t-shirt. I'd always think, they've never even felt the wind in their hair.

My aunt spent a year in Egypt in the 80s and I remember her telling me how much she loved the country but how shocked she was to see young girls being allowed to play in swimming pools and at the beach until they reached a certain age and then they were made to cover up, head to foot, and no longer allowed to play while boys their age continued on as before. It really stuck with me how unfair that was.