'Gender apartheid' - risks and benefits

[ArabellaScott]

Recent calls for 'gender apartheid' to be made a crime against humanity.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/gender-apartheid-must-be-recognised-crime-against-humanity-un-experts-say

“State laws, policies and practices that relegate women to conditions of extreme inequality and oppression, with the intent of effectively extinguishing their human rights, reflect the very core of apartheid systems,” the experts said.

'existing forms of gender-specific crimes, including gender persecution, while useful and relevant, do not fully capture the institutionalised and widespread nature of the deprivation of rights involved in systems of gender apartheid. “Only the apartheid framework can fully grasp the role of intent, ideology and institutionalisation in gender apartheid regimes as seen in Afghanistan,” they said.'

The idea is that this would make it easier to criticise Afghanistan.

Are there any potential downsides? Will it actually help the situation?

It looks like a grand waste of time going through the whole process of creating 'Gender Apartheid' when we have the ability to use existing 'Gender Persecution' laws to target the Taliban.

I'm going to alert Sex Matters - this needs to be a properly organised campaign.

I'm not sure if you're being satirical, but you seem to be suggesting that people with common sense will easily distinguish between the real women and the transwomen when applying the law, which is seen by some as transphobic. Don't worry, I don't mind if you are. Everything is transphobic.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. There is a legal definition of gender that the UN use. They'll use that definition when applying the law.

I'll guess. It doesn't mean sex?

poppy

The definition of "gender" the ICC are using is out of gender ideology.

"Under article 7(3) of the Rome Statute (“Statute”), “gender” is understood as the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. Gender refers to sex characteristics and social constructs and criteria used to define maleness and femaleness, including roles, behaviours, activities and attributes. 3 As a social construct, gender varies within societies and from society to society and can change over time. This understanding of gender is in accordance with article 21 of the Statute."
“Gender persecution” is the crime against humanity of persecution on the grounds of gender, under article 7(1)(h) of the Statute. Gender persecution is committed against persons because of sex characteristics and/or because of the social constructs and criteria used to define gender"

Do you have a source for a different definition?

social constructs eh?

fucking weasels

Good plan. Maybe also worth its own thread. Although maybe this is it ...

Snowy please also link that other article from the lawyer, it seems very pertinent.

No that is the definition the UN use. It refers to both the sex of the person including sex characteristics and the social construct of gender. It refers to men, women and the LGBTQ community.

In the case of Afghanistan it will refer to biological women (sex) and transwomen (social construct).

Do you mean this one?
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/office-prosecutor-launches-public-principles-advance-understanding-crime-gender-persecution

Check the definition in the Rome Statute. That is the definition that the ICC use. Why do you think it would be sex in the new crime?

This one:

www.ejiltalk.org/gender-persecution-and-gender-apartheid-in-afghanistan-seeking-the-appropriate-legal-basis-for-international-accountability

I wonder what Reem Alsalem's view on the subject is.

Thanks.

That contact email address in an earlier post doesn't seem to be an email address, either but SM will sort it out, I'm sure.

For the purpose of this Statute, it is understood that the term "gender" refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society.

Because that's the UN definition of gender.

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

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

I would describe it as sex based violence.

The ICC on law against gender persecution defines gender as:
Under article 7(3) of the Rome Statute (“Statute”), “gender” is understood
as the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. Gender
refers to sex characteristics and social constructs and criteria used to
define maleness and femaleness, including roles, behaviours, activities
and attributes.
3 As a social construct, gender varies within societies and from society to society and can change over time. This understanding of gender is in accordance with article 21 of the Statute

I can live with this definition as it prohibits persecution for not conforming to stereotypes. It makes it possible to resist the persecution of certain women eg lesbians, widows, footballers, witches. It does not include gender identity. Do you think this statute has caused harm to women and should be repealed or changed to sex. What practical difference would that make?

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

Obviously of women however that can translate into hatred of men showing 'feminine' stereotypes. It's origin however lies in hatred and contempt of women.

In the case of Afghanistan it will refer to biological women (sex) and transwomen (social construct).

So women and men. It will be meaningless, toothless, pointless, ineffective, do no good to anyone except lawyers. Bet the Afghans would insist all the lawyers are men too.

I can live with this definition as it prohibits persecution for not conforming to stereotypes.

Then what does it have to do with transwomen who are all about conforming to stereotypes, that is what transwomen are, men who invent, define, establish, and conform to a stereotype of the 'feminine'.

No, it will apply to women and transwomen. Men aren't being oppressed in Afghanistan as you know.

Not even transmen? Oppression in Afghanistan is sex-based. Nothing to do with gender.

Nobody ever seems to care about the transmen.

Transmen as you know, are biological women so are therefore included.

It has absolutely nothing to do with transwomen. This definition aimed at restricting the imposition of cultural rules etc being enshrined in law. Transwomen are covered in a separate definition of LBGT.
The use of gender is the traditional feminist one.

Amaryllis

Can I row back a bit from what I said earlier? I think that you are right about most of the people behind this campaign, that they are trying to do something about the horrible treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran. It's just that I think it's part of a wider problem of bad actors piggybacking on measures which are ostensibly for the protection of women and repurposing them for the cause of men's privileges. Accepting the GI definition of gender is probably just a matter of "being kind", or progressive for the no doubt well-intentioned proposers and signatories. So in that sense, I concede, it's not deliberate. But for the architects of the global war on women, it is part of a wider plan to erase women as a sex class.