'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?

So why do you think the word "sex" was not used?

Using the word sex, rather than gender, then yes.
Or else it'll be manipulated.

Because all preceding laws use the term gender and it would involve another10 years changing to provide consistency and avoid arguments just like this.

The deliberate instigation and infiltration of gender ideology and all the harm it has done and is doing to women and children has been going on for longer than 10 years. IMO 10 years work to undo it and prevent further harm would be well worth it.

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

Okay, so are you telling me that Transwomen, being biological men will therefore be excluded?

Because unless that is the case then this will apply to women and men, and give no protection to women from men.

They need to abandon gender and give protection based on sex. And also separate protection based on sexuality.

And not use that ridiculous, dangerous, slippery, deliberately obfuscatory, treacherous nonsense word 'gender'.

Because unless that is the case then this will apply to women and men, and give no protection to women from men.

I am not following your reasoning. This is what I understand is going on.

The UN have proposed the law of Gender Apartheid in order to support Afghanistan women from systemic oppression and discrimination.

Because the word 'gender' is in the law, you think it will also protect men from systemic oppression and discrimination. If men were being oppressed in the same way as women are now, I'm sure that would be the case.

I believe Gender Persecution, although originally created because of crimes against women in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, has been successfully used to prosecute on behalf of men.

However, in Afghanistan the law is being used to support women and girls.

And given that they did choose to use that word, it would be naive in the extreme to imagine that the word 'apartheid' is being brought into this for any reason other than to enable countries to strip out same-sex protections for women and girls across the world with the UN's blessing.

I have no problems with a law being used on behalf of men. I do have a problem when it can be used to strip women's rights.

I do have a problem when it can be used to strip women's rights.

Can you give an example of how the law would be used to strip women of their rights?

I already did. Australia. Sal Grover.

Because the word 'gender' is in the law, you think it will also protect men from systemic oppression and discrimination.

Because the word gender is in the law I can see that it will be very easy to prove that Afghanistan or anywhere else does not oppress women on the basis of gender because their gender is not the basis of Afghan law, their sex is.

Never trust a law that uses a meaningless neologism instead of an established, factual, provable, scientific term. It is a law written to make money for lawyers and lawyers' pals, not to serve the cause of justice.

Gender Apartheid isn't a law. This is just a discussion about the law. As far as I'm aware there is no jurisprudence of international human rights law being used to strip women of their rights.

I meant, can you give me an example of how this (potential) law could be used to strip women of their rights.

Because all preceding laws use the term gender and it would involve another10 years changing to provide consistency and avoid arguments just like this.

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. 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, as defined in the Rome Statute, is not fit for purpose in laws for the protection of women from men's violence and oppression. You can't combat sex-based violence with gender-based laws. And laws formulated using that definition could do a lot of harm to women. So it would be worth changing and it wouldn't take much. All they have to do is narrow down the definition to "the two sexes, male and female" and they would be almost there.

You'll have to forgive my lack of faith. The UK has an Equality Act which protects against discrimination on the basis of sex. In the act a woman is defined as a female of any age and yet we are still having to fight for sex based rights so no I do not believe that legal expertise means someone will be able to work it out.

I don't think you are naive, I think you understand very well how using the word gender in law could be used against women.

It wouldn't be easy to prove at all, as gender is defined as sex in international law which I already explained.

The Taliban could certainly make the case that they're not oppressing women but there is overwhelming evidence that they are. Women would almost certainly be asked for statements and there are outside organisations who are witnessing what is going on.

The Taliban have also publicly announced what they're doing. So, they can claim whatever they like. If they were taken to court for crimes against humanity, it wouldn't be too difficult to build a case.

Sal Grover's legal case is working all the way up the Australian legal system to what's been determined by the UN and it does affect the interpretation of international law, which is why Reem Alsalem has been taking an interest. So if Sal Grover isn't a good enough example then I don't suppose anything I say will make a difference to you.

This thread is getting derailed.

The EA does protect women as a sex class and there are exceptions to the GRA. It's not the law which is the problem. People are ignoring the law; that's the problem.

I'm asking you how this law, the one we're discussing in the thread, could be used to strip women of their rights.

I'm guessing that you don't know.

Yes this is a crucial case but one that sits in Australia's courts. It's being appealed just like Maya's judgement was so it's far from finished. As you say Reem Alsalem is taking a close interest, which surely is a good thing.

It could only have been brought and won by Roxy Tickle because of the 2013 Gillard Amendments to the Sex Discrimination Act which removed the definition of woman and man, added gender identity and defined sex as sex characteristics among other things, none of which were gamete-related. Sound familiar?

Well international law isn't working very well for women and girls in Australia, NZ, Canada, Scotland, USA, Europe...

So the Rome Statute dragged this ludicrous, recently invented term 'gender' into international human rights law in1998, thereby ensuring that whoever else has protection, women do not. Good oh.

You'd think they'd have shut up and gone away by now.

Nobody thinks ‘slavery’ would be a better/ more accurate descriptor?

I thought to myself, it is idiotic, obfuscatory and dangerous to women and children, I wonder was Mary Robinson involved? Yes of course she was, what a lot of no surprises there.

The law in Australia no longer recognises biological sex, only legal sex - gender identity, sex characteristics, etc - the ICC definition of gender. Therefore any men who claim a feminine gender identity must be treated as women. This is what adopting a gender-based definition does.
Sex is supposedly a protected characteristic, but any man can declare himself a woman and in law, he is female. He cannot be excluded from a female-only app or a women's rape crisis therapy group. That is how "gender" destroys women's rights.

The Australian Sex Discrimination Act, the ICC's gender persecution law and the gender apartheid prospective law have this definition of "gender" in common.