How Europe Lost the Plot on Women’s Rights

[IwantToRetire]

If you live in Europe, your country is likely a member of the Council of Europe, a 46-member body founded in 1949 that ostensibly promotes democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The council has had a profound impact on international law through frameworks including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, which are now embedded in the laws of European states.

The council’s laws, unlike those promulgated by the better-known European Union, are optional, but they are nonetheless sweeping in their cultural influence. Member states can sign on (and most do), but there is no mechanism to enforce compliance, which makes the council’s influence easily overlooked by the public. But it is closely watched by lobbyists who know that what fails at the national level can often be pushed from the top down by international institutions.

One of the council’s latest initiatives, the Gender Equality Strategy 2024-2029, should have been a clear roadmap for women’s rights. Instead, it is a fog of ideological confusion, where the meaning of “gender” drifts between reality and ideology, leaving women’s rights at the mercy of wordplay. ...

Article in full at https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-europe-lost-the-plot-on-womens-rights/

I'd rather live in a number of countries in Europe with regard to women's rights than the US, Russia, Asia or Africa.

Sure - but if sex based rights are eroded or removed, then aren’t we moving backwards towards those countries? How long until we are like them? It’s not like we’ve had the rights to bank accounts, professional work etc for that long…

I don't see any evidence of sex based rights being removed in the UK.

So is the right not to be incarcerated with a rapist not a sex-based right, then?

From 2024?

That is bad news as it means that despite all the work we have been doing to dismantle the myth that men can be women in the UK, and the apparent changes in the US, the huge tanker that is the top-down attack on women’s rights is still being driven in a straight line through everything in Europe.

The UN and the WHO are still captured as well, among other international powerhouses.

We can only hold fast and hope that our little island remains strong and that the ongoing court cases will demonstrate that the foothold this ideology has in the UK will eventually be rooted out.

If a man can be or become a woman, there is no such thing as sex based rights.

What do you think has been happening with Sandi Peggie?

If anyone who calls themself 'non binary' can access women's services, spaces, protections and shortlists then those things are no longer for women but are for anyone who wants them.

If 'gender', as an internal feeling, overrides sex, we have no sex based rights.

One good illustration is that if a woman identifies as a man, she loses her rights to maternity protections.

The Scottish Government claim this is the case.

Confusion and mis-application of equalities legislation does mean that increasingly women and girls are being compromised in pursuit of 'trans rights'. The european Left ( like its American counterpart) has moved on and now embraces gender ideology - which at heart - is profoundly anti - female dignity and female rights.

If you cannot recognise what makes someone female, then you cannot protect any sex based rights that exist.

One of the main problems with the EU is that it is rooted in idealism, not in pragmatism.

Oh it's another trans thread. I should have guessed. 🙄

Faux-naivete is such a dated look.

Oh, it's another person who doesn't seem to want to admit that trans rights are being taken to an extreme where they impact women's rights. 🙄

This obvious truth shouldn’t even need to be stated! But it does, precisely because those in power are captured by the male-supremacist dogma of transgenderism.

I’ve been doing an audit of NHS policies with a group on here and it looks like there are no protected single sex spaces in the whole of NHS Scotland. We’ve move on to look at the English Trusts now and early results are similar. Males can self ID into any space even though some policies acknowledge “a pre operative sexually disinhibited transsexual may upset other patients”. If you object to that sort of thing then you might be asked to leave and declined treatment - I’m not making it up it’s in the policies.

I’m now deeply paranoid because if it says single sex policy on the front of a document that’s what I expect - but apparently it doesn’t mean that any more. I don’t like the stealth. It makes me lose trust. I prefer things to be straight and honest even if I don’t like or agree with it.

Bear in mind that single sex wards were initiated due to sex attacks happening on women while in hospital. About half of all sexual assaults are on wards. Google the 2022 Kent case where the NHS told police investigating a ward rape that there was no men on the ward and did not mention there was a self ID trans woman. It was raised in the House of Lords but no one seems to care - imagine being that woman where the NHS took the trans woman’s side. Scary.

These public policies have removed all women’s rights to single sex spaces in the NHS without any proper debate or discussion. It’s completely contrary to the open honest dealings that the NHS should uphold. If that is what everyone wants to happen then fine but I for one prefer not to undress in front of males after encountering too many male pervs in my life. Im glad lots of younger women have had a better time but that also means they don’t know how bad it might get if things go back to some males taking liberties

You shouldn't have needed to guess. You're on the sex and gender forum which was created especially for discussion of this issue.

Its not just europe its US and Australia and NZ too. The whole thing is completely bonkers.

There is no reason to change language - The 2003 council recommendation on balanced participation in politics is a clear example: it explicitly referred to “women and men,” as well as “both or either sexes.” to gender, unless the intent was to remove sex as a class. Organisation are now pretending that sex is impossible to establish, yet gender is?

At this point, im having to go with conspiracy or institutions falling for 'protected status' of certain individuals and losing all sense of reason.

I dont know which is worse.

It's another thread about women's rights, on the Feminism board.

“a pre operative sexually disinhibited transsexual"

In other words, a man who likes to expose himself?

You might say that. I couldn't possibly comment.

I don't think many European politicians are actively hostile toward women - they aren't secretly setting out to gradually remove women from the workplace etc. However many of them are indifferent toward women, at the same time as being deeply invested in the trans movement: a combination which, as we can see, leads to certain rights women have being eroded.

That reminded of a line from The Lion in Winter that's always stuck with me

It's not the power I feel deprived of; it's the mention I miss. There's no affection for me here; you wouldn't think I'd want that, would you?

@jellyfishperiwinkle can you look at what @KnottyAuty and others have done with regards to NHS Scotland policies on single sex protections and still say sex based rights aren't being eroded? Due to some determined women on here they have discovered that all NHS Scotland hospitals do not follow the law when it comes to provisions for single sex facilities. See knottyauty's post on 2nd April at 9.21am for the details.

Women are right to be concerned. Especially women like me living in Scotland! And it looks as though it's happening in England too, although they've not finished their research yet.

I think what you meant to say was:

Oh it's another women's rights thread. I should have guessed. [eyeroll at those tedious women always banging on about their rights]