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 have warm feelings towards the EU and its earlier versions - in a very short period of time it 'knitted up the ravelled sleeve' of a continent that had been tearing itself apart for centuries, and created a space where former enemies could reset and relaunch their relationships. I will always admire the European movement for that.

I also appreciate the advances in women's rights that membership of the European community jump-started in conservative societies like Ireland. We'd have been facing decades of case-by-case chipping away at the patriarchal legacy, were it not for European law.

And that also gave an impetus to repealing anti-homosexual laws.

So far, so I❤Brussels. Then along came the trans rights juggernaut..

I know not everyone goes along with this, but I think a lot of supporters of trans rights just got swept along with a general atmosphere of bonhomie - that certainly happened in Ireland, where the 'aren't-we-wonderfully-modern-and-liberal-now' mood following the emphatic victory in the Marriage Equality referendum cleared the path for 'let's do the same for those poor downtrodden transgender people, I hear they're the most marginalised in society, we can't have that here, now can we?'.

That quite possibly was the case with other captured organisations - a thoughtless acceptance of trans rights as the 'obvious' next step in liberalisation, and anyway it only affects a tiny number of marginalised men who dress as women and even go so far as to have surgery..

Two things were lurking: one is misogyny, and it's obvious that taking rights away from women appeals to the sexist men who didn't like that European law had forced them to give us so many rights in the first place.
The second was a concerted, well-organised campaign by TRAs to step in and exploit the well-meaning but ill-informed rush towards liberalisation.

This was the campaign plan:
Dentons-Report.pdf
and it worked very effectively to push policies through on the wave of good-will towards liberalisation.

In Ireland, a group called TENI Transgender Equality Network Ireland, managed to present itself as the expert body on all things trans, and was deferred to not only by politicians but also by the medical establishment as the source of reliable knowledge on trans issues. So legal and medical regulations were formed on the basis of what TENI said, not on the basis of objective/neutral/scientifically sound advice.

Some politicians etc. are beginning to realise that they were 'sold a pup' and are backtracking; but others are digging their heels in on trans issues, possibly because they can't admit they got things so very wrong.

So I agree, JeremiahBullfrog - not much active hostility towards women, but enough ill-informed euphoria about being tolerant towards sexual minorities that negative consequences for women's rights were passively overlooked.

Plus some very active hostility towards women, which has gained a lot of momentum recently - concurrent with the trans rights movement, but what exactly the links are, I don't know.

Totally agree with all of this, particularly the Irish lens (I'm also Irish).

A considerable proportion of people here are caught up in the pendulum swing away from the Catholic church and there's a huge amount of uncritical thinking that concludes that ideas going in the opposite direction of the church must be positive.

The lens of unthinking / low level misogyny / high level, targeted misogyny all coming together makes complete sense also.

There's a big issue here, not just in Ireland, where people are mistaking activism for expertise. The likes of Teni have zero expertise in anything as far as I can see. Yet they are pontificating upon and being listened to on medical matters. Much like Mermaids. This is very problematic, but there's so little public scrutiny they are getting away with it.

Thanks, TheKeatingFive, I'm glad my take on what happened here makes sense to you too. Reading back over Dáil records of debates and committees from the mid-2020s, where every single party fell for TENI's 'expertise on the subject' is shocking.

Don't get me started on the swing away from out-dated Catholicism and how it co-relates to the swing towards so much money being spent on blingy First Communions😡

Or Angels. Don't get me started on angels, whatever you do..
The similarity between TENI and Mermaids both setting themselves up as medical experts is an interesting one.

One result of the 'we have too many experts' anti-science trend is that Some Bloke on the Internet can criticise somebody like Hilary Cass for being underqualified, so legislation and medical practice should be based on the wisdom of Some Bloke on the Internet instead. And that's more or less what actually happened here!

No, it is another thread about the dignity and the reality of the female sex..otherwise known as women and girls.

The EU is not the same as the Council of Europe.

But both have drifted or perhaps outgrown their reasons for existing in the first place. We need to critically assess any organisation that imposes the falsehood that men can become women. There's something wrong with any organisation that imposes that on the public.

I'm showing my ignorance but what is the Council of Europe, and is the UK a member?

The UK is not only a member it is a founding member, in 1949, and Winston Churchill was one of its greatest proponents. It's not the same as the European Union.

Same thing in Scotland re the over-correction from a rigid, homophobic and very macho culture…

Thank you, I'll do some reading but I can't imagine this is what Churchill intended!

The Council of Europe is a human rights/law organisation, and includes the ECHR. The EU was a trading block.

I think to be member of the EU, have to be a member of the Council, but that might not be true. There are non EU members of the Council.

I can see how the Council of Europe could get involved with trans rights if trans were are defined group and suffer oppression. But they arent a defined group, and they do have the same rights as everyone else. They are issued with birth certificates, passports, have a right to employment. What they dont necessarily have is the right to be a middle aged man following a girl into a changing room, or be a man in the womans boxing league.

In fairness, the Council does a lot of other stuff apart from genderwoo which Churchill probably wouldn't have objected to - though he wouldn't have liked their work to ban smoking

If someone came along and say we are removing women's rights because men say they should, everyone would go "no this is wrong". Put on a dress and it becomes "trans rights are human rights" and every fucker forgets women's rights because sex is no longer important. And women wanting to uphold sex based rights get vilified as evil. And no one can understand why this is a problem?! Like really?

Women's rights depend on us being able to accurately name the female sex as distinct from the male sex.

This is not rocket science. Men's fantasies are not something women have to facilitate.

“a pre operative sexually disinhibited transsexual may upset other patients”.

Knowing I might get chucked out of hospital if I complained at the time, and as long as I felt safe if I was in the room with such a man, if I got the opportunity, there would be films making it to friendly journalists.

These men love exposure after all. It would only be giving him what he wanted.

These are the opening sentences of the article which I included in the OP as a briefing (all these initial can make it hard to which one is being talked about):

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.

And I think I am right in saying the UK is still part of both of these:

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Istanbul Convention on violence against women, which are now embedded in the laws of European states

I think the Tories were hoping to get the UK to opt out of the ECHR.

Perhaps the most troubling part of the strategy is its treatment of “gender-critical” feminists—those who argue that biological sex matters, especially in spaces where women’s safety and dignity are at stake.

The Council of Europe lumps them together with “anti-gender” activists, in order to associate them with far-right politics and reactionary views on women’s rights.

The document claims that gender-critical narratives are used to “justify discriminatory practices” and “undermine the understanding of gender as a social construct.”

The message is clear: Only the Council of Europe can say what makes a woman and redefine gender, and any feminist who disagrees will be cast as an extremist.

I understand the appeal of organizations like this from an idealist POV, it can seem very appealing for a top down organization led by the educated elite to help push slower nations to do the right thing, whatever that is.

And I think that institutions to promote international cooperation and dialogue are useful and necessary.

But fundamentally, I believe in democratic politics as a grass roots project where the granting of power and institutional leverage should be pushed up, rather than pushed down.

In a way it reminds me of the controversy around the separation of the Eastern Orthodox Churches from the Catholic Church, around the question of the power of the papacy. Traditionally in the old Orthodox model, although local institutions have control over many things, on fundamental issues that affect everyone, theological change must include everyone - it's only possible through an often very slow process of convincing everyone that your view is the right one.

Unlike the model with the papacy, where there can potentially be extremely fast change mandated from the central authority.

It's notable that in the second model, although it can innovate quickly, you have a lot more potential for groups feeling that they are being oppressed and for splits and rebellions.

I must admint I didn't know that bit of Christian history.

But absolutely, getting the balance right between getting things done but allowing time for as many as possible to be involved in change, is really important.

And the danger if that those groups who think they exist to do our thinking for us, for the sake of efficiency and speed, are not only excluding relevant ideas and experience but are all too easily infiltrated and / or captured by a not necessarily known to the public pressure group.

Which we know has been the extremely sucessful method of TRAs.

We have only just begun to scratch at the edges of the institutions that have been colonised by the trans agenda.

Benign dictators with a good feel for their country can outmanoeuver democratic bodies which require a majority to make changes. Equally, they can go horribly wrong when someone with less honourable motives gets the ear of the dictator.

It’s interesting to see how supposedly democratic regimes are influenced. I guess that’s partly because we have never really achieved true democracy or representation.

Money dictates too much and unscrupulous people have so much advantage over the honest.

Interesting that even though the Yogyakarta principles never actually made it into policy, they still influenced so much.

I was reading about Turkish president Reycip Erdogan the other day.... and at one point he was reported to have said that " Democracy is the method you use to get where you want to go, but when you get there it is no longer needed".

Not all trans people want to destroy women's rights. I think it's pretty transphobic when self identified allies imply they do.

On the topic of Europe trying to entice top scientists from the US in light of the political developments, apart from topics like climate science or vaccines, they also want to be a safe haven for researchers on gender.

"Citing significant cuts to federal research spending in the U.S., as well as coercive measures targeting specific universities and researchers investigating climate science, vaccines and minority and gender issues, the commissioner said the bloc was in a unique position to serve as a refuge for top scientists. She also set out a trove of enticements for researchers hit by Trump's moves."

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-exploit-dunald-trump-brain-drain-academic-research-progressive-institutions/

(indeed the link has a typo included by Politico's staff)

Maybe women's right campaigners need to be aware there could be a new influx of TRAs under this campaign, too.

There are various threads on here suggesting that you might be wrong.

Which is one reason the UK voted to leave. The British are definitely in favour of pragmatism over idealism. Which is maybe why trans ideology has found the UK such a rocky ride?

I live in Europe (not UK). I'm very happy with my rights thank you. Look what's happened in the USA.

No thank you.

Good oh! You do you. In the meantime, we’ll continue to fight for women’s rights while you can continue to value men more highly,