Gender segregation: Israelis protest ultra-Orthodox treatment of women

Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2011-12-29 01:25

Article here. Possibly I will field accusations of anti-Semitism or at least anti-Jewishness or whatever. Well anyone who may know me personally would know such an accusation is utterly ridiculous. (But just read some of my previous comments about circumcision and how I think the religious lobby around it is the least of the anti-circ world's concerns and that the danger lies much more in the secular and corporate lobby's efforts to keep it going.) I will write more as the first comment since I think that is the appropriate place for it. Excerpt:

'Thousands of people in Israel rallied against religious extremism on Tuesday, protesting against the way some ultra-Orthodox Jews treat girls and women.

Protesters held signs reading, "Free Israel from religious coercion," and "Stop Israel from becoming Iran."

Ultra-Orthodox extremists want to impose a number of restrictions, which include not allowing women to be interviewed on radio stations, not accepting pictures of women in newspapers or billboards, and demanding women sit at the back of the bus.

Some also want women to walk separately on the opposite side of the road.

Last week, a young Israeli woman caused a nationwide uproar when she refused a religious man's order to move to the back of a bus.'

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Comments

I am posting this to say that gender segregation based on any ideological grounds is wrong no matter what way it goes and for whatever reason. Feminism/boys-smell-bad-ism? Wrong. Religious reasons, either found in some forms of orthodox Christianity, orthodox Judaism, or in some countries that have implemented some version of Sharia? Also, 100% wrong. Segregation based on ideological grounds applied to people because of their natural characteristics is just plain wrong. It matters not who the target for the discrimination is. It's wrong. The only time the sexes should have 'separate but equal' anything is to enable privacy when biological functions and bodily exposure is an issue. Separate changing rooms? Fine. Separate bathrooms? Fine. Separate bus lines? Not fine. Segregation on said buses? Also, not fine. Making anyone sit at the back of a bus because of their sex or any other such characteristic?? It makes me want to BARF my brains out!

Amazing to me that there are actually people right here in America who seem to be fine with such things as sex-segregated hotel floors (well, as long as they are woman-only, but no man-only floors!) and yet would flip out when they hear of this kind of thing happening in Israel or any other place in the world. But that's myopia for you.

I'll say it again: Religion is absolutely no excuse to vacate the human rights of anyone. No excuse at all. "Separate is inherently unequal." To segregate people one from the other by force of any law, religious or secular, without a clear and compelling reason such as due to criminal investigation/conviction or to maintain a clear and compelling public standard of a biologically-based imperative is inexcusable. That this practice seems to be coming back into vogue, for whatever reasons in whatever places, after decades of effort to stop it, is very disturbing.

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Submitted by Matt on Thu, 2011-12-29 01:51

Of course they won't mention that in Israel women get to retire at an earlier age than men, that women have automatic rights to child custody under the archaic "tender years" doctrine, that only men are forced into combat and military service, that one is automatically a Jew is their mother is Jewish but not if their father is Jewish, and that only boys are required to have their genitals mutilated.

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Submitted by Marc A. on Thu, 2011-12-29 18:59

Strangely i agree with this. I think if we want male circumcision to stop in Israel then we also have to stop the old fashioned religious nonsense that makes women sit in the back of the bus. But still i dont think it is discrimination against women, its just stupid religious behaviour that we could ALL do without.

This may be the only time you will catch me defending a womans point of view on here folks lol.

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Submitted by MRKY on Thu, 2011-12-29 21:59

Would schools or classes for boys only fit in with this? They do have girls only schools, so it's only fair that boys would have their own as well.

Otherwise, some excellent points.

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Submitted by mens_issues on Fri, 2011-12-30 01:17