6 ms·

Gender apartheid? Are men and women required to live in different suburbs to each other? Are they forbidden from marrying each other. At least read up on aparth

Gender apartheid? Are men and women required to live in different suburbs to each other? Are they forbidden from marrying each other. At least read up on apartheid before throwing the term around in a context that makes no sense.

dukoid 10y ago
You may also want to fix the corresponding Wikipedia article then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_apartheid#Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_apartheid#Saudi_Arabia
- tomp 10y ago
  > The term gender apartheid refers to the economic and social sexual discrimination against individuals because of their gender or sex. I hate these post-modern redefinitions of terms. By this definition, US is gender apartheid (men are subject to involuntary draft), as well as the UK and many other EU countries (men have to work longer to get pension). That's as ridiculous as when some people equate rape with drunk sex or sexual harassment with catcalling. It really reduces the the victims of actual crimes (rape, harassment, and apartheid).
  - afshin 10y ago
    When social and political phenomena are examined more closely, they need classification and designation. Disliking a new term for an old or previously unexamined phenomenon seems curmudgeonly.
    - tomp 10y ago
      No, I disagree. I think it makes sense to use different terms for normal, reasonable, moral behavior (draft, drunken sex), and for objectionable, inexcusable behavior (apartheid, rape).
  - blowski 10y ago
    Apartheid refers to the idea of 'separateness', the state treating a particular group differently in a significant number of ways purely because of some identifying characteristic. Clearly, there are ways in which all states do this and for different reasons. Men having to work longer to get a pension is a historical relic, and one which most countries are moving away from. The laws covering conscription in the US also date back to the early 1980s. Since there has been no involuntary draft since the 1970s, it has hardly had an effect on life for most Americans. Compare this to Saudi Arabia where women continue to be severely punished for breaking laws that apply only to women, have much curtailed rights compared to men, and clearly have very 'separate' lives to men in Saudi Arabia. Whether you call it segregation, apartheid, or whatever you want - there is much greater gender inequality in Saudi Arabia than there is in most of the EU and USA. Women in Saudia Arabia are subject to severe repression, in the same way that blacks suffered from severe repression in South Africa during the Apartheid era, and in a way that few people could genuinely complain in the USA or EU.
    - tomp 10y ago
      Yeah, I agree completely with you. SA is much worse than US (incomparable, really). That's exactly why I'm objecting to using the same term for both. Or rather, I think Wikipedia's definition is... fucked.
  - throwawaz6729 10y ago
    x
    - blowski 10y ago
      You have to sign up for "Selective Service" so that, if suddenly the US government did want to conscript all young men, they have a record of who's eligible. Only men are required (and are even allowed) to sign up for Selective Service. As you can imagine, some politicians do everything they can to maintain the status quo, while others try to get the legislation banned by the Supreme Court.
      - throwawaz6729 10y ago
        can you talk abut why "if they did want to conscript all young men" it means that they are subject to involuntary draft currently? What I mean is that it would take a positive action to instate a draft, right? Would it be harder legally to "want to conscript all people (men and women)"? What I mean is even though women are not registered for selective service, if you were to "enable" conscription couldn't you just also require that they register? If this is the case isn't it fair to say instead of "men are subject to involuntary draft" it is more accurate to say "men are one record-keeping action closer to an involuntary draft"? If there's a bigger difference I'd like to understand that difference.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
    "Men have to get drafted!!!" is one of those tells that indicate that a person using it does not have any actual good arguments.
  - CydeWeys 10y ago
    > That's as ridiculous as when some people equate rape with drunk sex or sexual harassment with catcalling. It really reduces the the victims of actual crimes (rape, harassment, and apartheid). I don't think you have any clue how bad women have it in Saudi Arabia, or you wouldn't be denigrating them as "not actual victims". Here's a hint: There are no prohibitions against statutory rape or marital rape. In other rape situations, the woman is more likely to face punishment for speaking about it than her rapist is. Women also cannot drive, vote, or travel freely in public alone, and must always be wearing clothing that covers them from head to toe lest they be harassed by religious police and scores of men. If your argument is that we shouldn't be calling the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia "gender apartheid" because it isn't really all that bad, then you're just flat out wrong.
    - sydneysider 10y ago
      Women not driving can't always be a bad thing can it? ;)
    - golergka 10y ago
      > If your argument is that we shouldn't be calling the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia "gender apartheid" because it isn't really all that bad, then you're just flat out wrong. I don't think that anyone argues about shades of wrong here. The argument is about the word "apartheid" because it actually denotes something much more exact than "being a dick to some group of people".
    - hk__2 10y ago
      Just FYI women can vote in Saudi Arabia but only for municipal elections and only since 2015: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-15052030 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-15052030
    - Spivak 10y ago
      Women in Saudi Arabia live absolutely shitty lives at the hands of their male oppressors and the parent isn't disputing that. That doesn't make it apartheid. The only purpose of trying to redefine apartheid to refer their situation is because it's a scary word that has more universally negative connotations. "Women in Saudi Arabia are currently the victims of an ongoing genocide" A genocide of their freedom and liberty as individuals. We can do better than this kind of rhetoric -- it's already horrifying on its own, there's no point in trying to associate it with other terrible, unrelated acts in history.
  - elcapitan 10y ago
    At least they didn't call it gender holocaust. Or maybe that also exists and the proof is the wikipedia article.
    - themartorana 10y ago
      Maybe if the point was to impart on an audience that millions of women in SA are being rounded up and slaughtered, it would be a good term. Like, it's a great way to describe what happened in Rwanda.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    This "drunk sex = rape" thing is just BS though isn't it? From the same source as the propaganda about Christmas being banned or Obama being a secret Muslim. It's so obviously untrue it only acts as a shibboleth.
    - orangecat 10y ago
      This "drunk sex = rape" thing is just BS though isn't it? Sadly no. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33751/occidental-justice-case/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33751/occidental-justi... is a recent example, and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-r-marsh/why-college-drunk-sex-rap_b_5352121.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-r-marsh/why-college-drun... is a "victim's rights advocate" literally arguing that all drunk sex is rape.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        The piece you link does not stake out radical territory. The core point is this: Consenting to one type of sexual interaction does not mean you consent to everything else. Even assuming that the victim did voluntarily and knowingly remove her clothes, this in no way means she consented to a kiss, let alone full-blown sexual intercourse. Consent is an ongoing process. Even if she had initially consented to engage in sexual activity, any subsequent request to stop needed to be respected. Otherwise, that’s rape. It nicely avoids the semantic fuzziness invoked by "drunk", which might mean different things to different people.
      - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
        Your first link includes this description: "He would later describe that night as the drunkest he's ever been, and a neighbor from down the hall would describe his level of intoxication as a "shitshow." He was "slurring his words, stumbling over the others when he got up." That kind of drunk." The girl involved was, by independant reports, about the same level. Both had vomited repeatedly(!) as a result of their level of intoxication. This is far away from the bizarrely popular notion that any sexual activity after a couple of beers is considered rape. If either of these people had ended up having sex with someone who was sober, then that person would clearly have been taking advantage of them in their compromised state. The only reason it's any kind of gray area is because both people appear to have been utterly out of it, and it seems the only reason that this particular case got picked up was because the college had a history of ignoring and downplaying sexual assults and rapes to such a degree they were getting sued over it.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- catwithribbon 10y ago
  As someone who lived through apartheid that's just silly.
  - CydeWeys 10y ago
    Being a woman in Saudi Arabia today is worse than being a black man in apartheid South Africa. How is the phrase "gender apartheid" silly?
    - catwithribbon 10y ago
      The 'apart' in apartheid refers to separation. Black people were forced to live in different areas to white people. Unless women are forced to live apart from men and in different areas it's not the same thing.
      - CydeWeys 10y ago
        Women actually are separated from men in public areas in Saudi Arabia, so even with applying a strict nitpicky interpretation, the usage is accurate. More generally, though, don't you realize how badly it comes off when we're talking about a truly terrible situation for millions of people, and the only contribution you can offer is some semantic nitpicking? Do you really think that is being helpful or productive? Pick your battles, man.
        Karunamon 10y ago
        Down this path lay the destruction of meaning. Do you realize that you've just argued that anything can mean anything, definitions and objectivity no longer matter providing the circumstances are serious enough? We're sitting here talking on a discussion board. The readership of this site in general is not in a position to do anything about the fucked up situation in Saudi Arabia. We are in a position to do something about people (arguably) misusing language in our own back yard.
        catwithribbon 10y ago
        It's not a nitpicky interpretation. Apartheid was a specific system in South Africa where different groups were not allowed to live in the same areas or sleep under the same roof or marry among many other restrictions. I don't think you realise how badly it comes off to someone who lived through apartheid to see the term being applied so casually to something very different due to vague similarities. Just because it's a horrible situation doesn't mean it's apartheid. Apartheid died in the 90's and was actually named 'apartheid'. When I mention apartheid to someone the response shouldn't be 'which one?'
seivan 10y ago
Women have less rights than men there. But yeah the real problem is words being thrown around about a nation that still beheads people. That's the real problem and you're okay with emphasizing that problem more the fact that the other issues stated on say Wikipedia about Saudi.
- WaxProlix 10y ago
  We electrocute people to death, or sometimes inject them with various poisons. Doesn't seem too materially different in that regard.
  - zo1 10y ago
    It's not materially different until you consider the "crimes" that those people committed. In most normal places, that's usually something very severe such as murder which is one of the worst crimes a human individual can commit. Can you say the same of Saudi Arabia and its executions?
    - WaxProlix 10y ago
      Obviously I don't think so, but just saying "they behead people!" seems a bit disingenuous.
- gkya 10y ago
  > But yeah the real problem is words being thrown around about a nation that still beheads people. How are being beheaded or executed with lethal injection different? They are one of the few states that retain the right to kill their own people left today, among the US, Japan, Iran, Belarus, China, etc. Further, Saudi Arabia is a kingdom, not a nation. Its political system was installed by the occidentals after WWI. For women, yes, they have less rights de jure, but de facto, we don't know that very well. After all, different people have different cultures, and if we do not respect that, where is the demos in democracy then?
  - anonymfus 10y ago
mrkgnao 10y ago
> Are they forbidden from marrying each other. That's one thing we don't have to worry about any time soon.
dang 10y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510341 and marked it off-topic.

dukoid 10y ago

You may also want to fix the corresponding Wikipedia article then: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_apartheid#Saudi_Arabia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_apartheid#Saudi_Arabia

tomp 10y ago
> The term gender apartheid refers to the economic and social sexual discrimination against individuals because of their gender or sex. I hate these post-modern redefinitions of terms. By this definition, US is gender apartheid (men are subject to involuntary draft), as well as the UK and many other EU countries (men have to work longer to get pension). That's as ridiculous as when some people equate rape with drunk sex or sexual harassment with catcalling. It really reduces the the victims of actual crimes (rape, harassment, and apartheid).
- afshin 10y ago
  When social and political phenomena are examined more closely, they need classification and designation. Disliking a new term for an old or previously unexamined phenomenon seems curmudgeonly.
  - tomp 10y ago
    No, I disagree. I think it makes sense to use different terms for normal, reasonable, moral behavior (draft, drunken sex), and for objectionable, inexcusable behavior (apartheid, rape).
- blowski 10y ago
  Apartheid refers to the idea of 'separateness', the state treating a particular group differently in a significant number of ways purely because of some identifying characteristic. Clearly, there are ways in which all states do this and for different reasons. Men having to work longer to get a pension is a historical relic, and one which most countries are moving away from. The laws covering conscription in the US also date back to the early 1980s. Since there has been no involuntary draft since the 1970s, it has hardly had an effect on life for most Americans. Compare this to Saudi Arabia where women continue to be severely punished for breaking laws that apply only to women, have much curtailed rights compared to men, and clearly have very 'separate' lives to men in Saudi Arabia. Whether you call it segregation, apartheid, or whatever you want - there is much greater gender inequality in Saudi Arabia than there is in most of the EU and USA. Women in Saudia Arabia are subject to severe repression, in the same way that blacks suffered from severe repression in South Africa during the Apartheid era, and in a way that few people could genuinely complain in the USA or EU.
  - tomp 10y ago
    Yeah, I agree completely with you. SA is much worse than US (incomparable, really). That's exactly why I'm objecting to using the same term for both. Or rather, I think Wikipedia's definition is... fucked.
- throwawaz6729 10y ago
  x
  - blowski 10y ago
    You have to sign up for "Selective Service" so that, if suddenly the US government did want to conscript all young men, they have a record of who's eligible. Only men are required (and are even allowed) to sign up for Selective Service. As you can imagine, some politicians do everything they can to maintain the status quo, while others try to get the legislation banned by the Supreme Court.
    - throwawaz6729 10y ago
      can you talk abut why "if they did want to conscript all young men" it means that they are subject to involuntary draft currently? What I mean is that it would take a positive action to instate a draft, right? Would it be harder legally to "want to conscript all people (men and women)"? What I mean is even though women are not registered for selective service, if you were to "enable" conscription couldn't you just also require that they register? If this is the case isn't it fair to say instead of "men are subject to involuntary draft" it is more accurate to say "men are one record-keeping action closer to an involuntary draft"? If there's a bigger difference I'd like to understand that difference.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
  "Men have to get drafted!!!" is one of those tells that indicate that a person using it does not have any actual good arguments.
- CydeWeys 10y ago
  > That's as ridiculous as when some people equate rape with drunk sex or sexual harassment with catcalling. It really reduces the the victims of actual crimes (rape, harassment, and apartheid). I don't think you have any clue how bad women have it in Saudi Arabia, or you wouldn't be denigrating them as "not actual victims". Here's a hint: There are no prohibitions against statutory rape or marital rape. In other rape situations, the woman is more likely to face punishment for speaking about it than her rapist is. Women also cannot drive, vote, or travel freely in public alone, and must always be wearing clothing that covers them from head to toe lest they be harassed by religious police and scores of men. If your argument is that we shouldn't be calling the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia "gender apartheid" because it isn't really all that bad, then you're just flat out wrong.
  - sydneysider 10y ago
    Women not driving can't always be a bad thing can it? ;)
  - golergka 10y ago
    > If your argument is that we shouldn't be calling the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia "gender apartheid" because it isn't really all that bad, then you're just flat out wrong. I don't think that anyone argues about shades of wrong here. The argument is about the word "apartheid" because it actually denotes something much more exact than "being a dick to some group of people".
  - hk__2 10y ago
    Just FYI women can vote in Saudi Arabia but only for municipal elections and only since 2015: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-15052030 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-15052030
  - Spivak 10y ago
    Women in Saudi Arabia live absolutely shitty lives at the hands of their male oppressors and the parent isn't disputing that. That doesn't make it apartheid. The only purpose of trying to redefine apartheid to refer their situation is because it's a scary word that has more universally negative connotations. "Women in Saudi Arabia are currently the victims of an ongoing genocide" A genocide of their freedom and liberty as individuals. We can do better than this kind of rhetoric -- it's already horrifying on its own, there's no point in trying to associate it with other terrible, unrelated acts in history.
- elcapitan 10y ago
  At least they didn't call it gender holocaust. Or maybe that also exists and the proof is the wikipedia article.
  - themartorana 10y ago
    Maybe if the point was to impart on an audience that millions of women in SA are being rounded up and slaughtered, it would be a good term. Like, it's a great way to describe what happened in Rwanda.
- ZeroGravitas 10y ago
  This "drunk sex = rape" thing is just BS though isn't it? From the same source as the propaganda about Christmas being banned or Obama being a secret Muslim. It's so obviously untrue it only acts as a shibboleth.
  - orangecat 10y ago
    This "drunk sex = rape" thing is just BS though isn't it? Sadly no. http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33751/occidental-justice-case/ http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33751/occidental-justi... is a recent example, and http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-r-marsh/why-college-drunk-sex-rap_b_5352121.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-r-marsh/why-college-drun... is a "victim's rights advocate" literally arguing that all drunk sex is rape.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      The piece you link does not stake out radical territory. The core point is this: Consenting to one type of sexual interaction does not mean you consent to everything else. Even assuming that the victim did voluntarily and knowingly remove her clothes, this in no way means she consented to a kiss, let alone full-blown sexual intercourse. Consent is an ongoing process. Even if she had initially consented to engage in sexual activity, any subsequent request to stop needed to be respected. Otherwise, that’s rape. It nicely avoids the semantic fuzziness invoked by "drunk", which might mean different things to different people.
    - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
      Your first link includes this description: "He would later describe that night as the drunkest he's ever been, and a neighbor from down the hall would describe his level of intoxication as a "shitshow." He was "slurring his words, stumbling over the others when he got up." That kind of drunk." The girl involved was, by independant reports, about the same level. Both had vomited repeatedly(!) as a result of their level of intoxication. This is far away from the bizarrely popular notion that any sexual activity after a couple of beers is considered rape. If either of these people had ended up having sex with someone who was sober, then that person would clearly have been taking advantage of them in their compromised state. The only reason it's any kind of gray area is because both people appear to have been utterly out of it, and it seems the only reason that this particular case got picked up was because the college had a history of ignoring and downplaying sexual assults and rapes to such a degree they were getting sued over it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
catwithribbon 10y ago
As someone who lived through apartheid that's just silly.
- CydeWeys 10y ago
  Being a woman in Saudi Arabia today is worse than being a black man in apartheid South Africa. How is the phrase "gender apartheid" silly?
  - catwithribbon 10y ago
    The 'apart' in apartheid refers to separation. Black people were forced to live in different areas to white people. Unless women are forced to live apart from men and in different areas it's not the same thing.
    - CydeWeys 10y ago
      Women actually are separated from men in public areas in Saudi Arabia, so even with applying a strict nitpicky interpretation, the usage is accurate. More generally, though, don't you realize how badly it comes off when we're talking about a truly terrible situation for millions of people, and the only contribution you can offer is some semantic nitpicking? Do you really think that is being helpful or productive? Pick your battles, man.
      - Karunamon 10y ago
        Down this path lay the destruction of meaning. Do you realize that you've just argued that anything can mean anything, definitions and objectivity no longer matter providing the circumstances are serious enough? We're sitting here talking on a discussion board. The readership of this site in general is not in a position to do anything about the fucked up situation in Saudi Arabia. We are in a position to do something about people (arguably) misusing language in our own back yard.
      - catwithribbon 10y ago
        It's not a nitpicky interpretation. Apartheid was a specific system in South Africa where different groups were not allowed to live in the same areas or sleep under the same roof or marry among many other restrictions. I don't think you realise how badly it comes off to someone who lived through apartheid to see the term being applied so casually to something very different due to vague similarities. Just because it's a horrible situation doesn't mean it's apartheid. Apartheid died in the 90's and was actually named 'apartheid'. When I mention apartheid to someone the response shouldn't be 'which one?'

seivan 10y ago

Women have less rights than men there. But yeah the real problem is words being thrown around about a nation that still beheads people. That's the real problem and you're okay with emphasizing that problem more the fact that the other issues stated on say Wikipedia about Saudi.

WaxProlix 10y ago
We electrocute people to death, or sometimes inject them with various poisons. Doesn't seem too materially different in that regard.
- zo1 10y ago
  It's not materially different until you consider the "crimes" that those people committed. In most normal places, that's usually something very severe such as murder which is one of the worst crimes a human individual can commit. Can you say the same of Saudi Arabia and its executions?
  - WaxProlix 10y ago
    Obviously I don't think so, but just saying "they behead people!" seems a bit disingenuous.
gkya 10y ago
> But yeah the real problem is words being thrown around about a nation that still beheads people. How are being beheaded or executed with lethal injection different? They are one of the few states that retain the right to kill their own people left today, among the US, Japan, Iran, Belarus, China, etc. Further, Saudi Arabia is a kingdom, not a nation. Its political system was installed by the occidentals after WWI. For women, yes, they have less rights de jure, but de facto, we don't know that very well. After all, different people have different cultures, and if we do not respect that, where is the demos in democracy then?
- anonymfus 10y ago

mrkgnao 10y ago

> Are they forbidden from marrying each other. That's one thing we don't have to worry about any time soon.

dang 10y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510341 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11510341 and marked it off-topic.