pelican "Women and men can be violated in similar ways as the author clearly demonstrates." - one of the things I struugled with is that she seems to be suggesting that it's different rights being violated when men and women end up in the same mass grave. If it's about cultural context then international law and definitions of human rights (which I gathered was a big part of her point) is going to be very hard to frame.

I got the impression that she wanted to focus on differences, did you get a different impression?

R0bert

Pelican it appears to me that many of those posts you didn't approve of were like a mirror. They reflected what they found coming from the article.

What's that old thing about reaping what you sow? Does appear to apply here.

RObert and Pelly,

Did you read the link I gave? I mentioned all those various countries where the culture is male-dominated, women subservient. I think the author of this thread is talking not about women from the gender perspective so much as women in those particular cultures which the world ignores. They're cultures where democratic ideals don't apply.
Where female circumcision, brutal beatings are commonplace. Where forced marriages are a given. If you've read the book, "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali you'd understand where this thread is coming from.
And like Ali - the author of this thread has worked in these areas and she too refuses to be silenced. This is not a gender issue.

I agree Lexi, in that the ideas presented in this article highlight the plight of a very much degraded female population in some of these countries.
It is only asking that women be treated as fairly as the men in those countries, not that they be treated better.
Equality and human rights in countries like those mentioned, means a whole lot more than in countries like Australia, Britain or America.

I feel incredibly angry at the way these poor woman, girls and female babies are treated in some places in the world.
The practice of infanticide of females is particularly abhorrent to me. The act of actually killing many female babies simply because they are female!

And then, when all the lucky boys grow up and try to find a wife, and have trouble, then the practice of kidnapping women from other countries increases.

I strongly believe that unless ALL citizens of a country are given equal rights to property, driving, voting, dressing as they please, having as many children as they please (or none at all), access to abortion and contraception, divorce, freedom of speech, and freedom to travel, to mention just a few, then that country should have sanctions against them.

Lexi I'd not read it but have now.

I do think that there is plenty of evidence in some cultures of atrocious horrifying treatment of people, I agree that there are some practices which seem to single out females (honor killings, FMG and others) but maybe I've got so jaded by the lies and spin used within our culture that I find myself wondering what the rest of the picture is when I read pieces like that.

eg "barely disguise their true meaning: that women's lives matter less than men's" - so what's the premature death rates like for the genders in those parts of the world?

I agreed with a lot of point's, people should not be raped, forced to marry against their will, killed for violating others sexual taboo's, beaten, any reproductive gender selection (Suzie it's not just the killing, it's developing technologies which can or will make it possible to choose the gender of a child), etc.

The author seems to be phrasing the whole thing in terms of a gender issue.

I think the focus on making it women's human rights rather than human rights is a dangerous and probably counter-productive approach. That approach makes it easy to start ignoring the others problems as their problems, rather than human problems.

Suzie's last paragraph is one I can identify with, whilst I remain undecided about how sanctions function I do agree strongly with the goals expressed.

R0bert

Great article! It brings a very interesting discussion on gender and rights and it made me particularly interested in the topic about the Refugee's Convention and its lack of reference regarding gender as ground for persecution.

Have you written any other article that discusses the Refugee's Convention and its lack of gender reference in details? I would like to read more about that!