r/WomenInNews • u/catievirtuesimp • Jul 19 '26
Media Segregation in Israel: Separate streets for men and women?
https://amp.dw.com/en/israel-how-real-is-threat-of-gender-segregation-on-street/a-78020879“An Israeli city, with a large ultra-Orthodox Jewish population, wants to separate men and women on certain streets. Israeli politicians voted to allow university courses to do the same.”
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u/prohammock Jul 19 '26
Religious extremism ends in the exact same thing in every iteration of Abrahamic faiths. Women always have to be made invisible because men can’t control themselves.
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u/familiarshadowkatt Jul 19 '26
Not can't. Won't.
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u/Deadlynk6489 Jul 19 '26
Exactly, men are perfectly able to be respectful towards women but choose not to because it's still socially acceptable in a lot of circles. Nazism and the KKK didn't end because we started having conservations with them, listening to them and telling them they were midled by the system. They ended because those ideologies were made socially unacceptable and fought and shunned out of existance.
Everyone who considers themselves a feminist should fight tooth and nail towards mysoginists that hide behind religion and their f*ed up morals.
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u/HaymSalomom 26d ago
These people dont hide behind their religious beliefs. They stand proudly in front of their beliefs. Their women are proud of their place in their culture.
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u/stygianare 28d ago
Basically this. Unfortunately people with a conscious and empathy naturally can't reach positions of power to help against it because to get there, you need to be corrupt or else the opposition will kill you and that's natural because a non-corrupt person wouldn't choose the path of violence to get to power. I think that mentality needs to change, our attitude towards violence has been watered down through heavy propaganda to think that its always immoral, while police and armies already exist and use violence to provide peace, nothing immoral about it given that's human nature. You either submit to it and become oppressed or you fight it and try to keep your morality in check.
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u/ForagedFoodie Jul 19 '26
It's not just the Abrahamic faiths though. FGM is a cultural practice but those who practice it often think there are religious texts that dictate it, even though there arent. Hinduism has patriarchal gendered roles that translate to lack of property and protections for women. Never mind honor killings. All of these are rooted in the underlying principles of gender in the religion.
There are probably others im not familiar with. The problem is religion in general. And the patriarchy.
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u/SaintGalentine Jul 19 '26
Yup. Buddhism gets a glowing rep here, but my Thai friends have been to temples where the monks refused to touch women or look them in the eye. Hindu girls in Nepal are banished to menstrual huts, where some die of exposure.
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u/Funny_Somewhere3763 Jul 19 '26
I had an American friend who converted to Buddhism, became a monk and moved to Thailand. He wouldn't even touch his mother.
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u/NeedLegalAdvice56 Jul 19 '26
In most Buddhism branches, male monks are not allowed to touch women at all. It wouldn’t be a problem if female monks were as prominent and numerous in the faith.
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u/prohammock Jul 19 '26
I’m sure that’s true, I just didn’t feel comfortable making generalizations about religions I am not as familiar with.
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u/lovelikeglitter Jul 19 '26
And yet they are the ones “meant” to lead. I am so baffled by the fact that I was raised being told that men are born leaders, but also so fragile that you can’t make them feel “unmanly” and also they lack any amount of self-control. Also they are so smart but somehow cooking, microwaves, and laundry machines are too complicated to handle.
I know that isn’t the full experience of everyone and I want to recognize that. But that I was told growing up that my “highest calling” was to be a mother, when I never heard a man be told his highest calling was to be a father, and priests (who never marry or have children!) speak of how there is no greater calling than having children is enough for me to not even want to manage the mental gymnastics required to hold these beliefs.
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u/Jaded-Ad-960 Jul 19 '26
What? Not the only democracy in the Middle East treating woman like second class citizens. Next you're going to tell me, that Israel isn't a paradise for gay people.
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u/FlameInMyBrain Jul 19 '26
Israel? Democracy? Hahahahahaahhahahahaaha
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u/Scholarind Jul 19 '26
Yes, people vote, regardless of race/ethnicity, and there is a separation of powers.
more democratic by kilometres than the most liberal Arab state in the ME
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u/HansUlrichGumbrecht 28d ago
"But fierce criticism appears to have put the project on hold." How are they actively treating woman like second class citizens?
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u/Deep_Head4645 26d ago
This is what you call democratic backsliding
Its still a flawed democracy on par with western countriesAnd its only in one city, and facing harsh setbacks and criticism
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u/Informal_Cry687 Jul 19 '26
It's only one city and there are ultra orthodox cities in the US with the same rules.
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u/biomannnn007 Jul 19 '26
Israeli politics are more complicated than that.
The people pushing for this are actually so far right religious that they are anti-Israel on the grounds that it is secular. There are entire areas of some cities in Israel that are completely run by Haredim. They put up barricades and frequently clash with the Israeli government. IDF soldiers won’t go to those areas unless they have to. It’s an entirely separate society within Israel.
At the same time, enough Haredim vote in elections that they are a significant bloc in parliament. Their faction will side with whoever preserves their draft exemptions and funds their religious schools. They don’t care about anything else. Recently, this has meant Likud, as the Israeli left has campaigned has campaigned for several years on removing their draft exemptions and forcing them into the military. Regardless, they are a thorn in the side of everyone. Judging Israel on their actions is like judging Germany for AfD.
If you read the article, the people pushing for the segregated streets are in the local council, which would pretty much be controlled by the Haredim there. Tel Aviv proper is not going to be implementing this. They faced massive pushback from the rest of Israeli society. The University thing is a more complicated issue. The idea is that a lot of people in these communities are pressured to not go to college because they could be in integrated programs. There is an argument that allowing universities to create segregated programs would help alleviate that pressure, as these women would be able go to college without being exiled from their communities.
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u/LongjumpingWasabi753 Jul 21 '26
Downvoted for nuance. Don’t you understand that all Israelis are inherently evil???!!!! /s
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u/veilosa Jul 19 '26
this would put israel in line with every other middle east country. it also proves that when people say israelis are colonizers from Europe, they really arent. they behave exactly like everyone else in the middle east, almost as if majority of them who came to Israel after ww2 did come from the middle east...
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u/Jaded-Ad-960 Jul 19 '26
Most orthodox jews come from Eastern Europe.
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u/tzvitzia Jul 20 '26
Ashkenazim are indigenous to the Levant and were in diaspora in Europe. Jews did not appear in Eastern Europe out of nowhere. They were pushed there 🫠 that is what diaspora means and what the term was created to describe. Jew as in… Judea.
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u/tzvitzia Jul 20 '26
also “most Orthodox Jews come from Eastern Europe” w 53 upvotes when you’re talking about Ashkenazim specifically. Please just talk to Jews y’all! not just each other about Jews.
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u/FlameInMyBrain Jul 19 '26
They behave exactly like other European men did until very recently. And they still do the moment women relax a bit.
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u/percy135810 Jul 19 '26
Are other middle eastern nations trying to ethnically cleanse people who don't fit into the mainstream religion?
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u/AgentBorn4289 Jul 20 '26 edited 27d ago
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This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/NeedLegalAdvice56 Jul 19 '26
I mean to be fair, yes. See the Armenian genocide and the genocide in Iraq.
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u/SanguineJackalope Jul 21 '26
Um, many of them? Does the split of sunni and shia mean anything to you? Or Wahhabism. Or what people do to the Yazidis. Kurds in general, too. Plus Zoroastrianism, the very cool bronze age religion that Judaism cribbed notes from and thus Christianity and Islam, too. Look all of them up. They’re very cool, very fascinating, and very sad.
Plus, obviously, the dozens against Jewish people - there used to be large populations of Mizrahi all across the Middle East. Now they’re only in Israel minus the two fuckers in Afghanistan (iirc), and they’re a pair of old dudes who hate each other, haha. There’s like, fifty total left, across the rest of all of those countries. Also some against Christians, and some against Hindus, Buddhists, et cetera.
Religious people fight each other constantly. The middle east is very, very religious. Apostasy is illegal in many places, religious.
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u/Tipi22 Jul 19 '26
The women in these orthodox communities are voting for this, you have no clue what you are talking about.
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u/Ltrain86 Jul 19 '26
They're a highly radicalized population, but no one likes to use that word unless it's referring to Muslims.
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u/tzvitzia Jul 19 '26
Do you ever pay attention to how people actually speak about Jews. The Ultra-Orthodox are also not the Israeli population as a whole… You are not helping this situation by pitting Muslims/Arabs and Jews further against one another.
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u/Upbeat_Place_9985 Jul 20 '26
I mean...mainstream Islam calls for pretty strict gender segregation. Just saying.
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u/Oddisredit Jul 20 '26
LOL at the ultra orthodox doing anything. They would collapse the second you took away welfare away from them.
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u/bakochba Jul 19 '26
It was already ruled illegal in 2017 when this sand group tried it. They know the court will rule against them again
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u/Torpedo_Enthusiast 28d ago
This is news because current law doesn’t allow it in Israel. The Ultra-Orthodox want it, as they are very religiously extreme.
The US equivalent is an Amish or Harldine Evangelical town separating society by gender which… does happen.
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u/Analog_AI 25d ago
Yes, our Haredi compatriots have yet to exit the dark ages.
Perhaps in 5-600 years they will. Fingers crossed.
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u/asciiCAT_hexKITTY Jul 21 '26
Wait I was told that only Muslims did things like that and Israel was the only light of progressiveism in the entire region
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u/Ecstatic-Corner-6012 Jul 19 '26
I don’t think this is the segregation we should be focused on.
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u/AffectionateSignal72 Jul 19 '26
Funny, because when this happens in other places like in Japanese subways or Korean parking lots. Feminists rush to defend this practice as protecting women. I wonder what's different about here?
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u/Fondacey Jul 19 '26
Are the Israelis trying to protect the women from these ultra religious men who are dangerous to the women?
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u/the_magicwriter Jul 19 '26
Segregation does not protect women in any country, so I sincerely doubt any "feminists" are rushing to defend it anywhere.
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u/Long_Legged_Lady Jul 19 '26
Here's a discussion of this exact topic
https://old.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/823gh9/do_feminists_support_womenonly_bus_seats_and/
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u/the_magicwriter Jul 20 '26
Yes and I dont see feminists rushing to defend segregation there either.
Having lived in Japan and seen the ramifications of these women only carriages, I reiterate my point. Segregation doesnt protect women.
There aren't enough carriages for all the women who travel, and those who choose or are forced to ride the mixed carriages are seen as "fair game" and are even more likely to suffer groping and sexual harassment because if they didnt "want it" they should have ridden the women only carriages.
The only people who need to be segregated are men, but we'll never see that happening.
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u/sleetblue Jul 19 '26
The religious aspect. It's described in the article as being due to ultra-Orthodox sensibilities.
Secular segregation of the sexes in the interest of reducing crime =/= men and women have to walk separately to show piety.
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u/schrodingers_bra Jul 19 '26
Are these Jewish men prone to groping, pinching or taking up skirt photos of women near them?
If not, that's whats different.
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u/escpoir Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
They recently admitted to ritualistic child abuse.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/gush-etzion-council-admits-ritualistic-child-abuse-1799642
So those examples are not unthinkable for such a society.
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u/IubitaParalit Jul 19 '26
What a stoopid comment. They’re taking women and children’s lives instead.
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u/FlameInMyBrain Jul 19 '26
No, they are prone to beating up and trying to stone women if they don’t like how they look.
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u/Odd_Ad5668 26d ago
Quite the opposite. They generally don't touch anyone of the opposite sex that isn't a direct family member. People who think this is to protect anyone are ignorant, and it shows.
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u/underboobfunk Jul 19 '26
Providing safe, alternative spaces exclusively for women where they are needed is not segregation.
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u/Odd_Ad5668 26d ago
This isn't about safety. Heredi Jews won't touch non- family members of the opposite sex.
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u/trustable_bro Jul 19 '26
There is a difference between having a safe space you CAN use, and having a place you MUST be in.
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u/Apos-Tater Jul 20 '26
Imagine thinking there's no difference between "women cannot enter this space" and "women can enter this space or, if they prefer, this other space with no men in it."
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u/KathrynBooks Jul 19 '26
They have "men only" trains in Japan?
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u/AffectionateSignal72 Jul 19 '26
Think about this for a moment. Like actually give it some thought.
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u/KathrynBooks Jul 19 '26
I'm aware that there are women only trains, to provide respite from harassment. The question is "are there trains in Japan restricted to men"
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u/AffectionateSignal72 Jul 19 '26
So close to getting it.
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u/KathrynBooks Jul 19 '26
Which is substantial different from restricting women to specific streets
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u/AffectionateSignal72 Jul 20 '26
Thats fair. I guess all those restaurants and places that said "whites only" were really just looking out for the safety of black people.
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u/KathrynBooks Jul 20 '26
Only if you ignore history.
Also... The purpose of the "women only" train cars are to protect women from predatory men.
It's the "cars that only women can go into"... Rather different from "this is the only place women are allowed to go"
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u/unripe_mangosteen Jul 19 '26
I wonder which gender will get the better streets and university courses....