Usually when someone mentions "apartheid" in the context of Israel, it involves the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis. But there is a different form of apartheid that is growing in Israel, one that is just as dangerous but which isn't getting the attention it deserves: gender apartheid.
Because of the growing power of misogynistic ultra-Orthodox Jews, women are increasingly being pushed out of the public eye. The impact is most obvious in Jerusalem, but the impact has even reached into the military and it is spreading.
Posters depicting women have become rare in the streets of Israel's capital. In some areas, women have been shunted onto separate sidewalks, and buses and health clinics have been gender-segregated. The military has considered reassigning some female combat soldiers because religious men don't want to serve with them.
This is the new reality in parts of 21st-century Israel, where ultra-Orthodox rabbis are trying to contain the encroachment of secular values on their cloistered society through a fierce backlash against the mixing of the sexes in public.
Some supermarkets in ultra-Orthodox communities, once content to urge women patrons to dress modestly with long-sleeved blouses and long skirts, have now assigned separate hours for men and women - another practice seen in ultra-Orthodox communities in the U.S. Some health clinics have separate entrances and waiting rooms for men and women.
Meni Shwartz-Gera, an ultra-Orthodox journalist, says strict observance of modesty is a pillar of ultra-Orthodox Judaism and is being "wickedly" misrepresented as demeaning to women. People who dislike it can choose different options like supermarkets without special hours for men and women, he said.
"The purpose is not to denigrate women," he said.
Source: Statesman
So, if blacks and whites were given different shopping time and different entrances because whites didn't want to mix with blacks, would that not be denigrating? What if Christians in America forced Jews to shop at special times and use special entrances, would they think that is denigrating? What if Christians in America insisted that Jews not appear on billboards, use different sidewalks, and sit in the back of the bus?
The only people who don't see that as denigrating are those who aren't being segregated out for worse treatment. This is the same attitude that lies behind the efforts in Saudi Arabia to remove women from the public sphere because their presence "tempts" men. The men who don't suffer negative consequences don't see the problem.
Aside from not losing anything, they actually gain social, political, and cultural power. Of course they are happy with the developments. Their lot improves and even men on the lowest rungs of the economic or social ladder are still higher up than the women, thus allowing them to feel superior to half the population.
Only men who have nothing worthwhile in their lives to feel proud about need that kind of ego boost. It's not a coincidence, I think, that the Haredi men who are biggest agitators behind this problem don't work, don't participate in the military, and just depend on public assistance so they can spend all their time studying religious texts. In other words, they don't do anything worthwhile in their lives and they spend a lot of time trying to assert false superiority over women.
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