*This House Believes that State Sponsored Sexism should be Considered Apatheid*

Actual motion of debate ran a couple of weeks ago which got me thinking.

Before beginning, just some terms to define and clarify (yes I can see the debaters' eyes rolling). Just so I reduce the number of flames and hate mail, I'm going to exclude the issue affirmative action and quotas for the under privileged gender (whether male or female) though I'm personally against them.

So what I wanted to run (if I had been opening government) was to argue that state sponsored sexism i.e. disenfranchisment of women, female genital mutilation (FGM - Go read up on it if you don't know what it means, should open your eyes), tacit acceptance of honour killings should not have the protection of labels like cultural soveriegnty and a prevention of imperialism by the International Community. So like Apatheid, the rest of the world should take a firm stance and through the use of sanctions and diplomatic pressure force such states to at the very least begin the process of integrating women into their society.

I grant that such a process is fraught with difficulty, if not danger itself, but I think that it's time to take a firmer stance than to close an eye to the plight of women around the world who are forced into situations that WE would not accept in our place.

Recuring fantasy: Going on a vigilante operation and doing onto the morality police everywhere what they do to their victims e.g. acid burns, killings, flogging etc. And then break their joints and throw them onto the streets...