Women: What is your opinion on Israel's segregation of the sexes on some bus lines?

Question

Ultra conservative Jewish Haredi men do not feel comfortable sitting next to women on the bus.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/944537.html

Note:

This is the same justification used to deny men entrance to all-female gyms. They don't feel comfortable working out in front of men.

If you feel that the Israeli situation is sexist against women, explain how it's not sexist against men to deny entry to a gym because women don't feel comfortable.

Answer 1

this is a religious issue, so i don't see how one can compare the two. I can't say i agree with the religious custom, but it is their custom and dates back thousands of years.  

Answer 2

The only possible angle to argue is that a gym is a private business  - you must buy a membership to attend - while a bus line is public transportation.

Answer 3

That's the "traditional" way.  Feminists strive to change those ways of other people's pet "morals"  and sensibilities being imposed onto the public.  Conservative religious freaks try constantly to impose their sexist beliefs onto the public sector.  For example, when women began publically to breastfeed their babies in the U.S., it was conservative anti-feminist religious freaks who got upset and called that an obscenity and demanded that those women be arrested for public indecency.  You should have been alive during "Blue Laws" in which the Christian demi-god in each U.S. county got to determine what people could or could not buy on Sundays, based on what the Bible said people should be doing on Sundays. lol.  What religious people do in their own homes and places of worship are their right.  But, in democracies using MY taxes, no one has the right to special treatment in the public sector based on religious "sensibilities".  If the Orthodox Jews wanted to purchase and operate their own buslines with their own money, that would be different and anyone "accidentally" boarding those buses should follow the rules on those buses.  As for Muslim women wanting female-only gym time, I agree in principle that there is equal sexism in that but what most people leave out is the long-standing tradition in place everywhere of all-male gyms.  I think the issue made at Harvard was basically anti-Muslim sentiment more than a cry of sexism and then it was picked up by whiny "injustice collectors" who resent women in general.

Answer 4

It's a religious issue - women are considered impure when in certain states (such as menstruating) within both Jewish and Muslim beliefs.

It has very little to do with inequality between the sexes and more to do with adherence to religious and cultural teachings. I may not agree with certain aspects of the teachings, however I respect them.  

Answer 5

I think that the liberals ideas of unisex dressing rooms in department stores should be abolished and made illegal.

Your last point is valid, as well.

Answer 6

As long as both are treated with respect, what is wrong with women being women and men being men? We are different.  

Answer 7

I was on a train to Brooklyn in filled with orthodox Jews. Across from me were 3 orthodox Jewish women with children. 1 child dropped a toy and none of the orthodox men picked it up for the mother, so I decided I would... The one woman thanked me, but the other 2 women gave me the dirtiest look. I don't know what the rules are on gender separation, but I suspect the women of this community also approve of this separation.

Also, the bus segregation is voluntary. 2 buses run on the same line, one segregated, one not. Up to you to choose which bus to take.

Answer 8

It's the same thing; now, the shoe is on the other foot.

Answer 9

I am not sure how one could condone either one.