Istanbul Convention - Symbol of Cultural Division of Europe

The so called "Istanbul Convention" once seemed relatively uncontroversial: a 25-page document meant to reduce violence against women across Europe. 

But a decade later, the initiative, known as the Istanbul Convention, has unexpectedly become a proxy fight for the larger culture battles brewing between East and Western Europe. 

One by one, Eastern European countries are turning their back on the document, claiming it will erode their version of "family values."

 Turkey, which hosted the convention that produced the document, will withdraw from the convention on July 1. Poland has signaled it is questioning the agreement. Other European countries, like Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, signed the document, but haven't translated its provisions into law. 

The backlash centers on a semantic dispute that was not the main focus for the document's authors 10 years ago: how, exactly, to define "gender." To a crop of increasingly socially conservative European leaders, the document's definition is a surreptitious means to erode distinctions between men and women and "normalize" homosexuality. To the rest, the issue is not the definition, but what they see as a politically motivated interpretation spread using disinformation.

The division is a concerning development to many European officials and women's rights advocates, raising questions about the Continent's ability to effectively protect against gender-based violence and driving a further wedge between progressive and conservative forces in Europe. In the process, they warned, women's lives are being put at risk.

"This is not just against the Istanbul Convention, it is also an anti-European, and an anti-EU gesture,"...