"Break the silence around rape and violence against women" but don't mention grooming gang rape and violence against girls

[ReleaseTheBats]

The Guardian is at it again.

"Why we need to break the silence around rape and violence against women"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/11/break-silence-rape-violence-women-bosnia-srebrenica#comment-101890889

There is a lot in the article that I don't agree with. For example:

As in Bosnia, the root of these crimes is the dehumanisation of others – the belief that the perpetrator is superior by reason of sex, race or nationality, and has the right to control, humiliate or hurt their victims

It seems odd to leave religion of the list of reasons for perpetrators to believe they are superior and to dehumanise others, particularly in the Bosnian context.

But my issue is with the Guardian moderation of comments. Apparently, under an article about how we need to break the silence about rape and violence against women, posting a comment about breaking the silence in certain sections of the media about recent grooming gang cases (eg Oxford and Huddersfield) will get you deleted.

Could the Guardian get any more hypocritical?

[Fairyflaps]

This is 'Comment is Free' which is a guest writer rather than Guardian team.
Remembering Srebrenica are doing great work with their Breaking the Silence campaign. Locally they have hosted events with the police and local MPs and councils - who don't really get the issue of hate crimes against women, but hopefully these events will help.

[AssignedMentalAtBirth]

Release
"posting a comment about breaking the silence in certain sections of the media about recent grooming gang cases (eg Oxford and Huddersfield) will get you deleted."

Will it? Completely outrageous. But I remember the same during the Cologne attacks. White western women should put up with sexual abuse it seems. And the Guardian was one of the worst. Why are women so utterly irrelevant and unvalued by the left wing ?

[ReleaseTheBats]

I'm glad I'm not alone Assigned.

[OlennasWimple]

Can you imagine any other form of segregation being acceptable for a Labour party rally?

[Terfing]

I i used to subscribe to the Guardian, but I wouldn't give them the steam off my piss these days...

They are a shameful, victim-blaming, misogynistic, publication.

[OlennasWimple]

Me too, Terfing, however much they shake their collecting bucket at the bottom of every web page now...

[MrsTerryPratchett]

"posting a comment about breaking the silence in certain sections of the media about recent grooming gang cases (eg Oxford and Huddersfield) will get you deleted."

I generally agree that The Guardian (and the BBC for that matter) will push any woman under the bus for anyone else. But what kinds of comment are being deleted? Comments that talk about it or comments that say that Islam makes men into rapists? Because I've read both sorts online...

[OlennasWimple]

Fair question, MrsTP

Though you've put your finger on a particular Guardian blind spot: when there's a tension between women's rights and Islam, they invariably choose to support Islam

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I agree. I think it's perfectly possible to point out tensions between culture/religion and sex without sidelining and ignoring one of those groups.

I think The Guardian and the BBC are misogynists. But more than that they are cowards. It's safer to treat women poorly.

[M0stlyBowlingHedgehog]

In my experience, both, MrsTP - the Guardian mods have a knee jerk reaction. A blatantly Islamophobic comment would get deleted, but so too would one which read "While male sexual violence is a problem the world over, including organised male sexual violence (e.g. "pulling a train" at frat parties), taharrush gamea (socially sanctioned sexual harrassment and assault intended to function as corrective rape and limit women's access to the public sphere) is a new phenomenon in Europe and as such deserves more discussion."

The Guardian hates women who don't willingly acquiesce to playing some sex pozzy handmaiden role (with the exception of a small handful of their writers - I still love Hadders!)

[ReleaseTheBats]

But what kinds of comment are being deleted? Comments that talk about it or comments that say that Islam makes men into rapists? Because I've read both sorts online...

Deleting the second type, fine. But I got a comment deleted for saying that part of breaking the silence around rape and violence against women is public acknowledgment and media reporting of recent grooming gang cases (such as the Oxford case currently going through the courts).

The Guardian, as far as I can work out, has not published one article about the major grooming gang court cases in Oxford and Huddersfield (being tried at Leeds Crown Court) in the last year or so.

I didn't mention the Guardian in my comment. I didn't mention Islam or Muslims. I just suggested that the media should cover criminal cases of rape and violence against women, and in this situation specifically girls, whoever the perpetrators of the crimes.

I just don't understand the logic of printing an article about breaking the silence, whilst 1) selectively reporting crimes against women and girls depending how it fits in with their political agenda and 2) deleting comments which attempt to discuss crimes which are not reported by all media.

Good to see I am not alone in being very suspicious of the Guardian worldview. I had actually banned myself from it for quite some time as it was making me too angry, and just thought I'd have a look yesterday. It's getting worse.

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/15247297.OPERATION_NAUTICAL__17_suspects_appear_in_court_accused_of_sex_offences/

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/twenty-nine-people-court-child-12886282

[PoochSmooch]

It's very frustrating and I agree that the Guardian editorial policy is misogynistic and utterly blind to it. It was always my go to paper, but not any more.

However, in balance, I am feeling frustration about the battleground of women's rights being alternatively courted and betrayed by both ends of the political spectrum. I was listening to a podcast this morning (Sam Harris talking to Douglas Murray, because sometimes I like to shout at my phone ) who were both happy to pick up on the issues around the reporting of the Rotheram scandal where it suited to talk about the misogyny of islam, but who manifestly couldn't give much of a shiny shite about women's issues in any other context.

I'm not sure which is worse to be honest - the left winger who earnestly says he is all for women's rights, but then forgets all about them in favour of religious "tolerance", or the right winger who laughs at feminists, but then suddenly has an epiphany on their importance where there's a point to be scored against immigration.

[M0stlyBowlingHedgehog]

I totally agree about the right wing, Pooch. I remember Allison Pearson being very much feted on the Cologne threads for being one of the few journalists to take the situation seriously... except that when you look at her overall output, you find that this isn't what she was doing at all. Basically her articles divide into "rape with brown perpetrator = terrible crime, 'aledged' rape with white perpetrator = victim bears some of the blame for being drunk, dressed in skimpy skirt, I despair for the future of my sons etc. etc., woman in hijab = should be banned..." So she wasn't doing brave campaigning journalism on Cologne (even though heaven knows such journalism badly needed to be done), it was same-old-same-old for her general ideology of "white men first, well-behaved white women trailing in a poor second, everyone else firmly at the bottom of the heap."

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I remember having to go to Breitbart of all bloody places to get news about Cologne. And their coverage was absolutely problematic.

I totally agree that the right uses women to make a point about immigrants and the left throws women under the bus to protect men (who often happen to be immigrants). Both sides are treating women as things; arguing points instead of people.

My rule with this is "did you care before?".

Did you care about male rape before you were making a point about female rape?
Did you care about women before you made a point about sexual harassment by immigrants?
Did you care about intersex people before you made a point about trans people?
Did you care about male victims of DV before you made a point about shelters?

The answer is invariably NO.

[M0stlyBowlingHedgehog]

YY MrsTP. The information vacuum was shocking, and drove one to all sorts of strange sources (though I found the mainstream US papers plus German papers and google translate helped a lot).

What the left don't seem to realise is that this sort of self-censorship is a total own goal. As an editor, you have three choices: firstly, refuse to report at all, because it might stir up racism; second, report, but in a balanced, measured way; third, report in such a way as to deliberately stir up racism. If you go for option one instead of option two (the Graun's editorial policy) you drive people to sources which embrace option three as their editorial policy. Some people will go there with their noses held, able to filter out the information from the racist shite, but others will get sucked in by the racism.

I like your set of tests very much!

[OlennasWimple]

Brilliant tests, MrsTP

[nauticant]

The state of The Guardian depresses me even more than the state of The Telegraph these days. Both of them now read like parodies of themselves.

[MrsTerryPratchett]

but others will get sucked in by the racism and also trust the less racist sources less in future.

I used to think that if Breitbart were reporting something and The Guardian or BBC weren't, then it might be made up. Now I think that Breitbart might be accurate and The Guardian or BBC are deliberately not reporting something. That's incredibly dangerous.

[PoochSmooch]

I'm totally using your tests, MrsTP!

It's a topsy turvey time. War is peace, freedom is slavery etc.

[picklemepopcorn]

I thought the Cologne attacks didn't actually happen. The news year's eve rampage where dozens of women were assaulted? Apparently turned out to be a politically motivated fabrication- unless I'm confusing it with another incident.

[squishysquirmy]

Cologne definitely happened pickle.
You might be thinking of Frankfurt?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

See this is what happens @picklemepopcorn. The Cologne assaults absolutely happened. No question. There were false reports in Frankfurt. That, coupled with the lack of mainstream reporting on Cologne, led to people muddling them up and assuming that Cologne didn't happen.

[M0stlyBowlingHedgehog]

I used to think that if Breitbart were reporting something and The Guardian or BBC weren't, then it might be made up. Now I think that Breitbart might be accurate and The Guardian or BBC are deliberately not reporting something. That's incredibly dangerous.

Absolutely - and it leads to all sorts of problems. For instance, the fake news story I got caught by while trying to make sense of what was going on in Turkey last summer (BBC not reporting because budget cuts simply mean they don't have enough foreign correspondents on the ground) was the one in RT that Incirlik airbase was surrounded and cut off from support. Obviously it was part of a Russian fake-news strategy to try to whip up western sentiment into saying "we must get our cruise missiles out of such a politically volatile part of the world rather than leaving them at risk of falling into the hands of armed insurgents" - but it made sense at the time in the context of a news vacuum from reputable sources (with the exception, I would say, of the Torygraph in that particular instance).

I think it was also at the heart of Clinton's loss. Such was the emphasis on "Trump is evil" (which he clearly was and is) and "only deplorables would vote for him" (which made me cringe and think "seriously, did you learn NOTHING from the failure of the yes campaign and the Brexit vote?") that there was an information vacuum on the left surrounding debunking the the right-wing fake news about Clinton's hawkishness in the ME - and the vote was very, very close in the swing states. I honestly think this particular line of fake news and the e-mail rumours (Trump's "she has 33,000 hidden emails" tweet ten minutes after his son's meeting with Russian agents, the Comey statement ten days or so before the election) swung the election by driving democrat voters either to vote independent or abstain completely. Remember it was a tiny margin - it didn't take much to swing it.

You don't need people to think that sources like Breitbart are true, you just need to sow enough doubt that they wonder whether they might be, and wonder whether the left/centre media they've always trusted might not be telling them the truth. The most effective propaganda isn't in your face, it's subtle misinformation at the margins.

[KarlosKKrinkelbeim]

I do so agree with the statement that both left and right pick up women's issues solely when it suits their real agenda. I would say the same about the left and people with disabilities, as the parent of a child with asd. All they are is a stick to beat nasty benefit cutting tories with. Try and engage them in the notion that maybe they gave a role in society beyond being benefit claimants and the justification for public sector employment and you get nowhere.

[user1498662042]

The Left-Right dichotomy should be wholly dispensed with, because they are meaningless.

Issues of social justice come down to the degree to which fundamental human needs are met within a given society.

The need to be securely sheltered and accommodated within a community in which one feels safe.
Freedom from abuse and exploitation - whether sexual, economic or political.
Secure, remunerative employment that guarantees provision in the event of illness, old age and all the other contingencies of the life cycle along with a degree of disposable income.
Fair law and order that applies equally to the highest and lowest in society.
A coherent moral and economic culture which provides the individual with a sense of self, meaning and identity.

Such conditions should be met for all individuals, whatever their status or level of ability. Of course a utopia in which they are met for everyone all the time might be impossible, but nevertheless the greater the degree to which they are not met the greater the psychosocial dysfunction in society. This is a given.

When an individuals aforementioned needs are not met then they are liable to regress. They become frightened and enraged. Society wide standards of mental health decline. Scapegoats become sought - whether women, Muslims, 'infidels', Jews or whoever. If people are subject to a very extreme level of socioeconomic stress, then there is the potential for violence, pogroms, mass psychosis.