AIBU to think Marrakesh was far worse than I expected?

Thanks for validating this . I alway feel so safe in Portugal I honestly was struggling with this person comparison . We went to Egypt last year and took my 10 year old alone out one day and I would never do it again . The worst thing is ,its worse not better , I solo traveled to Egypt 20 years ago and it was safer back then .

“My black friend said that Italian men think that she was a prostitute when she visited.”
This is awful, one of my nieces is black and I know she’s going to face racism still on top of misogyny all her life.
The men who are coming here on boats illegally, 600 a day between now and September, every year forever it seems, view white women the same way,
we won’t have to go to Marrakesh to experience this “cultural enrichment”
what fun.

As the poster above my husband is Portuguese we go there 2-3 times a year for big blocks of time and i also send my daughter there with and without us since she was 13 for holidays with her grandparents and it's never been anything close to Marrakech or India. Sorry don't pretend muslim majority counties are similar to European countries with safety amongst men.

Im married to one he is the most feminist guy I know ! I also don’t know why you think Portugal is super religious, there is divorce rate of over 40% ! I go there all the time . Fair enough family is from Lisbon but we holiday in a very calm rural area and men would never treat a woman the way you describe at all . Same for italy . I find both country men s lot more progressive than uk ones , they spend much more time at home and with the kids as a example and they help loads .

on a school trip to Germany in the nineties I was groped and shouted at (as were my school friends) several times, always by Turkish men (that’s the language they were speaking according to our teachers)

Numerous issues when in Egypt on an organised adventure holiday and again when holidaying in Morocco. You are fine in the hotels, but venturing out is a different story.

Those murders were horrific and I remember reading about them at the time. But they were carried out in 2018, at the height of the rise of ISIS, by ISIS supporters, and the women were in a vulnerable situation - hiking on their own in a remote area. That’s hardly the same as visiting a city like Marrakech for a holiday nearly ten years later. If that’s the most recent example you can find of an horrific crime against tourists, then I think I’d rather take my chances in Marrakech than walking the streets of most major cities in the uk.

My black friend said that Italian men think that she was a prostitute when she visited.

I don’t think young western women can independently travel in Africa or India sadly.

That's absolutely barbaric.

Re "safe for western tourists"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-49029505

Any woman who claims they felt "perfectly safe" there is lying or too unobservant to travel safely anywhere.

I've had that in the UK, always white men, always old enough to know better. The first time I was 13 and in a shopping mall with my mum, he was in his 50s 🤮

I’m sorry. I’d say google it, but to be honest, having read stories of black women trafficked into Italy, I’d actually say no, don’t google it. It’s a whole Industry in Nigeria.

Unfortunately if I was a black woman, I wouldn’t feel safe or comfortable in Italy. It’s so depressing.

My Italian friend’s wife is black Danish and it breaks my heart, the treatment she gets when she’s not with her husband

Yeah I had this for the five years I lived in France in my twenties. I gave as good as I got but it was a daily occurrence in summer. TBF a lot of the French women seemed to lap it up, especially the older women, who all had amazing figures and really showed them off.

I also hated it being blonde, I might as well have been naked in the medina
never felt safe even though I was with DP

Ill never go there again, even if it was free

I wasn’t comparing at all, the poster I was replying to said ‘But Malta is a Catholic country, you must be mistaken, in which Catholic countries are women harassed in public places?’

I’m in Italy and Portugal several times a year and know them well.

Generally no, nobody has ever interfered in any case or said anything.

If you pay close attention, outside of cosmopolitan areas, there’s an expectation of women to dress modestly as well. Remember that in Portugal or Italy, our mothers’ generation didn’t work in paid professional jobs, unless in places like Milan, Rome, Lisbon etc.

From the top of my head I’m struggling to think of one Portuguese man that I personally know that doesn’t hold ‘traditional values’ about the role of women, and I know many.

Italy has changed (half my family is from Italy). Some men/boys would make mild appreciative comments or flirt - sorry not sorry I enjoyed it when I was young! You would do the passagiata and eye each other up. But any kind of assault was extremely rare - in fact almost unheard of.

Nowadays I think Italian men are far more reticent. Not just my experience (too old to turn heads now!) but those of my young female relatives.

HOWEVER Italy has a large volume of particularly Moroccan migrants (and, after all, we are discussing Marrakesh) and unfortunately women have to be wary of them. Even 20 years ago in the centre of Milan a man grabbed my hair and was fondling it to his friends’ amusement.

Yes way, its a fairly common expression.

Watching with interest as my friend has just bought a riyad (sp)in Morocco & I've been invited over. After the Egypt experience many years ago I'm a bit wary & I'm prone to picking up illnesses. Doubt I'll get harassed much at my age .

Absolutely! No comparison, day to day.

London is NOTHINg like e.g. Istanbul, Paris and some other large cities. I know all 3 cities very well.

I was groped 4 x in Istanbul 2 times each during 2 visits by men passing by and groping - boobs and crotch.

These men casually walking by and groping women are disgusting pigs 🐷
I also wore quite modest clothing each time, long skirt oversized tee large hat .

@Piglet89 No way!

Not true. My husband and I might be middle aged but our daughter is 27 and a brunette stunner, with cool swagger to boot. She explored Marrakech on her own and reported zero problems. Unless you're saying only blondes have problems there
She lives in London so can handle herself in a city - and regularly reports small incidents that happen in her day to day life there (not that I'm of the fashionable opinion London is a no go zone - I love it!).

Foreign cuisines.

Anything else you’d like to pretend not to understand? We can help with those questions too.