Is there a conflict between PC speech codes and the need to name sources of misogynistic violence?

interesting discussion
there was a woman on R4 (I think on the Today programme) who had researched gender based violence in different societies, and she argued that it is not a cultural phenomenon (as a right wing analysis would have it- these primitive foreigners and their violent ways). Rather she said it was a result of gender imbalance, in societies/situations where you have large numbers of young men especialy if they are not 'contained' in families, you get high levels of rape/sexual assualt, and she named India and China as examples. From this you could argue that the tendency to sexual violence is actually endemic but held in check by cultural norms (more or less depending on the culture). The danger of this argument is that it can be read as making women responsible for holding men in check, or for providing them with a legitimate outlet for their sexuality (ie in marriage)
A second aspect of this problem which I haven't seen spelt out is that there is surely a racist undercurrent in the reaction to black/brown on white sexual violence - as in, these xxxxxxx men are polluting 'our' women. This would explain the convenient overlooking of the widespread, day to day sexual violence and general misogyny within majority white society.

I think this is an interesting discussion. I'm actually of the opinion (perhaps wrongly, still learning) that class analysis is impractical. This would seem to be a case in point, it's of no benefit to label the perpetrators by their lowest common feature, i.e. that they are men, if we are serious about tacking the problem. It's often said that you cannot tell a good man from a bad one etc, however in general there I see on here a mistrust of all men as a logical default position. If this is about self protection, shouldn't we be allowed to also know which kind of men are more likely to be misogynistic than others ? Otherwise what is the point in saying that all men are equally responsible for the culture that leads to these attacks, clearly they are not.

There is a clear link between cultural background / upbringing and sexual assaults. If there weren't then surely sexual assault would be equally prevalent throughout the world and it's not: certain societies permit or even encourage attacks on women and it is naive to suggest that men (especially young men with limited world experience and possibly traumatic upbringings) are going to suddenly understand AND conform to different norms. Of course this is very different from saying that everyone from certain countries is a rapist!

Which is why we should speak up.

I'm not sure it is cowardly, or about fear of being criticised.

I think it's more that feminist arguments are dismissed on the grounds of cultural imperialism on one hand and racism on the other. This works to silence feminists and, indeed, then criticises feminists for that silence.

We either assert our own cultural values in our own home countries or we surrender them to a culture that is willing to dominate. There are plenty of people of every race, culture and religion that are perfectly compatible with us in Europe I don't see it as racist to open our arms to those people and welcome them in, and reject those that don't. We don't have to discriminate to be discerning.

YY

StepAway: I agree with your first statement. It's interesting how one of the insults often thrown at feminists by MRAs is that feminists are strangely silent when it comes to supporting our sisters (as they put it) in other cultures.

By bothering about being accused of cultural imperialism or racism if we criticise any other culture than white Western culture we are doing exactly what they criticise us for. Criticising doesn't mean forcing our views on other parts of the world. But not speaking up about women's rights everywhere because we might get accused of cultural imperialism or racism is cowardly.

As I said bugger culture and bugger also unfounded criticisms of racism.

My accusation isn't at feminism more the media in general, and if we all are supposed to get along in this multicultural paradise it cannot be done at the expense of the native/dominant culture. If you'll note native Americans were very welcoming and tolerant to Europeans which didn't turn out overly well for that culture.

We either assert our own cultural values in our own home countries or we surrender them to a culture that is willing to dominate. There are plenty of people of every race, culture and religion that are perfectly compatible with us in Europe I don't see it as racist to open our arms to those people and welcome them in, and reject those that don't. We don't have to discriminate to be discerning.

And I don't agree that no one gave a damn about how women in other cultures are treated (whether they become refugees or not) until some white women were assaulted. I think that's the kind of argument that stops people from taking feminist positions.

The issues around cultural relativism that people on this thread are discussing are embroiled with the extent to which we are able to comment on how women in other cultures are treated. It's hard for Western feminists to comment on these kind of issues without being accused of cultural imperialism. Yet, you're likely to then be accused of racism for not speaking about it.

Im not sure that 'feminism is important because the things that feminists want will also make the world better for men everyone' is quite what we should be viewing as 'the best argument in the world'. Reproductive rights shouldn't start becoming important just because they affect the economy or the environment. They should matter because they affect women's lives and their life chances. That should be enough.

I've mentioned before on other threads I'm worried that now those abhorrent actions happened in Cologne to native European women has finally provided a pitiful amount of media coverage which has seen the debate opened just a fraction.

The fact that hardly anyone raised hell that women refugees in Europe are being treated abominably by their fellow refugees does now smack a little bit of racism. Nobody seemed to give a damn until it started happening to white women.

I'm pro refugee, really I am, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people coming in to respect the cultures and laws they are coming into. We have an opportunity here to raise awareness of both assaults against native women, and the plight of refugee women.

These people have to learn to integrate with us, and that can't happen if treating women like this is tolerated on religious grounds.

You feminists have the absolute best argument in the world for your cause. Female education, reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for women never fail to reduce poverty, famine and diminish extremism in countries where those rights exist.

Women should not be sidelined anywhere these things are foundational to a better world for everybody.

Melinda: I agree.

But I also think there's something to be said for maintaining that feminism is focuses around the experiences and rights of female people. So feminism is interested in race and class and disability and so on because they affect women in particular ways. A feminist perspective offers something that an anti-racist or a disability studies perspective may not simply because they don't necessarily take women as a focus.

I think that in some ways contemporary feminism has become far too apologetic about focusing on women.

To say that doesn't go against important critiques about feminism needing to take account of the breadth of women's experience and about the classism and racism and so on that have been part of too much feminist thought in the past. Of course feminism should be about all women and should take into account that women are affected by racism and classism in particular ways. But it should retain a focus on women.

I just think it's too easy (particularly for people who have been socialised as women) to be encouraged to put aside a focus on women and instead to take up racism or classism or whatever else as the more important issue. And important work that's happened within feminism to avoid marginalising some women has unfortunately resulted in a further shift away from women onto other aspects of identity. That isn't very helpful and creates situations where websites like 'everyday feminism' are bending over backwards to avoid actually focusing on women in case they are accused of being exclusionary.

It should be perfectly OK for feminists to be able to say, 'Actually, what I'm concerned with here is women's experiences and women's rights.'

Is it time to abandon the idea that equality / rights lobbies are all naturally compatible with one another and part of the same cause?

I've never felt that all rights are naturally compatible, because all rights are balanced. For instance, my "right" to free speech is balanced against the rights of other people to go about their daily lives without listening to hate speech.
But that doesn't mean they are never naturally compatible. For instance, access to good quality childcare could be seen as a priority for feminists and socialists.

My personal stance is that women's rights come first and if there is a conflict between women's rights and another rights campaign I'm for women.

I don't always agree with that statement (but then I'm a leftie, anti-racist and somewhat moral relativist). It depends on the circumstances.

if generalisations about men as a class are defensible in the interests of naming feminist problems, does the same apply to subsets of men?

In my opinion, yes. We absolutely should be allowed to collect and analyse crime data on sub sets of men. And we should not be afraid to name any problems spat out from said analysis.

There's another thought that keeps popping into my head. I worked for a long time in street homelessness and we always had a couple of men using services who were from Arabic speaking countries, very bad drinkers and could be a problem to female staff. It struck me that they probably wouldn't have been pissed as farts and harassing strangers at home.

That got me thinking about men in general. You only have to look at the record of the British Army and so on to see what groups of single men without women are capable of. Swedish men seem to commit stranger rape on a very reduced scale but there they are in Thailand, with young, vulnerable women (I don't want to use prostitutes as the vast majority are trafficked and underage when they start).

So is the risk factor men without women? Partly.

for every right on left wing feminist you get there is the right wing feminist for whom feminism is about solidifying class supremacy or racial supremacy. this was going on from the suffragettes time until now. in the united states the suffragettes movement sidelined black feminists in order to attract southern suffragettes with the argument of 'how can the black man have the vote before the white woman'. they argued that winning the vote would allow them to support the white man and hinder the influence of the black man's voting power. in the UK at the time when universal suffrage came to the New Zealand population the suffragettes at the time used to argue how could the brown maori woman have the vote and they white women in the heart of the empire not have it. Emmeline Pankhurst of the Suffragettes believed strongly in colonialism alongside supporting the rights of women in the UK to vote. i also mention class as well because the advocacy of Maria Stopes for abortion rights for women was to do with being a strong believer in eugenics and conversely dislike of poor people having children. not a love for her fellow woman.

intersectionality still applies even if you wish not to deal with racism or religion. could you in a discussion about violence against women in liverpool - the highest in the UK,
www.liverpoolconfidential.co.uk/News-and-Comment/Domestic-violence-in-north-Liverpool-six-times-national-average

not mention the deprivation and poverty levels in the city? no religion, no race, just talking about marginalisation of women and economics.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/9003245/Liverpool-has-biggest-per-home-unemployment.html

I think this is a good point about what feminism is actually for. Is it a political movement for women's rights (as you'd assume), or (as has been increasingly the case for the past decade or so) is it some sort of postmodern fight against the oppression of minority groups (such that women's rights are forgotten or even viewed as unimportant, especially if the women in question are white, western and middle class)?

I remember doing a 'feminist geopolitics' seminar years ago as an undergrad and making all sort of (probably quite dubious) pomo arguments about how it's not just about women but multiple forms of oppression, etc, etc. But increasingly, I think I completely missed the point. There are multiple different forms of oppression but, when you end up playing oppression top trumps, women's rights tend to get sidelined and even dismissed outright. There is a very real need for feminism as a political movement concerned with women's rights.

There obviously needs to be some discussion within feminism to work with the diversity within the category 'woman' but there are very good reasons for prioritising that particular category as your focus and for not allowing feminism to be derailed.

Apologies, I have not read the whole thread.

My immediate reaction is that if you stick to reporting or discussing what appears to have happened on a specific occasion based on credible evidence, you are hardly making generalisations about a specific group.

For that reason, I don't understand why e.g. 'Majority of Cologne attackers Arab or North African say onlookers' is problematic (except on public safety grounds: the police are getting a slightly hard time for downplaying it given that in both Sweden and Germany they know there are groups of organised, violent hard-right groups eager to capitalise on any criminal act by migrants, real or perceived). It is not at all the same as 'Majority of Arab and North African men are sex offenders' is it?

As a black woman, I have a deep suspicion of the kind of PC person who bends over backwards not to say anything negative about people (individuals or as a collective) of other races or religions from them. It is unrealistic, artificial and actually, no indication that the person concerned isn't prejudiced.

And, everything MelindaMay said.

Not turning on you Melinda. Would never wish to "trample over women of colour". They have every right to be mistresses of their own fate and if they choose a different path from me so be it.

What I meant was that I will never stop believing and saying that women are of equal value and our rights are my priority just because it might upset e.g. those of another culture, those of another religion, politicians too mealy mouthed to face facts or cowardly media too wimpish to call out what happened in Cologne and other cities for what it was.

Women are of equal value and deserve full human rights wherever they are in the world. Bugger culture, bugger religion.

The irony is that countries that follow that line seem to have a much greater chance of economic development, and a chance to emerge from poverty.

So maybe it isn't just a question of what is good for women, it's a question of what is good for everyone. It's just that some cultures can't or don't want to see that.

For me, my belief in the human value of women is absolute.

Women are of equal value and deserve full human rights wherever they are in the world. Bugger culture, bugger religion.

I am not right wing, nor left wing. Just a bumbling along in the middle ground sort of person.

But on the issue of tippy toeing around cultural and religious sensitivities I am sick of the mealy mouthed cultural and religious apologists.

My personal stance is that women's rights come first and if there is a conflict between women's rights and another rights campaign I'm for women

YY OTheHugeManatee.

Someone has to stick up for half the human population as a priority. And if not feminists, who?

What has been happening in Cologne and other cities and the way the "liberal" and left media covered it, at least initially, has really made me angry that yet again we see an attitude of "budge over women". Anyone's rights are more important than yours.

Manatee wrote:
can you imagine the UK government doing an analysis of rape or domestic violence cases by ethnicity/culture/religion

ONS publishes some stats, but only breaks down by ethnicity not culture or religion, and without DV broken out. This is 2014: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/480250/bulletin.pdf

The 2012 stats include spreadsheets with more detailed data: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-on-race-and-the-criminal-justice-system-2012
See for example tab 3.09 in the suspects table, and 5.05a in the offenders table.