Thread to discuss the reality of parts of the UK absorbing large numbers of men from other cultures

I don’t really understand how anyone could argue against this, women as a whole are treated appallingly by men in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Albania etc when men come to the UK from those countries they aren’t going to be magically transformed into feminists as soon as they step foot onto British soil. They are going to continue their sexist beliefs and behaviours in this country (or any country they live in) because it’s what they have been brought up to believe is right and acceptable.

In western society women in general have more freedoms than in patriarchal societies, in terms of where we go, how we dress, our behaviour etc., which these types of men resent and interpret as meaning we are not only responsible for, but are “asking” for violence and harassment.

I think anyone putting this down to men being in groups without families is very naive and clearly has not spent a lot of time with women from patriarchal cultures, because these behaviours and attitudes are prevalent amongst men with their entire families in the UK and even men who are born and raised in the UK. They are also perpetuated by women unfortunately, due to social conditioning, religion, culture and internalised sexism.

I grew up and live in a very multicultural area of the UK and have friends from many cultural backgrounds. Sexism and patriarchal beliefs/cultures do not die out easily, they are passed down from generation to generation until someone pushes back and breaks the cycle. I have close friends who have been born and raised in the UK their entire lives whose parents and family control almost every aspect of their lives (while their brothers are allowed almost unlimited freedoms). I have friends whose parents refused to allow them to attend university, stay out after 10pm despite them being grown women, wear certain clothing, move out from the family home (unless they are married), date or choose their own partner, who are pressured or forced into marriages to abusive men and their controlling abusive families. This is not a race issue, it’s a cultural one, this happens within white communities as well (travellers, being one example).

@lifeturnsonadime
I think the misogyny within the ranks of the police force goes a bit further than tolerance. It is active.

Oh yes, sorry I didn't mean to understate it. But if the police themselves are like that then the signal sent will be this is OK. And while some men would never be predatory under any circumstances, and some probably also would some will be as bad as they can get away with. Thats just human nature. Combine a toxic/misogynistic policing culture with young men who are able to give themselves moral permission to behave badly towards an out group, with a wider society that views working class girls as expendable and it's only going to get worse. Avoiding the subject to avoid accusations of misandry/racism/anti-police sentiments blah blah is wrong.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to look up Dyncorp/other UN scandals etc this is nothing new (and they were Canadian). But they acted that way because they were allowed to.

@RiveDroite yes, that's right

Interesting conversation, can we keep to the tradition of not expending energy on ploppers... ?

Ultimately without data I think we are going to talk in circles. I'll check out that book at some point.

I think Malala Yousufazai has a fund which works in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and others to get girls access to education

@lifeturnsonadime agree completely. Sorry you’re in the club too💐

@SueVineer thank you for your insight, the contents of which are entirely predictable

I'm in the club too. .

It's nothing like the behaviour of males who have been raised in the UK. It's hard to explain really. But it is the cultural attitude towards women that is the difference.

The idea that these beliefs are irrelevant or disappear once a person is 'an immigrant' is absolutely ridiculous and is the reason we must talk about it.

I suggest that posters don't throw morsels to the under-bridge-dweller whose purpose here will be to get the thread deleted. Ignore.

Possibly off-topic, but if we're talking about the racist, misogynistic etc. attitudes of our police force, one of the excuses SYP used for not intervening was that they were scared to arrest Pakistani men owing to 'political correctness'. Any BAME person I know would laugh bitterly at the notion that their skin colour made it less likely that the police would be interested in them.

I can well believe that the police fear being perceived/depicted as racist not that they are wary of being racist. It isn't the same thing.

Total crap. No one but no one has said anything like that at all.

If there is an issue with Pakistani men (for example) in grooming gangs, we should discuss that rather than constantly go on about white men or British men in a false comparison. Surely if we have learned anything from all those scandals it should be not to excuse horrendous misogyny and sexual violence because the perpetrators happen to be from an ethnic minority and we are scared people will think we are racist.

Yep.

@thedancingbear thank you for your insight, the contents of which are entirely predictable

This is funny isn't it. You've mentioned that you were sexually harassed as a young woman by men from a certain region to be told that rape from men of any colour is just as bad. As if you wouldn't actually know that!

Doesn't mean that you didn't experience the harassment!

Marking. As someone from "another culture" where many women are not treated well, I think this must be discussed.

You’re kidding yourself if you think women are treated worse in Britain than, for example, Afghanistan. You’re making excuses for abuse and violence against women by ethnic minority men by deflecting it and claiming “British men behave badly.

no one is claiming British men or culture is perfect not that immigrants groups are problematic per se. What we are saying is that there is certain general cultural misogyny in certain groups and countries and, this is an issue.

If there is an issue with Pakistani men (for example) in grooming gangs, we should discuss that rather than constantly go on about white men or British men in a false comparison. Surely if we have learned anything from all those scandals it should be not to excuse horrendous misogyny and sexual violence because the perpetrators happen to be from an ethnic minority and we are scared people will think we are racist.

Look, maybe these other cultures are 'worse' than ours, maybe they aren't, but there are serious structural, institutional, issues here too. Also, we're on a downward trajectory. It's a much more nuanced thing than ours being a few bad apples, and others being stone-age fundamentalists. And I do think we need to be really careful not to slip into dog-whistle territory. Apart from anything else, it achieves nothing.

You're misrepresenting what others have said (strawmanning) and engaging in whataboutery.

The thing about dog-whistles is that only dogs can hear them. So if a dog turns up saying there was a whistle, but no one here blew it, what should we do? In other words, the idea of a 'dog whistle' is just another silencing tactic.

@RiveDroite bit of a shit club isn’t it! Thank you and sorry you had it too 💐

I don’t know about the hordes of British guys abroad, I’m sure they can be drunk assholes but I can’t imagine they hang around in gangs trying to grab 13 year old girls and telling them they want to fuck them.

As I said I’ve never experienced anything like it in the UK. Those grooming gangs seem to have been a bit more subtle about it, haven’t heard about street harrassment in the same way.

All rapists are the same. It doesn't matter what colour their skin is or what language they speak.

Bollocks.

A genuinely disturbing strand, the direction of which is to persuade people that white indigenous British rapists are not that bad after all.

When I first moved to London in 2014 I lived in Shadwell and was regularly followed and called a white whore, asked for sex and told all white women are slags. I was terrified, used to have panic attacks before walking back from the tube and started wearing a fake wedding ring to see if it made it stop - it didn’t. I got grabbed on one occasion. It really scares me that we are failing to protect our women and girls, at all.

Possibly off-topic, but if we're talking about the racist, misogynistic etc. attitudes of our police force, one of the excuses SYP used for not intervening was that they were scared to arrest Pakistani men owing to 'political correctness'. Any BAME person I know would laugh bitterly at the notion that their skin colour made it less likely that the police would be interested in them.

Look, maybe these other cultures are 'worse' than ours, maybe they aren't, but there are serious structural, institutional, issues here too. Also, we're on a downward trajectory. It's a much more nuanced thing than ours being a few bad apples, and others being stone-age fundamentalists. And I do think we need to be really careful not to slip into dog-whistle territory. Apart from anything else, it achieves nothing.

@RiveDroite Oh, I know it's done to be insulting. It's just a fucking weird thing to do of an evening, stand about on a street corner and pretend to be a snake.