Talking about Asian grooming gangs: some history and a few realities - Jo Phoenix

they are so conditioned… that they just don't dare say it

I’ve shortened your quote & added emphasis because I think it’s not only about believing males are superior

I think it is that the dynamic between the sexes is that of an abusive relationship writ large:

think of the cycle of abuse - how we have highs of bodily autonomy with abortion rights - but not for all and not without restriction and not forever - always the threat/fear of removal

votes - not without significant efforts and harm, not for all, and only within a system created by and for males and thus only with their approval or cooperation - no point in voting if choices are ‘out of frying pan or into fire’

finance - systems again set up by males and so leaning towards their benefit like child maintenance and benefits, zero hours contracts interaction with benefits/childcare etc - we can work outside the home and/or raise our kids but only within the rules and timings and thresholds set by primarily male politicians/senior civil servants and industrialisation which is profit driven regardless of harm to families/society

safety - we only have safety at the hands of males up to the levels they wish so as in the original article you posted - females - even underage females - punished for male crimes, jailed disproportionately for minor crimes (tv licence, low level fraud/theft to support families - even naming your rapist/abuser was touted for being put on the books) while males in top positions get away with slaps on wrists for multi-million fraud/theft, sexual crimes - even murder if ‘she asked for it’ or they killed enough (mass murder, corporate manslaughter, medical scandals anyone?)

examples maybe not fully fleshed out & only off top of head but even in our responses as females we run the full gamut of trauma responses associated with abusive situations:

flattering & fauning to curry favour and not be the ones picked out for abuse
fight & flight trying to escape to new political parties
freezing & flopping - politically homeless & perhaps seeing the situation as hopeless & giving up

walking on eggshells trying to word things ‘correctly’ so as to avoid male wrath

going without our rights or taking the hit on many occasions if it means protecting children or females at greater immediate risk or for a future promise of equal rights which may never materialise

praised but with caveats and frequently disparaged and blamed so we never know if we are madonnas or whores or both simultaneously, mothers or fellow workers, care-givers or drains on society

this is why I believe so strongly in us not being divided amongst ourselves

why I think we need to care about ourselves and each other before any male whatsoever

because we as a sex are in an abusive relationship with males as a sex

they haven’t got their shit together to work across political, racial, social, economic, geographical lines they don’t need to they’re in the dominant position & have the luxury of infighting

we can and have and will cross lines to help others - we just need to do it for ourselves as a female sex class because the only way to get out of this abusive relationship is through female unity of purpose to do so

imo

And of course the main reason not to use such plain factual short headlines:

so males don’t have to think about the impacts on others much less stop themselves or other males from committing such violence

the main stream media and undoubtedly social media who rely on short hand to indicate a story

MVAWG quickly became VAWG as though it was something out of the blue ether and not caused by males

but that’s shorthand

asian grooming gangs, olympians, charity workers, comedians, rock stars, police officers, ministers, priests, newsreaders, teachers, youth workers, politicians, farmers, unemployed, immigrant, tourist, doctor, dentist, drug addict, etc etc

none shorter than male

often lengthened by use of former or disgraced or defining by age

if media of any type was genuinely using shorthand then male is only 4 letters and man is only 3 letters

but consistently using male or man might expose the extent of male violence and abuse and force some action

so it gets lengthened and packaged into parcels of abuse by ‘this particular group or profession or former profession

nothing like reminding us the poor rapist male no longer has a career due to the nasty female telling the world about his abuse of her

so we talk about what that means for that group

what does ‘Asian’ grooming gang mean?

that ‘charity’ is dodgy in other ways too

well that’s what ‘rock stars’ do

that ‘political party’ is out of touch

‘teachers’ are surrounded by temptation

’police’ have a lot to put up with

’minister’ was probably trying to comfort

at that ‘age’ would they even know what they were doing was wrong - so young or so old or so mid-life crisis ffs

like
child abuse images Vs child pornography in other reporting - one character difference in space on a page a million miles of difference in intent to obfuscate

MVAWG oops! VAWG, CSE, ACE all lovely little shorthands to cover up the horror behind the letters

child porn, child rape, revenge porn, all shorthand phrases used to minimise the impacts and disassociate entirely the perpetrators from their crimes

MALE RAPES A CHILD
MALE RAPES A FEMALE
MALE RAPES OTHER MALE

all pretty short headlines - but ones that would be repeated so often that we have to use other headlines - longer headlines, more opaque headlines, more diversionary headlines, more divisive headlines so we don’t vomit every time we see a headline because of the sheer volume of male violence and abuse

Sorry maybe I wasn't clear, what I was trying to say is when referring to Rotherham in particular it's not Asian grooming, it's Pakistani.

Ha! Try the 70s and 80s...

But the ones before that were "West Indian", Eastern European, Irish, or insert whichever immigrant group it was at that time. The ones driving taxis, providing take away meals, running corner shops, or I believe at one point, in the very distant past, laundry collection.

Exactly this. It's not fair to say Asian grooming gangs. The groomers were of Pakistani heritage.

The other thing I remember from the early 70s in England is some 14 and 15 yr-old girls in my rather posh direct-grant girls school already being in sexual relationships with 'boyfriends' in their early 20s. I think my mother heaved a massive sigh of relief when we moved out of that setting.

That wasn't just the 70s, that went on for quite a while. I remember a friend of my BIL who was 32, with a 16 year old 'girlfriend' and that was in the 90s. It wasn't as common by then but no one found it remarkable.

Russell Brand had a 16 year old 'girlfriend' and apparently her mum used to drop her off at his place. That was only a few years ago.

The other thing I remember from the early 70s in England is some 14 and 15 yr-old girls in my rather posh direct-grant girls school already being in sexual relationships with 'boyfriends' in their early 20s. I think my mother heaved a massive sigh of relief when we moved out of that setting.

It was a really weird time - Gary Glitter, Jimmy Savile, PIE, Kincora, assorted police forces turning a blind eye, and the resultant vulnerability of young people who should have been protected, and the conditions that exist now, grew and were encouraged in the general culture. Blaming Asian gangs alone (not that I doubt them being part of the problem) without looking at the wider context will leave girls just as exposed.

I wonder when that usage started? I left the UK in the early 70s, and at that stage people from India or Pakistan (and latterly Bangladesh) tended to all get referred to as 'Indians', whereas the people Idi Amin had just expelled from Uganda were 'Asians'.

In Ireland most of us seem to be trying to link people to their own countries - which of course can be problematic in itself if they're from Kashmir or other disputed territory. The racist protesters rant about all 'non-nationals' and get enraged when people like me with all Irish ancestry but an off-Ireland birthplace because our parents were economic migrants try to challenge their narrative,

Full support for this. I was just making it clear how prevalent this use of language is in our fair isles.

I've had enough of people saying Asians - Sikhs and Hindus do not have these gangs. If you're too scared to state who is part of these gangs then don't start a thread.

No. Almost ALL British people use Asian in this way.

The need to talk of all the people's of Asia is nearly non existent. If we need to specify a certain region that isn't south Asia, we'll say (example) east Asian. Or possibly Chinese/Korean/Japanese if the exact country is known.

Due to our shared cultural heritage (think Empire) and the migration trends, if one says Asian, then the conversational assumption will be south Asian.

I know it suits a certain mind set to view sexual exploitation as being race dependent, it really isn't. It is sex based, it is men abusing women for sex and to make money from other men. It is also often linked with drug selling and trafficking, which is linked with organised crime.

deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by men from communities where women’s lives are worth less

Less so than other countries but in the UK we have a society that values women's lives less. That was part of the driver behind Counting Dead Women and the Observer's End Femicide campaign.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4185454-Observer-campaign-to-tackle-femicide?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4185386-The-Observer-End-Femicide-campaign

I heard on a R4 programme a few years ago, that there were also a lot of Asian girls from their own community used by the grooming gangs. They are not allowed to report to police etc. Omerta.

I didn’t know she was a rape survivor. So am I. Rape victims aren’t exclusively working class. It is a fact that Phoenix has worked in academia her whole life and also that she was entreating women to vote for Starmer on Twitter.

I am concerned by the way that the left wing media and academics seek to underplay the lived experience of white working class girls who were deliberately and ruthlessly targeted by men from communities where women’s lives are worth less. Culture is what is an issue.

There was an unwillingness to tackle it because of perceived sensitivities of being seen to target minority communities. We saw the same thing play out in the mass sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve in Cologne when the left wing media refused to believe women’s accounts of being sexually assaulted by immigrant men.

The colour of their skin is irrelevant and being used as a weapon to shut down debate.

'too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community,'

This has been picked up time and again. That self appointed leaders of various communities are being used as intermediaries between various agencies including the police. These leaders are often men and often very conservative. They have a tendency to turn a blind eye to cultural issues and deny women a voice.

It's terrible that youngsters who know more about adult topics and sex are seen as less in need of protection and support - it should be ringing instant 'minor at risk' bells.

The use of the term 'grooming gangs' is interesting - are the girls being recruited into gangs, or being abused by gang members? I know threatened and actual punitive rape is a mechanism gangs use against members, including younger males, to ensure compliance. In turn it becomes a driver of violent macho behavior in the male victims as they grow older. It's long been a thing in some of the Loyalist drug gangs in Northern Ireland.

While it is true that sexual grooming etc is done by all categories of men it does not follow that secondary characteristics like age, race, sexuality, religion etc are irrelevant. In fact they're crucially important in comabatting the tsunami of violence girls face. Intelligence and analysis are essential in protecting girls and boys.

This has been highlighted in numerous reports, notably the
Overview Report of the serious case review of the Rochdale case49, which notes:
"What is absent is any evidence that practitioners attempted to understand why the fact that the men were ‘Asian’ might in fact have been relevant and legitimate for consideration…
The degree to which workers understood the communities they
worked in may also have contributed to the failure to recognise the unusual patterns of interaction between these two groups."

83. In her report on Rotherham, Professor Jay stresses the need for engagement with communities to be meaningful, and to reach into every part of the community, stating that there was ‘too much reliance by agencies on traditional community leaders as being the primary conduit of communication with the Pakistani-heritage community,' with several women from that community feeling ‘disenfranchised by this and thought it was a barrier to people coming forward to talk about CSE’.

India and Pakistan are in Asia.
But historically there has been more immigration from South Asia than East Asia to the UK.