to be a bit offended by a local MN section, women requesting to meet Asian women (only it seems)

[bitofcheese]

was looking through my local section and saw more than one post by women wanting to specifically meet up with other asian women. whilst i can understand why people like to stick to their own group as people tend to feel more comfortable with people they are more familiar with i can't help but feel like an outsider and a bit offended, i am not the only one, a few other people posted being a bit shocked. i like to meet all sorts of people, i don't care what their skin colour/nationality/religion is so to feel un-invited is a bit off really. imagine if someone had put a request to meet ie white english mothers, pretty awful really

Hmm this is a tricky one and I can see both sides...

I don't think there's anything wrong with an Asian mum looking to meet other Asian mums - shared culture, experiences etc. (Though 'Asian' is a very broad category!)

Likewise on the Living Overseas board there are people arranging to meet up with other Brits. Fair enough.

However I know someone who feels very isolated as she lives in an area in Yorkshire where the majority of local mums are very strict Muslim and she does not fit in either culture or language wise. I am certain she would not feel able to ask on Mumsnet to meet other mums who share her non-religious British culture as it would sound discriminatory and/or racist.

stop - if the poster had lived somewhere like norfolk then i totally agree with what you and other posters have said, it would make understandable sense to want to feel more comfortable with people from similar/same backgrounds however the posters in the threads i read lived either where i do or very close local surrounding areas, all of which have extremely high asian community, much more so than an outsider like me, which is why i feel isolated and saddened, nothing complicated or deep & meaningful here. if i were from ie Pakistan and i lived where these ladies did you mostly only see women from ie pakistan, banladesh etc which i why i took the posts the way i did. i never really see these ladies walking along chatting to anyone outside of their own direct community. this has a similar impact on my daughter too (she has asian friends at school but never gets invited round after school and my invitations rarely get accepted for one reason or another). i think with so many different universale people living together it would make for a happier place if people mixed more. i don;t mean going round for dinner etc, just didn't feel so much like strangers. i also don't want dd to not have any friends from countrys like ie pakistan, it doesn't make sense as we live in an area where more than 2/3rds are from such countries, it is crazy & sad

But Asian is far too broad a term to be really about wanting to meet up with someone from the same culture. Asia is an enormous place and the cultures between say Sikhs from India and Muslims from Mirpuri are actually pretty different. So I don't think this is as simple as saying these women want to meet up with others from the same culture.

Of course most people if they are in the minority do want to meet some people from a similar background. I find it very rare to meet people who henuinely are happy to be in the minority in all their social life - although there are a few people. So I do understand this.

And I know some people do not want to mix at all outside of people they see as themselves in whatever way this is i.e. ethnicity, class, gender, etc.

Lesley I read it like that. If you look on op says they have stated particular countries just that there was more than one woman from more than one country so saying Asian covered it. You weren't the only one

Okay Bronze, I obviously haven't read all the thread . I take that comment back then.

but as i don't know many women from asian countries how am i to know that their cultures are so very different , i generally don't know much about it although i understand that say a lady who may be from say india and be hindu may feel more comfortable with a lady from pakistan who is muslim than with someone else. i understand this only if you are not a player you still can't help but feel isolated. people at the end of the day are people and can still share friendships. i have different levels of friendships, i don't have very close friendships with all of them ie discuss my marital relationship etc, some are just nice to have a coffee & a chat with, good for the soul i think :)

cheese - Don't know on all the thread as I haven't read it all, but I am certainly not saying you should understand the differences. But it is reasonable that I point out that there are big differences.

Of course people can still share friendships with others and I think many do - although not all people. But I guess just like some women want to meet other mums as they feel they will have more in common with them, some will want to meet those who do share the same culture and/or religion. If you already have friends who are of different cultures/religions I can see why you may want to specifically say that you want to meet women of a certain culture/religion.

Of course this might not be the case. It might be some of these women don't want to be friends with anyone who is not from their culture or religion. But we don't know that is the case. So there may be valid or not validraesons for these adverts - hard to tell.

i have already stated that the posters & responders all said the areas they lived in were areas that had very high asian community as the areas mentioned by them are where i live/surrounding areas and that the area i live in i never really see asian women mixing with anyone else. it still stands that if someone on MN posted a post saying ie english christian mother wants to meet other english christian mothers you lot would be down on them like a ton of bricks, you know you would

bitofcheese That's understandable. But it also illustrates why a person might specifically search for someone from her background, whom she won't have to explain these things to.

She's just an ordinary human being, who probably doesn't want to risk having to play teacher/cultural ambassador during her free time with new friends.

I have changed my mind from yanbu to yabu.
Had a think and have decided that it is no different from me wanting to meet parets with disabled children.
I have more in common with them, so I seek them out.

What about th example I gave above where a non-religious mum might like to meet similar in a very Muslim area - is that Ok or not? My feeling is that it would come across as racist even though not intended that way.

it still stands that if someone on MN posted a post saying ie english christian mother wants to meet other english christian mothers you lot would be down on them like a ton of bricks, you know you would

I most emphatically would not be upset that a Christian woman wanted to meet fellow Christian MNers. I'd probably be pedantic about the "English" because it's a bit redundant, verging on tautology, depending on what you actually mean.

I'm sorry, I have to laugh at all the posters tying themselves up in knots trying to justify how very OK it is for Asian women to want to meet other Asian women while at the same time it's very NOT OK for white women to say they only want to meet white women.

What a wonderful example of Doublethink!

Either both are OK, or both not OK (the latter IMO). You really can't have it both ways!

lilbreeze

Depends entirely on wording, surely? It's entirely normal for atheists/agnostics/non-religious people to search each other out in predominately religious communities.

So, OneHandFlapping, I assume you're against Twins or More groups, then?

YABU

"i only just started to look down and quickly came across two, i didn't go much further down. was genuinely quite shocked. i would love to have more close asian female friends"

Sorry OP but I suspect that this Asian woman wants to meet fellow Asian women because she is tired of judgy pants people like yourself.

For goodness sake why can't some people understand that there's a massive difference between wanting to meet Asian women and specifying a skin colour?

The two things are totally different.

YABU, I think it is acceptable to seek out another minority group when you are surrounded by the majority. Maybe they don't know any other Asian people. I'm sure they know plenty of white people though. i think it ok to exclude the majority not the minority. So if your child has a party they can invite a few firiends and exclude the majority but they couldn't invite the majority of the class but exclude a few people iyswim? When I was living abroad I actively sought out other English/British people.

Yes Worra, I have Asian friends who are white (I lived in an Asian county growing up). I also have white Bajan friends.

Some people just look for reasons to be offended. Its like those threads about school gate moms not inviting the OPs to their coffee mornings.

People should be free to socialise with whoever they want without someone whinging about how they were excluded.

YABU. I lived abroad for many years and had DS abroad. I mixed with the locals tried to spoke the language but they're child rearing ways were different to what my culture had taught me.

I had many friends who were ex-pats - but lived so many years there they were culturised (is that even a word?!) (as were DP's family), many who were from the country, also German, Belgium, French and Romanian friends.

I wanted, and did meet British families, I did need friends who although, like me, were raising their child the way the local culture dictated, who I could talk to about how different it was and how it was very different to my childhood. The same as TerryPratchett I also wanted to talk to people who had past things in common, TV programmes music etc.

hardboiled even if there were no white Asians in the world...some people here are getting mixed up between specifying a skin colour (which would be really weird) and specifying the fact this woman wants to meet other Asian Mums.

i didn't know that there were white asian people but then why would i? i don't often get to meet anyone from the asian community, sadly. i don't set out to meet anyone specific but i certainly don't set out not to meet specific people. as for people who look to be offended on MN, i bet the ones on here criticising my post are the ones who would have been 'offended' if someone had posted a similar post but by a different community

OP you're still full of 'bets' and 'assumptions' aren't you?

Seriously, you have no idea how many non Asian friends this woman already has....just like you have no idea what other people would find offensive.