to be worried about my daughter's future safety in Europe as a young secular woman?

[rodriguez66]

I have a 6 year old daughter. I can't stop worrying about whether it will be safe for her in Europe in the future as a young woman after the sexual assaults all over Europe. I hate to think that she would not be able to enjoy the freedoms I take for granted as a woman and I do not want her to have to hide her femininity because some men cannot control themselves. I want her to be able to dress how she wants when she is older and be able to speak her mind without being scared. Is this completely irrational? My husband thinks I am worrying too much but obviously he is not a woman.

Are you referring to other threads Ohfor? That's against talk guidelines.

Eh?Emily? I don't need to research other threads to see what has been said on this one! I've been posting on this thread since yesterday. Sorry, have I touched a nerve?

Damn right the OP should be worried. I am also worried. There is no political will to uphold women's hard-won freedoms in the face of cultural relativism which refuses to acknowledge the primacy of gender equality in law. This has been blindingly obvious to anyone with an interest in current affairs and/or demographics for about 20 years, but better late than never.

Disclaimer: I am Shia Muslim but non-practicing.

There is a petition. I am not going to sign it personally. There is a thread about it 'in the news'.

Enjoy her now don't ruin your life by worrying about the future and things outside your control.

Again I will repost what I said upthread in my very first post:

"Investigate the crimes and punish the perpetrators"

I'm falling to see how that minimises anything.

Is it because I'm not calling for sweeping punitive action against an ethnic group? Or saying that certain groups of society should be treated more harshly by the law?

I don't consider that to be minimising, but YMMV, clearly.

Ohfor, referring to a poster's activity on other threads is against talk guidelines.

Ipity, you haven't minimised anything.

Report it emily. It would be good to get the rules clarified.

Report both of us, I mean.

The number of assaults over nye was staggering and certainly nothing I had ever heard the like of. What i found equally disturbing was the covering up and then minimising of it.

Does the fear of upsetting refugees supersede the rights of women now?

Pity - do you acknowledge there is a real problem because until we can address it without fear of being called racist or a bigot nothing will get better - for anyone

Emily up thread at 13.04 posted by Pity: you just have to look at torments comments which is basically the same sort of dehumanising filth that was said about Jews in the 1950s Germany That was on THIS thread, no other to my knowledge. I have broken no talk guidelines. But feel free to report if you wish.

"Investigate the crimes and punish the perpetrators" Great! Won't fucking happen because it never fucking does Investigate as in look at causes (again, why do you think this happened?) or just look at the investigation of the individual crime.

Does the fear of upsetting refugees supersede the rights of women now?

I think it does. Just look at the mass cover up in Rotherham. It is quite clear that the powers that be have chosen to put the rights of certain cultural groups over the rights of women. Emancipation has gone back hundreds of years, all for the sake of being tolerant of intolerance.

As a "young secular woman"?
As opposed to being a nun/religious sister?

As a "young secular woman"?
As opposed to being a nun/religious sister?

Does the fear of upsetting refugees supersede the rights of women now?

The fear of upsetting men has always superseded the rights of women. Now we have to add cultural relativism to the very long list of reasons we can't talk about male violence towards women.

That's the thing. I have no issue with men who are immigrants. I am an immigrant. I like immigration. I am worried that the intersection of cultural relativism with woefully inadequate treatment of sexual offences will exacerbate an already unmanageable issue.

Was it anti Irish or Catholiphobia to criticize the Magdelene laundries? And if that argument had been able to be successfully used would those laundries still be in operation today?

Evil yes it is astonishing. I agree with you 100%.

FWIW - I was assaulted in a country in the Middle East. It was "minor" as these things go - a man got me away from a group then tried to kiss me and groped my boob. I screamed blue murder and people came running. Upshot was - he was arrested, charged and ultimately deported.

I am certainly not holding up countries in the ME as bastions of women's rights. The robust way that crime was dealt with had as much to do with the nationality of the perpetrator as anything else. But there is something rather ironic about a sexual assault being viewed more seriously in a "backward" country where women have few legal rights than in the secular democracy I call home where no doubt it would have been brushed under the carpet as so many have been.

I am worried that the intersection of cultural relativism with woefully inadequate treatment of sexual offences will exacerbate an already unmanageable issue.

^^ What MrsTP said. Despite all nations being signatories to the UNHDR, there is little commitment in the majority to universalism - we need to educate people (including British people) about what universal human rights actually are and stop at nothing to undermine cultural relativism wherever it is found, and whatever it affects. Our rights are inherent within our humanity, interdependent and indivisible: we need to start standing up to this assertion, whether in connection with the attacks across Europe or our daily lives.

I desperately want to say yabu, but after reading both sides of the press about this every day... I don't think you are

It's not immigration that's the problem, it's lack of integration. And you can't tell from the outside who is one of the 99% of genuine people, and who is in the 1% of twats who hates the west (but still wants to live here because the things they hate are the very things that make it a desirable place to live).

I'm a lawyer. I went to a meeting with a friend the other day because of a legal issue he is having. The other party doesn't speak english (unless it suits him, as he piped up halfway through, much to my surprise!!), so he brought representation, the chair of his local mosque. Who said pretty much immediately: "we all know what women are like - too emotional and irrational to make sense." And this was a pleasant, well educated man, a leader in his community.

Views like that and more dangerous ones are very much a minority at the moment, but I do worry for my DD that it won't stay that way if millions of people migrate here without the time to assimilate to our way of life. In fact, my own tiny personal experiences of racism have all been from women (eg I've been called a white slag and pushed into a busy road; I've been refused a seat in the public area at Westfield when 8 months pregnant) and I do think that is an issue too. What are these women hearing all their lives if they think it's ok to despise another woman for wearing a short sleeved t-shirt? It's never bothered me for myself, as I can see that it's a tiny part of life and that the huge majority of other cultures don't act like that in any way - but I think we worry much more about our children than we do about ourselves!

Of course it cuts both ways. Any britain first type who has been hostile just because of someone's appearance or background is also v culpable in terms of preventing integration and harmony. Make people feel isolated and resentful, and you have fertile ground for more extreme views.

I also think that the pressures on an small country in terms of housing, schooling, hospitals etc will lead to more tensions and isolation if millions of people (which it could well be) arrive here, and that could increase poor behaviour on every side.

• should say "huge majority of people from other cultures" - not "huge majority of other cultures"

I think what is happening is worrying, yes. I have nothing against multi-cultural and tolerant society. We don't all need to be white Christians or whatever.
But liberalism is based on the tenets that freedom of action and opportunity are rights with attendant responsibilities. The people who live in liberal society have the responsibility to adhere to the laws, otherwise there is a justice system. It is not about having a free for all.

The problem is, as others have said, the police and justice system have not seen mass sexual assault and rape like NYE in peace time. Sexual assault and rape is used in wartime as a means of asserting control (and opportunism).

Why would a mob sexually harrass and assault women in different locations at the same time? 1) because they could; no-one stopped them. But 2) because the perpetrators wished to make a point about control. The result is that people change their behaviour, their dress, their attitudes (from openness to fear). So whoever coordinated this knows what they are doing. Like all terrorism, changing your behaviour give terrorists a victory; increasing safety and security of target groups is sensible. Question is how this is done without eroding freedoms we take for granted; including the freedom of all people to be viewed equally, regardless of sex, race, religion, class etc.

Not sure if that makes sense. I hope what is happening is a blip and not a portend of things to come. But I don't think the OP is BU.

That's an excellent post Romi , thank you.

I think you are right Romi. The sexual assaults in Cologne were more than anything a way to "send a message" - a threat as it were, that they can change western culture by asserting their dominance, by instilling fear in women (lets face it, it will have an effect on how women dress, whether they feel comfortable going out alone/at night etc). The governments of western Europe are now stuck between a rock and a hard place because they are now faced with the dilemma of admitting that the two holy cows of liberalism - that "all cultures are equal" and that "women have equal rights to men" are not compatible. If ISIS is behind these attacks they have achieved in one fell swoop, something they couldn't have achieved by simply bombing, putting fear into women and forcing them to change their behaviour under duress .

The fear of upsetting men has always superseded the rights of women. Now we have to add cultural relativism to the very long list of reasons we can't talk about male violence towards women.

Nail. On. The. Fucking. Head. MrsTerry

The sexual assaults in Cologne were more than anything a way to "send a message" - a threat as it were, that they can change western culture by asserting their dominance

And bang on, evilchreub The question is, how long do we let them get away with it?

YANBU, OP. Another person here with friends in Germany who are absolutely horrified, not just at what is happening in their country, but the refusal of the powers that be to do anything to confront it.