To ask if you'll be attending the anti fascism protest on 13 September

[Whatafustercluck]

I'd like to go in solidarity with like minded people, but worry about it turning violent. I won't be taking my children and will likely be going alone. Lots of people I know detest Tommy Robinson but will stay away due to the likelihood of trouble, but I really want to help send a message that racism and hatred won't win. Is anyone here considering going, or decided to stay away?

@EasternStandard - As I said, when I was 23, I travelled solo and spent time in an area very near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. I was teaching in a village over there for a year.

Of course there are restrictions in women. Of course. You don't need to tell me! had experiences like the roof of a shower suddenly coming off in a hostel and a man trying to jump in. If I sat in an empty cafe, it would suddenly full up with men just gawping.

What I am saying is, I have had possibly worse experiences with British men.

A rapist is a rapist. A sex offender is a sex offender. It takes a certain type of individual. You can't confuse 'culture' or place of birth with the propensity for a rapist mindset.

So now I'm 50 so I don't get hassle. But I know myself, if I walk past a group of Middle Eastern men with my daughter they may stare in an uncomfortable way. It happens, sure. But if she walks past a group of British men, they are just as likely to make her feel uncomfortable. Perhaps they're more likely to shout something out - anything from 'Cheer up luv, might never happen' to 'Get yer tits out.' Especially make groups outside pubs. It's groups of men that are the problem. And a sex offender can be literally anyone.

Ffs of course we all know about the Taliban. But why do people confuse regimes of a country with thd individuals in that country. Why assume the average Afghan man supports the Taliban?

My DH's family were from Iran. If you think they supported the regime, you must be joking. And no, they are not Muslim either. Iran is a massive and highly diverse country and don't blame the people for the regimes inflicted in them.

It’s not all on the same level as you’ve posted. No one would swap and take their DDs (or any dc) to live in Afghanistan.

You wouldn’t either I take it, unless you feel it’s important to prove a point about all cultures treating women the same which sounds unwise.

You are talking about cultures which is why I asked if you’d feel comfortable in any country.

This thread is not about anyone going to live in Afghanistan though.
It's about attitudes in this country.

You talked about travelling to other countries - Pakistan, Morocco etc and suggested it was all more or less the same.

I disagree and I don’t think you’d swap with some of the more severe

I didn't say it was all the same. I said, as a traveller, you get different types of hassle in different places.

Yes in your view no worse just different. In the pp you state it’s worse from British men.

I think you’re overlooking the reality for women and girls in severe countries. And beyond mn posts you wouldn’t swap.

A place is its people. If you import a load of men from Afghanistan or anywhere else an area can quickly become a miniature version of that country. There is no magic soil in the UK that changes them. And its not about educating them (how racist is that) they are quite happy with their attitudes and culture.

Of course I wouldn't live in Afghanistan.

But I wouldn't m assume a man, in this country, who has got here by boat from Afghanistan, is anymore likely to be a sexual predator than the next man.

Sexual predators can come here in any way and from any nation, economic demographic, religion, profession, you name it.

A man who arrives on a private jet is no less likely to be a potential sex offender than a man who arrives in a boat.

I do not agree with you @hotelinfo .
Of course not everyone in any group will be a sexual predator or disregard women, but if you come from a place where you are not even allowed to see women and they are treated like things, then that will stick to you, one way or another. I think extremes are more likely in violent and aggressive circumstances. You are more likely to turn 100% extra respectful of women, as you hate how your own were treated. And more likely to become desentised to the ill treatment of women, and animals, and men, and children.... Most people will be able to adapt after a traumatic upbringing or experience, but the ones that cannot are more likely to turn nasty.
We are all, partially, a product of where we grow up and live.
A child that witness domestic violence is more likely to grow up to be violent and repeat the mistake.

I just think it's very dangerous rhetoric to lump all asylum seekers together as "terrorists" or "sexual predators."

You can grow up in a society where women are severely restricted. It does not make you a rapist. If anything, the ones who leave and take such risks to get here are likely to disagree or to have got on the wrong side of repressive regimes.

We live in a world where boys are growing up with free unrestricted porn. What view of women are they becoming ingrained with?

Did Farage not very recently oppose tighter restrictions on online porn access? All in the name of 'free speech' of course.

So much for caring about "the future of our women."

The only time he has anything to say about women's safety is in cases where the perpetrators of crime are Muslim or black or non-British born. It's the most disingenuous, cynical form of populism. Give people a common enemy and whip up fear.

It was in the news yesterday that women in the UK are more likely to be killed by their owns son than any other man.

@hotelinfo it is a dangerous rethoric to bulk all asylum seekers in the same bag, as terrorists and predators indeed.
But it is equally dangerous to negate the reality of statistics and it is obvious that if you grow in a certain environment, then you are more likely to replicate.

They are trying to escape it. Some have worked with Western governments to help dismantle it. In fact the only person in the UK we know for sure who is currently planning on supporting groups like the Taliban is Farage who, according to News reports, wants to give them £10 million.

I'm not negating any stats. I just gave a stat that women are most likely to be murdered by their own son than any other man. I was shocked by this. But I'm not going to make a generalisation out of it and fear my son.

If you mean a stat like the one quoted above - 90 something % of Egyptian women report having experienced some form of sexual harassment .... well, yes. I' not surprised by that at all. I imagine the stat would be the same in the U.K. and the same in any other country. I don't know a single woman who has never experienced sexual harassment.

Just looked on the ONS - 73% of child sexual assaults in the U.K. occur within families.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2025/01/the-grooming-gang-debate-navigating-race-politics-and-justice-in-the-uk/

A more nuanced account than the usual populist headlines if anyone is interested.

I will never cease to be amazed at the comments on this and other threads which seem to be agreeing with the way women are regarded in other countries whose laws - not talking about culture - allow FGM, think all women and 13 year old girls - or younger - are unclean during their periods and are apart until their 'uncleanness' is finished, women whose only crime was to be born a woman.

In countries where law, religion and culture are all one, where morality police regularly stop and publicly whip women they think had acted 'unlawfully', or are not accompanied by a male - even a male child - the suffering of women - ordinary women, not the wives and concubines of leaders, is so much so that they see death as a blessing.

Either half the posters on mumsnet are men, or the women have a funny sense of what is the right way to treat a woman. I don't think the treatment of women, especially the coverings like tomb mummies or shades of the underworld, has been going on for long. I suppose if we could think back, or have news items from the 1980s we might find that there were very few restrictions on women in the MIddle East. Long clothes covered up legs so insects didn't bite and headscarves helped in sandstorms, but there is no reason why western women should be treated the same.

Ask yourselves, posters, just what you are considering, what you are marching for, what you are campaigning for. It seems there are so many posters who welcome young men from the middle east and Africa whose way of life agrees with the treatment of women which this country deplores.

Why do you demonstrate in favour of men of marriageable age who have left their country, impoverished and coming across the channel, leaving muslim women and girls behind? Hasn't it occurred to you that they may be looking for wives? There is very often no minimum age for marriage where they come from.. When they see teenage girls 'parading' when school ends, their lack of education and the way of culture they have grown up with - and is in their DNA - they think they can take the pick of any girl or woman who is not wearing the coverup.

Instead of applying your efforts to free the oppressed women, you are there welcoming young penniless men into the country saying they have a right. They only have a right when they have been processed and found genuine.

Until then, the thought of them marrying British girls and converting them to their 'religion' if we can call it that, when it is also the law and culture, and cannot be a faith because it is forced, and leaving that 'religion' carries a death sentence.

Are you so taken up with bitterness against people you hate, and have politics you don't agree with, that you will even side with those young men and hope it isn't your daughter they have their eyes on, to marry, have children, and get British citizenship because they have a family? Then, having established that, the s law courts in UK will divorce them and they can try again.

You have to make up your minds what you believe in. If you are men, then the prospect of men subjugating their wives might appeal, especially if they eat only what you leave. If you are a woman, why on earth are you encouraging others to welcome men who you should by now know are already changing British culture for the worse.

There is an extraordinary increase in the number of links people are posting.

Is it because you think someone is an uneducated idiot and giving links means you don't actually have to say that?

Is it another way of insulting people that doesn't appear to be insulting, but might be taken that way as an insult?

I don't like links. I clicked on a new recipe for breast of lamb and immediately my computer was invaded by viruses which took an expensive technician some time to clear. 99% of the links may be perfectly OK. It is the 10% you have to watch for, and you can only do that by not opening any links, whoever gives them.

Don't you know that if you want information, you go to the top, and get the info out of the horse's mouth, so to speak?

You can write to the Prime Minister and any government department and ask them questions, send them messages. You might not agree with them, or believe them, but you can compare their responses with others on the internet and 6 will agree and half a dozen will disagree.

Links are an excellent way of providing evidence for what you say. A bit like the references in an academic essay.

@llizzie - do you have opportunities to get to know or socialise with any Muslim people? What type of community are you living in?

How can you know this for all people?

Yup. The whole thing is so depressing.

On the one hand, you have Rape Crisis England and Wales, the End Violence Against Women Coalition and Refuge, and over 100 other women's rights organizations, putting out a joint statement condemning the likes of Farage, the anti-asylum seeker protestors, and the hijacking of VAWG to advance their racist agenda, in a manner that impedes actually tackling VAWG.

On the other hand, you have a bunch of racist thugs, an extremely high proportion of whom have been reported for domestic abuse.

And, for whatever reason, a lot of mumsnetters seem to align with the second group 😩

This article is about support for electoral reform, not for Reform UK.

Therefore it doesn't really back up your statement about 2/3 of people supporting Reform UK, which I highly doubt.

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