Growing Up Gypsy- Stacey Dooly meets 3 young women

[AliasGrace47]

I study history rn & though it's not directly related to my topics, I've become v interested in the Roma community.
It was really interesting imo to see the way they were combining modern w traditional ways. I'd read stuff on here about Roma women sometimes being discouraged from education & jobs, and while I had reservations about the fact they all seemed to have been pulled from school early, it was good to see that the two w jobs they clearly enjoyed were supported by their families.

Several of the things they valued - closeness to family, no sex before marriage are things that so-called 'reactionary feminists' like Louise Perry & Mary Harrington are promoting a lot now. I have reservations about number 2, though I can see how no sex before commitment would work well for a lot of people..and clearly if someone doesn't want to have sex before marriage they shouldn't be pressured. Otoh I don't agree w pressure the other way..

The closeness to family I thought was great. I was brought up by my maternal grandmother (& mother) and the bond Chantelle had w Rita felt v similar. I guess the flip side of always being w your family is pressure, but otoh the way the other 2 lived w their families seemed quite nice, a good counter to the isolation a lot of my Gen (Z) seem to feel... I did think the ban on going away w female friends before marriage was too much.

I have more thoughts, but need to go study now...would love to hear what others who watched think!

Here's a link to anyone who wants to watch-
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0028vp5/stacey-dooley-growing-up-gypsy

I haven't seen it but I wouldn't call the Gypsy community feminist by any stretch of the imagination.

Hi OP, I'm a gypsy if you have any questions. It was a bit of a boring watch for me but I found it realistic for a change, compared to the usual nonsense any time we're televised.

I enjoyed it, I thought the young women were given a voice and treated with respect. I was interested to hear their stories. They weren't Roma, though- the Roma people have migrated from Eastern Europe. These women were English Gypsies. I liked the one who was a horse expert, and I found it quite touching when the woman spoke of her miscarriage.

Is Stacey gypsy herself? And what kind?

I'm traveller but not Roma. There are a lot of differences between Irish travellers, English travellers,.Roma, new age. It's quite frustrating when people collate them all together...

No, she's not Gypsy.

Sorry, misread.

Hi, that's v kind to offer. I have read a bit of Damien Le Bas & he wrote off how disrespectful & tasteless a lot of TV on gypsies is, eg. My Big Fat Wedding. So I'm glad it didn't feel exploitative to you- Stacy seems a nice presenter, I'm not familiar with her other stuff.

So what I'm wondering is, from threads on here om other forums, people seem to have a v negative view of the position of Roma women. I'm narrowing it to Roma rather than Irish traveller or others bc that was the program subject.

They seem to think

1. They are pulled out of school early

2. This is bc they are pressured to take responsibility for the house at a young age & do all caring & housekeeping, plus have many children

3. They receive no sex ed, another reason they are pulled from school

4. They are strongly discouraged from higher Ed or working

I don't want to be disrespectful - these are not my beliefs but the stereotypes I have heard. From the program, which I came to w v little knowledge, we saw that one was running a horse business & marrying, one was a beautician & marrying, so clearly they were able to so both, though it was also clear some disapproved of this choice to work.
Chantelle was the most traditional, obvs there's nothing wrong w being a SAHM. The issue to me was that all had been pulled out of school early. Ebony got maths & English gcses later for her beauty work, but other jobs would require more, so choices were cut off early. They all seemed happy w their choices but others might not be.

Yes, I love horses & thought it was really nice that she could follow her dream & work w them. It was so sad when Chantelle did the miscarriage video, but good that it helped others, esp as she said it was harder for Gypsy women to speak about such things. In the worry over the Internet, its benefits can be forgotten, especially for groups who are shut off more from other support. I've always been wary of mental health influencers as they can feel exploitative, but this seemed a genuinely helpful example

I'm sorry for the mistake: I had the impression most English gypsies were Roma & all came from India a v long time ago, but clearly that was wrong.

A lot of them shows have a lot of fakeness about them.

Ah, googling tells me that English Gypsies are also Romany but have been here for centuries. I think this was the source of confusion : both of long-ago Roma origin, but diverged since then.

Personally I don't have any issue w a woman doing all the housekeeping & childcare & not working a paid job if she enjoys that. The issue is the restriction of options if you're pulled from school early.
The older women in the show spoke of how they had been verbally bullied at school (maybe physically too? But in this case not mentioned) for being Gypsy. This is horrible & should be stamped out. I did feel uncomfortable w bullying being given as the reason they withdrew totally from school. Immigrant groups & minorities are do often bullied at school, it's horrible, but the only people who gain if they leave are the bullies. Obvs if it was severe verbal or physical bullying & they were in mental or physical dangee they should leave. But could they not try a different school? Pay for a private tutor?

Would boys have been withdrawn as readily? Maybe yes, maybe no, depends on situation?

Personally I don't like outdated patriarchal norms, I believe gender norms are just unhealthy and I'm gen-z.

My cousin married a traveller it's interesting but not my lifestyle

The Roma are a distinctive migrant group and come from Slovenia and Slovakia, they are different to the Romany, who have been in the UK for centuries.
However, I think that often it's Itish travellers most of us are aware of, especially from the Gypsy wedding series.

I found it really interesting, @ThejoyofNC.
Can I ask if there are many similarities and intermingling between the different groups of travellers/gypsies - such as Irish, Roma etc? Would it be acceptable for someone to marry into another group?
There is a traveller site (Irish from their surnames and accents) and they are always very polite and pleasant in my dealings with them at work (GP surgery). To my knowledge, we don’thave many or any Roma gypsies around here (Black Country).
Also my granddaughter’s father was an Irish traveller (basically a one night stand by which dd became pregnant) so she’s technically half traveller, although he has never seen her - he got married shortly afterwards, moved away and now has a couple of kids with his wife. My dd did say he told her a relationship with a gorga would be impossible though.

It is correct that girls are pulled out of school early, but this seems to be the focus for some reason. It's actually the case that both boys and girls are usually pulled out of school at 11/12 years old.

I don't think girls of that age are pressured to cook/clean all day. They learn those vital skills but aren't expected to take on a domestic role at such a young age. It's got far more to with your third point. Sex ed is a complete no go.

I think it's becoming much more common now for young gypsies to choose to receive a higher education and for their families to support that. A huge amount of gypsy women/girls work, as you saw in the program so I would say that's definitely a misconception.

I'm a SAHM now but have worked (and been very successful) in the past but always had to hide my true identity by changing how I talked, dressed etc.

I think it's easily lost on people outside of the community how big a thing it was for the one girl to go on TV and talk about her miscarriage. That type of thing is not openly discussed, nor is pregnancy in general so I thought she was very brave. In fact most gypsies, myself included, would never actually say the word pregnant and would say expecting or similar.

I didn’t see the programme so don’t know whether this was covered but it’s my understanding that GRT children have the lowest educational attainment at primary, secondary and further education than any other ethnic group. I struggle to see that as progressive.

Thank you, that's really interesting. Is it OK to ask a few more questions? I get if not. If yes...

I suspected boys were pulled out too, but the focus was only on girls so it was misperceived as sexist. Why are children pulled out at that age - the program said sex ed & bullying. Is it this, or other reasons? What could the gov/schools do to make it more comfortable for Roma families to leave their children in school?

I see that young girls aren't forced to do housework..that's good more are staying in education & choosing to work if they want to. However, would you say there is cultural pressure to have a lot of children and do all housework/childcare/elder care once an adult?

That's awful you felt you had to hide who you were. I hope w more education etc people will be less prejudiced... Positive, balanced, media exposure can only help.

On sex ed : I respect your pov, while I agree w the gov stance. However, at my school we were told parents could withdraw us from sex ed until later on. By which time I expect teenagers could refuse if they really didn't want to have sex ed. Are the gypsy community not aware that you can withdraw until an older age?

i watched this, what i do not understand is say a 12/13 year old girl pulled out of school to look after the younger kids/clean etc
so what does the mother do all day if the child is doing everything for them?

Also pulling kids out of school, so they do not have an education, no chance to do something different/earn money etc is sad IMO. everyone should be able to access FULL education, then decide at 16/18 to stay in the gypsy life if they want, safe in the knowledge they have an education to always fall back on

@ThejoyofNC (sorry to @ but not sure how else as don't want to requote) I understood about the strict rules on discussing pregnancy etc from the program, but it was a bit throwaway so others could have missed.

This kind of ties into my thinking about sex ed. I can sympathise w worrying about what will be taught but do mums/dads give guidance? I mean not just how babies are made, but also on things like domestic abuse, consent, pressure.

Again, this is not my personal belief but one of the stereotypes I've seen : that the lack of contact w outside agencies leaves gypsy children vulnerable to abuse.. It's just that the isolation due to negative experiences w outsiders, plus taboos around discussing the body (or is this just for pregnant women?) are potential risk factors.

Ebony mentioned she couldn't go away w female friends until marriage : why would this be, do you think? There also seemed to be a rule against living alone before marriage . Why would this be? And are these rules the same for boys?

Sorry for all these questions! I understand if you don't want to answer, or not all.

We need an “I’m a gypsy-ama” thread!

Interestingly, some of the people Stacey interviewed said they were travellers and some said they were gypsy and their definitions of each varied. Would you say there was a commonly understood difference or are they used interchangeably?

@Allseeingallknowing
There have been several - googling "mumsnet gypsy AMA" brings up more results than mumsnets own advanced search

Morning OP, will try to answer some of your Qs.

It's not only the sex ed lessons. In secondary school PSHE and biology etc are mandatory as far as I know. But more importantly it's not the lessons, it's the culture. It's natural for high school kids to start to explore, learn about and talk about sex and stuff that just isn't compatible with gypsy life.

It's definitely a cultural norm for women to do child care and elder care. I wouldn't say there was a cultural pressure to have lots of children, but I personally believe that having children is the reason we are on earth. I do think people have less children these days, the norm when I was growing up was 5 kids but these days people are happy with 2-3.

Girls holidays could just never be accepted, I would have never been allowed on one and I wouldn't allow my daughters on one. Boys holidays are accepted, I appreciate this is a complete double standard but it is what it is.

To be honest there are a lot of different rules for boys and girls which the settled would just never be able to accept. We tend to get a lot of hate for not being progressive or feminist enough, but I don't see the problem if everyone involved is happy and there are plenty of people who 'break out' of the community If this doesn't suit them. I know a lot of people who have followed different paths and none of them are shunned or excommunicated.

Not sure how helpful any of this is!

Thank you for sharing your perspective.

I think different expectations/standards for boys and girls is an issue. It’s harsh to expect people to leave their community because they don’t fit/like the stereotype for their sex.

I think that’s hard to accept for me, coming from a culture that’s still working on parity for men and women.

Some people like the trad gender roles tho- I can see some probs also find it easier to know exactly what your role is. V trad societies often have lower stress levels bc of this. It wouldn't work for me - I think the main issue is if someone doesn't fit in the box they can find a place too without criticisn.