My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding Channel 4

[sailorsgal]

Anyone watching.

Ah, so like many prejudicial and derrogatory terms it is inappropriate.

That changes my opinion not in the slightest.

The hostility has always been there kirriemummy...as has the suspicion.

I might have missed your opinion Cain.

The term "Pikey" goes a lot further back and means Pike Bearer which was a weapon used hundreds of years ago and was always held by the front line troops going into battle, the pike bearers were the first to be killed and they were always Irish, hence the offensive nature.

A really important point here is that gypsy travellers do not choose and are not defined by the lifestyle they follow - they are an ethnic group. So Bridget senior, I would imagine, feels the same way as a polish mother would feel about her daughter marrying a polish man, or a muslim mother feels about marrying a muslim man. Gypsy traveller is the name of the ethnic group, and pikey is a derogatory label given by settled people to gypsy travellers. Gypsy travellers would not call themselves pikeys, as it is an insult. So, again, if you look a the equivalent in other cultures, pikey is to gypsy travellers is what paki is to asian people.

What...all of them? Are they? And that NEVER happens with non travellers does it? NO 15 year old non traveller gets up the duff does she?

But the derrogatory label isn't the main issue is it?

Getting bogged down in language is smoke screen at this stage. Its like getting bent out of shape about the use of the word 'nigger' during the height of segregation - it not the source of the problem. Attitudes are the source of the problem, on both sides.

"I'm so right on, you can't use the word pikey in any context as it offends me" - what about the reality of the situation?

The issues that the this programme raises or are they just too complex for you to comment on?

I seriously think, again, that the 'something must be done' attitude is not going to work...yes, the practices are unacceptable (I don't think grabbing meant rape by the way, I do thing it was forcibly making the girls snog the boys, which is also horrible but not rape) but you can't, on the basis of a programme go wading into a culture that is already on the defensive forcing them to change their practices because you don't like what you have seen. a) it's ill informed and b) it wont work. the community will respond by closing themselves off, becoming more defensive, and the children that you want to save will have less access to the outside world, not more. Please, think about how people deal with the issue of forced marriages and female circumcision in other cultures, and what has worked in terms of changing attitudes within those cultures. Cultures have to change from within, not have change imposed upon them.

I CBA, going to bed as planned.

some people are too busy feeling 'right on' because they are offended by language yet the actual abuses of the situation are beyond them.

Wrong focus!

Many marginalized cultures have big issues around their way of life Cain..it doesn't make it ok to call them offensive names.

But kirriemummy manhandling a girl around to the back of a van to fuck her 'cos you want to or your mates expect you to' is not on!
And a girl feeling due to her culture that she has to accept that kind of treatment is not on!

What are british laws for if they don't protect every underage girl from forced or obliged sexual intercourse?

I don't understand your justification of that and I never will.
Sue me.

Cain Wed 02-Feb-11 00:33:25
Some interesting points kirriemummie, I grew up in north west scotland and our community was often visited by travellers (I didn't learn that they were gypsies, pikeys or anything to look down upon until I moved to england) but I never witnesses the kind of behaviour I am seeing on this programme.

Read the post wimple, you are off on a tangent of "I'm so right on" without any substance.

just because you dont want to use horrible language doesn't mean that you can't also do something about the attitudes the language signifies. its two sides of the same coin. I wouldn't tell my daughter that as long as she's not racist she can use the word nigger...in context...????

Final thought..... in Scotland in the early 2000's a study was carried out into illiteracy which showed that 20% of the adult population could not read or write. 7% of all rape cases result in a guilty verdict (the other 93% of women are presumably lying) . Women are on average paid 20% less than men for doing the same job. 3 million women in britain suffer domestic violence every year - and these are just the ones who are brave enough to report it.

Glass houses, and stones.

ps - I never said that I condoned sexual violence against anyone, by anyone. I don't.

Cain Wed 02-Feb-11 00:33:25
Some interesting points kirriemummie, I grew up in north west scotland and our community was often visited by travellers (I didn't learn that they were gypsies, pikeys or anything to look down upon until I moved to england) but I never witnesses the kind of behaviour I am seeing on this programme.

Have you read my post? You are busy accusing me of using derrogatory words and its not my use! You are totally side stepping the actual issue by getting bent out of shape about my use of a word I heard and repeated in this post. I have never repeated it in any other situation nor would I. That is down to you lot.

Fucksake! Smokescreens! God forbid you should have to discuss a seriously disturbing situation. Oh no lets make it about a word. We are safe with that. We can handle that.

Lets not get our hands any dirtier than that.

Talk about a vacant lot.

Cain, the area between your ears is a vacant lot in the best sense of the word.

conculainey Wed 02-Feb-11 01:44:27
Cain, the area between your ears is a vacant lot in the best sense of the word.

You have proved my point. Pity you have nothing more to offer.

Sleep well and don't worry as long as it is not in your back yard.

Kirriemurray

A third of travellers die before 25, 10% of infants die before 2.

This is not normal for a population.

OMG Norman - is that a fact? Where did you find those figures? That IS shocking.

Whilst this programme is never going to representative of the whole travelling community, it does appear to be representative of a significant proportion. The programme has not focused on one small community: it has shown snippets from several different communities up and down the country and the fact is that the same attitudes and traditions have cropped up time and again.

Sineone mentioned up thread that they didnt see anything in the proframme to suggest thatcnany traveller children cannot read or write to a decent level: There were several points in the programme which referred to the literacy levels of the children - Lizzie saying she could read "ok" if she took it slowly and Noreen having to fill in her friend's forms at the paintball centre, etc.