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Original poster

my big fat gypsy wedding

29 replies

RoobyMurray · 18/01/2011 21:16

Just started watching and saw the 15 year olds explaining how lads show they like a girl by taking her off and hurting her if she doesn't want to kiss them.

'tradition' you see.

bollocks to that. it is teaching young girls to put up with abusive relationships. Angry

OP posts:
thefinerthingsinlife · 18/01/2011 21:25

I was just coming on here to have a huge rant about it and you've beaten me to it.

WTF!!!

I think i'm going to explode, women's work to stay at home and mans job to earn the money, leaving school at 11, not allowed to be seen in public alone to "keep their name", same rules don't apply to gypsy boys!! aghhhhhhhh!

whomovedmychocolate · 18/01/2011 21:27

I just replied to another thread on the subject.

Little girls are being groomed like women. It's wrong. :(

Original poster
RoobyMurray · 18/01/2011 21:35

I think this isn't even just about oppression of women, it's also oppressing any man who doesn't fit that mould in some way.

Jeez, it's awful. Fuck 'culture', this is not ok.

I would love to hear some of the voices of people further down the line.

OP posts:
elmofan · 18/01/2011 21:35

Oh dear lord - The communion dress Shock

Original poster
RoobyMurray · 18/01/2011 21:37

They train em young don't they? Sad

OP posts:
whomovedmychocolate · 18/01/2011 21:40

That poor girl in the communion dress, she couldn't even make it up the steps without a firm shove from her brother.

whomovedmychocolate · 18/01/2011 21:42

My teeth are itching at this programme.

thefinerthingsinlife · 18/01/2011 21:43

This is awful Sad

WorldsSlowestTypist · 18/01/2011 21:46

Hmm, I think that there is a lot of racist and sensationalist editing going on. Travellers seem to be the last ethnic group that it ok to attack in this way. My considerable experience of traveller families is nothing like this.
Can you imagine a programme called My Big Fat Black Wedding? - No. It wouldn't be allowed and neither should this be. Just look how many people have taken this portrayal as fact and used it to form negative opinions about the traveller community - Shame.

whomovedmychocolate · 18/01/2011 21:52

I don't have a negative opinion on the traveller community - which is why this is shocking. I understand the producers have added a skank filter to get rid of any normal behaviour but FFS wearing what is actually a frilly lapdancing outfit to get married in church Shock

claig · 18/01/2011 21:56

it's a different culture. I thought progressives were supposed to be tolerant. Not everybody is an Islingtonista.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 18/01/2011 22:00

you don't have to be tolerant of abuse.

and you don't have to hold back from thinking about the gender politics of a culture, just because it is widely socially acceptable to discriminate against that culture.

claig · 18/01/2011 22:04

what they wear is up to them. We have to live and let live. We can disagree with the way they do things, but in the real world, cultures are different.

thefinerthingsinlife · 18/01/2011 22:05

Because it is a different culture it does not excuse the action i'm afraid.

When the boy was "grabbing" the girl and she was saying I want to go now and he wouldn't let her! I found that upsetting, then when she was asked if that was a violent grab she said "no i've had far worse, as a gypsy girl you just have to learn to live with it". Angry

This is unacceptable which ever culture is behaving this way

Angry
WorldsSlowestTypist · 18/01/2011 22:12

Seth,
I agree - I am no apologist for abusers of women (or any other group).BUT you are looking at an extreme example of patriarcal traveller culture - just as domestic violence might be seen as an extreme example of non traveller white british culture.

I work with many fab., caring, traveller families (and some less wonderful ones). They suffer such bigotry. No other group seems to be on the receiving end of open hatred like they are.

ComeAlongPond · 18/01/2011 22:20

Agreed. I've just seen this, expressed shock at the abusive treatment of the girls, and the two housemates who were watching it with me - and claim to be feminists - had a go at me and said that people live in other ways and they probably think our way of life is wrong.

I don't think their whole way of life is "wrong" - I just think parts of it (especially the way they treat the women) is unacceptable.

And at the end, when that boy was "grabbing" that girl :( I said, "That looks a lot like sexual assault to me," and my housemate said, "For god's sake, just because someone did it to you doesn't mean everyone else is going through it too. It's her culture, she doesn't even mind. You're just a snob."

I'm not sure which I'm more shocked about - the program or her reaction! Some things are just unacceptable. The slave trade used to be part of our 'culture', and sending children up chimneys... doesn't mean it shouldn't have been stopped, does it?

WorldsSlowestTypist · 18/01/2011 22:39

Yes but I am not defending the behaviour seen on the programme - Some of it is awful. I am just saying that is is wrong to suggest that all travellers live this way. It is like saying that all black people are drug taking gang members! Finding one group of travellers who behave this way does not make it true of the entire culture.

ComeAlongPond · 18/01/2011 22:53

I don't think anyone is suggesting all travellers live that way, Worlds. I'm certainly not. I think what most people are saying is a lot of the behaviour on the programme was unacceptable, and it being "part of their culture" doesn't make it okay, nor does the fact that they're a minority among travellers.

I'm glad that this behaviour isn't true of the entire culture. It doesn't mean it isn't a problem, though, even if it is perhaps a less-widespread one than Channel 4 would have people think.

thefinerthingsinlife · 18/01/2011 23:00

comealongpond sums up exactly what i'm thinking

loscann · 19/01/2011 00:10

"Cultures are different" so suddenly sexual assault isn't sexual assault if it's committed against a traveller girl?

Would a film crew have walked away from a 'regular' girl being assaulted like that I wonder? One who'd said beforehand how she didn't want to be 'grabbed' and was saying no and trying to get away while they filmed her? Would they have been content to film an unhappy 'talking head' segment afterwards and do nothing to help?

It was really hard to watch.

claig · 19/01/2011 00:16

Why did the film crew, with all their lights and cameras, stand by and film if a sexual assault was taking place? Why did they show it on TV?

StuffingGoldBrass · 19/01/2011 09:47

I must admit I found that bit appalling: that the film crew didn't intervene.
Though it may be because they had been warned that intervention by them would make the experience even more 'shaming' for the girl - fucking primitive barbaric 'cultures' like this are riddled with no-win structures for the women trapped in them.
And I make no apology for calling this type of 'culture' primitive and barbaric. I posted on the other thread about this: I feel the same way about fundamentalist Islamic cultures and those pockets of mental right wing religious peasants in the US.
ANy culture which treats women and girls as objects and property like this is a primitive culture. A progressive culture allows women autonomy and full human status. Very simple dividing line there.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 19/01/2011 10:17

'No other group seems to be on the receiving end of open hatred like they are.'

WorldsSlowestTypist - I think you are absolutely right; the assumptions I have seen about travellers (elsewhere, not on MN) and the language used about them are sometimes mind-blowingly vile.

what worries me is when the level of discrimination against the group as a whole seems to make it even more unacceptable (among right-on people) to pick up on discrimination against women within the group. ComealongPond's 'it's her culture, she doesn't even mind' reaction is a classic example of that.

of course you are right that the film makers picked up the most extreme examples they could find and this should not be taken as typical of all travellers (I only know one traveller family and they are certainly not like this) but that doesn't mean that this behaviour should not be critiqued, any more than the fact that most Muslim women who wear the veil do so through choice means that we should not be critical of the minority of cases where women are forced to wear it.

sethstarkaddersmackerel · 19/01/2011 10:17

sorry, that should say 'ComeAlongPond's friend's 'that's her culture....'

ToxicKitten · 19/01/2011 11:32

I have to admit I didn't watch the programme but what I am reading here is making me a bit Confused

Surely when a programme is made by one group of people about another group of people, it should not follow the old nature documentary of non-intervention in animal behaviour?

The application of non-intervention into the animal kingdom natural behaviour is correct, but humans are not animals and ALL are deserving of protection from harm or feeling harmed.

This strikes me as abit of an attempt at "dehumanisation", unwitting or not.

Men and women should be EQUAL, no matter belief or culture.

I saw this programme advertised on GMTV and felt distatsteful about it then.

I like explorations of different societies and cultures, and I try very hard to be non-judgemental of and respectful of the little things that detract from meaningful reform.

Control of women by men is outdated and unhealthy for both sexes and the future of humankind, no matter which culture we talk about. Until meaningful dialogue takes place it will keep happening.