Travelling Community and Women's Rights

[Ilovemyself]

All,

I have just watched Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and thought how does the Travelling view of women fit in with the feminist point of view.

Obviously the view that the women are the men's property is wrong, but the way the women accept it seems wrong to me.

And is there any form of feminism within the travelling community.

Thanks for any answers.

Serious question all.

I guess it is easier to approach a discussion regarding feminism in general to your average man in the UK. But how is a group like travellers that have had this way of life for hundreds of years handled?

I don't know a huge amount about the travelling communities - although there are different groups so you can't lump them all together. I did see a prog a couple of years ago - about the woman making wedding dresses? And the attitudes were old fashioned religious patriarchal from what I could see.

My guess is that the issues are the same as other closed groups in the community. Around here we have some fairly extreme closed religious groups and I suspect similar things apply. Everything from the thread of being ejected and losing all contact with friends/family, wariness of outsiders (so police etc) due to upbringing, all of that stuff.

But what do you do? Do you give up until the rest of the world is a more equal place? Do you give up forever? ( I hope not).

I can't see how you can get into a closed community, but I guess it must be possible.

Crumbs OP, you do like to wade in with eyes tightly shut, don't you?

I really wouldn't take BFGW as a cultural starting point, with respect. The variety of travellers in the UK is pretty wide, and most of them wouldn't recognise themselves at all from that output - it's too distinct. Brit/Irish/Roma are the significant groups in the UK now and each have a different take on the female experience. It's really tricky to generalise without seeming ham-fisted and a bit ignorant, imhe

Hi Pan,

Fair comment. I guess in general it could be aimed at any group where women are classed as a inferior. And without wanting to offend anyone it does seem to be a religion based thing. Or have I missed something.

And yes, I am so good at wading in and getting it spectacularly wrong. But I don't mean to.

ha, I am sure it isn't 'religion-based' tho'.

A couple of weeks ago I spent the morning in a house being rented by a v large family of Romas - they were not there by choice. There was a distinct matriarchy, but I was suspecting the power dynamics told another more sophisicated story. Even within the Roma 'community' there are schisms and an uneasiness, as I learned.

Interesting Pan. I thought that most religions seemed to be patriarchal - with the exception of paganism. Perhaps I am being over simplistic again.

Most regions seem to be so male focused and with the focus of senior members being male I can see why the belief is there that the female is there to support the male ( not that I believe that).

I guess I should change this ( with no offence meant to the religious on here) to how to you get an organisation like the Catholic Church to change their view. I can't see a female pope in my lifetime.

My dd went to a small village school which had a large proportion of traveller kids. None of the girls ever went to secondary school. My 11 they're expected to stay home, help ma look after younger kids and clean.

The boys seemed to start secondary school before packing it in when they're slightly older.

No, no I meant that travelers don't have a religion-base to their actual practices - it's almost a 'given'. Irish travelers are def. not Catholic for eg. Organised religion, as per anything societly-sponsored is an anathema.

and yes of course you're right re male control of religions. Even Buddhism will be judged poorly re the sex-based profile analysis. Western Buddhists, and Tibetan Buddhists, are just frustrated Roman Catholics re sex.

Sorry. I misunderstood you there.

Try paganism. I believe you will find it much more female friendly ( although I may be wrong - I am only just getting into it)

As part of our midwifery degree we had some mothers from the English Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities come and talk to us about their lives and their experiences with the maternity services. I found it just tragic, personally. A few of us probed them on their views on women's place within their community - they genuinely saw men as being the leaders and women's place as supporting the men. They were very clear that there is behaviour that is acceptable for their boys which isn't for their girls; one of them said that she would be happy for her boys to learn about sex and relationships in PSHE, but she would withdraw her girls from such a class. I wanted to bang my head on the desk and stab my eyes with pens. These women did see themselves as being strong and 'in charge' within their own homes, but there is no real autonomy or agency there. Or so my limited experience would tell me.

yes Bue that's exactly the sort of thing I meant about an 'apparent' matriarchy in place, but the gentlest of scratches on the surface reveals quite the opposite.