Can we have a sensible discussion about Cologne.

[HelenaDove]

I feel very uneasy about the way the discussions on the news board are going.

Can we have a discussion on the events of Cologne that isnt racist or sexist (meaning no sexism towards British OR refugee women) I find it very hard to believe that a feminist would refer to young women as girlies or talk about them as if their pregnancies were immaculate conceptions. Yet i have seen someone refer to young British women in this way as well as ask why some of the refugee women are pregnant.

Some of the comments ive seen are making me very uneasy and i hope i am articulating this in the right way that it is intended.

I'm happy to call FGM, making women cover up, deny them education, grown-ups marrying children and mass rape against women and children "backwards".

AgainstTheGlock

"I'm happy to call FGM, making women cover up, deny them education, grown-ups marrying children and mass rape against women and children "backwards"."

That is sooooooooooo racist of you, Glock. Report to Re-education Camp 43 in the morning.

So our misogyny is progressive misogyny then? If we are judging cultures solely on treatment of women, I would say there isn't a forward culture

Your conversation still sounds racist by the way and far from 'sensible.

Please feel completely free to find one that suits your sensitivities and prejudices.

Mide, the British level of misoygny is not progressive, of course it's not. But there are degrees of it. Some cultures are more misogynistic than others.

""i think the "backwards" bit sits uneasily to me. No denying there is misogyny."

Again why does backward sit un easily? I would suggest a culture that does not give women the freedoms that we have in the west, in THAT regard is backward.

"If we are judging cultures solely on treatment of women, I would say there isn't a forward culture"

Really

So you would compare Saudi with the UK, or France etc?

We all have farther forward to go but I cant equate somewhere like Saudi with the UK at all.

Do you agree with cutting hands off, and execution then?

This thread is in Feminism Chat, not Apologist Chat.

Of course cultures that put women on anything other than an equal basis, or actively promote equality are backwards. Backwards, mediaeval and misogynistic. It's wrong. End of.

Crying racism is no longer the magic bullet that the far left can use to silence any debate and win any argument - people have seen through that gaslighting bullshit

I think this is thankfully true, but perhaps it's hard to blame left wing extremists for still trying. After all it worked for them so well, so often and for so long that it must be hard to get used to the new reality ...

All I am saying is that people here seem to be afraid of being called racist, if you use words like "backwards" to describe anywhere that isn't the west then I think you're leaving yourself open to those allegations.

As Lum says there are degrees of these things but if this a forward culture for women it's pretty shit.

people here seem to be afraid of being called racist

Sadly, it's more a pathological terror that a fear. It is the single biggest worry of the left/neo-liberals. Worse, possibly than being a pedophile and a million times worse than being sexist.

If you know you're not being racist, continue the debate. Ask yourself why the accuser feels so threatened they need to resort to invented nonsense. There's usually an underlying political agenda.

In real life, I say to anyone concerned, ignore silly noises off because they are the produce of a third rate mind untrained in formulating continued coherent debate.

I've seen real racism and debating the fact of sex attacks against women is not it.

I see Midge, as we are on feminism thread I would hope, people would know that means in the context of feminist issues.

I would however look forward to examples of other nations being progressive as far as feminism is concerned.

but if this a forward culture for women it's pretty shit

Not clear, the UK is shit?

but if this a forward culture for women it's pretty shit

Maybe go and live in one of these country as a native women would for a year, then come back see what you think about misogyny in this country in comparison. See if it's seems progressive when you return?

I assume that's directed at me Beyond. I'll answer anyway .

To me it wasn't clear and I think backward was unnecessary.

U.K. or the west. Which ever you like.

No Lass, when I stated in another thread that Nazi militias were attacking people in the Calais camp, somebody compared the Nazis to the militias in the US in order to infer I think that they resembled them more than the racist European ones

That is not my recollection. I recall this being first dragged in as a white men do terrible things too point. I'm not sure we are talking about the same thread. The FBI stand off appeared out of the blue.

There have been loads of threads on MN about other sexual atrocities as and when they have happened.

Rolf, saville, peadophile threads, etc and cologne.

No one came onto the other threads and said " look guys your picking on the white guys here, yes Saville raped and abused hundreds, but hey so did those guys over in Rotheram????"

Did they???

Beyond you are bang on the money.

But then I've seen little evidence here of a need to push an agenda that infantilises and patronises white sex offenders.

They clearly do not require the kind indulgence of western neoliberals to contextualise, exonerate minimise, deny and ultimately excuse their crimes.

No Matilda, it is not true that Savile and Harris's crimes were condemned without context or soul-searching as to the causes, but I don't see what Christianity or skin colour had to do with it in this instance. There was a lot of examination of the culture of the 70s, where many of the traditional mores around sex had broken down and things were in a sort of flux. Women were free in a way they hadn't been before but there had not yet come an awareness of how to protect the vulnerable from predators like Savile. There was widespread condemnation of the BBC's failures and attempts to cover up what happened.

When the Rotherham/Rochdale/many other scandals broke, the official report noted the ethnic and cultural factors involved- the men looked on non-Muslim girls with contempt as they had been brought up to do. And the social workers were so afraid of being seen as racist that they looked the other way for decades. The Rochdale prosecutor, Nazir Afzal (of Pakistani heritage himself) said all of these things too, is he racist? He was hounded and threatened by people of his own community for doing so.

You're still not getting it.

I also wanted to mention a white Christian culture which has been scrutinised and criticised and blamed for allowing widespread child abuse to happen. The Catholic Church in Ireland has seen countless priests prosecuted, compensation paid out to victims, official investigations and reports carried out. No-one is shying away from the role a hierarchical, unaccountable, rigidly controlling patriarchal ideology played in these events. No-one is pretending it had nothing to do with religion or culture. We are still dealing with the fallout and will be for many years. So please stop treating an even worse, more misogynistic and oppressive culture with kid gloves just because most of its adherents have a different skintone. It's offensive to the victims of that culture.

Shins - good call!

The thing I want feminism to be doing with Cologne is NOT excuse the crimes, infantilise the perpetrators, say 'but white men do it too' (and yes I know this is how people have interpreted what I've tried to argue, clearly a failure on my part to get across what's in my head) or any of the other reasons people are bringing up here. I want these crimes condemned, what I do not want to be a part of is some sort of ripple effect of condemnation and harm against Muslim and middle eastern people generally because of what these men have done. Particularly given how vulnerable refugees are at the moment. There have already been violent reprisals.

This with brass knobs on. What happened in Cologne was terrible. It shouldn't justify a narrative that our (selfish, materialistic, older-people-neglecting) is inherently superior. It's not like our own shit doesn't stink.

It's not like our own shit doesn't stink

I'm not sure what the point of this is? Surely the fact that some women, who have rightly been brought up in a culture that teaches them their bodies are their own property, have been violated by men from societies that do not respect that, should be the issue.

It's about culture and gender, not race.

matilda Saville etc we looked at the circumstances and cultural of the offenders, and the culture surrounding them, the cover ups and the reasons they could get away with doing what they did and then we can tackle that, ensure it can no longer happen.
In the case of the migrants -it is the same (circumstances and culture of the offenders and surrounding them).
This is current (probably due to social media more than anything) and maybe we can do more about it now, try and prevent more abuse happening or at least reduce the number of future attacks.
The attempted cover up - we have to look at why that happened. Acknowledge that has happened in our society for similar reasons pre the immigration crisis (Rotherham etc), look at the reasons why that happened.
Look at why a blind eye is being turned - right now - to the failure to uphold women's rights in some cultures in the UK.
I feel the same about fundamental Christians and orthodox Jews. If you recall the Jewish school banning women driving their children to school last year. That was rightly overturned. www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/05/ultra-orthodox-jewish-schools-drop-ban-on-mothers-driving
We need to do that, if need be prosecute, any group who try to do the same. Uphold the Equality laws.
The advice for women following the NYE attacks and the subsequent recommendations that women not go out at night, are put under a curfew. Both illustrate that our freedoms come secondary, are disposable.
I really feel like women we have to stand and be counted NOW - fight to maintain our freedoms, not turn a blind eye to any erosion for any reason. Forget everyday sexism this is much more fundamental and regressive.

thedancing can you really not see that this is a ticking timebomb? Because of that attitude.
It's not like our own shit doesn't stink.
I'd agree but do we really want to invite the neighbours round to shit in our house too? Especially as our own family don't always remember to flush and open the window?

They didn't (aside from a few parodies) talk about how white British culture and/or Christianity was the cause. And even if they had, what impact would it have had on ordinary white British people / white Christians going about their lives?

No, this is not true.

The culture, of the time was very much discussed in detail.

There could be no discussion of how heinous crimes could go on, un reported for so long without discussion of the background.

Even a policeman speaking outside the court where Rotherman rapists and pedophiles were convicted said " 2003 is a very climate to 2016, if a girl came to us now, we would listen".

We have looked over the time of Savilles reign, we have raked over the culture, the attitudes and sexism of the time, because we have too, we have to compare it too today because we need to know, would it happen again?

Particularly given how vulnerable refugees are at the moment. There have already been violent reprisals

One of the reasons why migrants might be vulnerable is, when some of them, commit crimes and its hushed up, it makes people feel like they have no where else to go, it makes them powerless, and they turn to far right groups. See Germany's recent elections.

If the migrants who attacked, abused, behaved appallingly were dealt with appropriately, I believe the fear would be quelled, WHY? Because the LAW would be doing its job.

You cant have mass attacks and then cover ups, because there is no cover up in the days of mobile phones, internet etc.

We are also not talking about a race of people.

Just at the culture of the UK was backward in terms of equality, in savilles time, so are the cultures of some of the nationalities who are migrants at the moment, like Afghanistan, in fact they have positively regressed, if you look at pictures from Kabul in the 70's, ladies walking round in western clothes....look at pics today. School girls being shot for....going to school.

As for Islam again its not a race, its a religion, many people of many colours follow Islam. Just as many people follow all sorts of religions.

Catholicism, is under the spot light literally, at the moment, and more atrocities come out, I dread to think whats hidden within Islam that cannot be spoken of. Many people, of all creeds and colours are catholic. Its not racist to cristise the catholic church.