Should refugees be taught lessons on female equality?

[PinkyofPie]

Thangam Debbonaire MP, who chairs the all-parliamentary group on refugees, believes male refugees settling in Britain should be give lessons in women's equality. link here
This concern seems to have stemmed following the Cologne attacks.

Thoughts?

Mil had an odd conversation with me. She said if she developed dementia she would want to be euthanised.
She said it's always the women that end up caring for the elderly and its not something she would ask if anyone. Mil is lovely.
I very much hope euthanasia is made legal in the uk.

I've had that conversation with my mum too.
She had cared for my grandad through Parkinson's, her mum and one auntie though dementia. One uncle through bowel cancer and dementia. And she is currently caring for the last remaining auntie who has dementia and getting worse. She works 4 days a week full time, lives an hour away. This auntie never had any children and has always been close to our family. I try and help where I can, but with 2 young children, and the distance I can't be there every day.
She has told me to just leave her all the pills. Or take her to dignitas.

Oh bore off nonameno. If you bothered to educate yourself you'd see that shit attitudes to women covers many religions and cultures.

shins, thanks for the enlightened comment! I must go away and do some research on women's oppression now....

MNers like to ignore any comments that don't fit with their narrative of 'all Muslims are... essentially backwards'. And seek to get Muslims on here to endorse their views, so that their middle-class sensibilities aren't threatened by being called on their Islamophobia.

Pointing out the fact that women are treated like second class citizens in Islam isn't "Islamophobia" unless you have any arguments to the contrary. As I said, misogyny isn't confined to one religion or culture. The poster who thought we could learn something positive from Afghan family traditions was rightly called on the fact that this comes at great cost to women. This is the feminist board, are we not allowed to do that without you calling us names?

So it's islamaphobic to point out that in cultures where elder care is usually provided at home, it's women who are doing the caring?

In what way? Do tell.

I never thought of religion.

My comment was made because of the same irritation I feel on threads about breastfeeding or natural childbirth where inevitably in support of how we are doing it all wrong someone pops up to cite the example of a nomadic tribe where breastfeeding until 6 is the norm or a non industrialised agrarian society where women happily give birth in the fields with no fuss. In other words not remotely comparable and conveniently ignoring anything which does not suit their argument.

Apparently this topic is being discussed on Women's hour today.

They are giving classes on it here in Finland www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35353310 though it seems they need a bit more education

the guardian video piece linked above is good

www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/aug/01/norway-muslim-immigrants-classes-western-attitudes-women-video

"There is another thread on here currently where some of the posters estimate that around fifty per cent of the men in the UK are responsible for rape and/or sexual assault at some point in their lives."

"Not quite sure what he is aiming for but I simply do not believe 50% of UK men are going around raping and assaulting women."

Lass, that's because he's taken the point out of context.

First, it was put forward (by one poster) as a 'don't know what proportion, maybe 50%?' type point; secondly, and more importantly, it wasn't about rape/sexual assault perpetrators specifically but about sexual entitlement culture in general i.e. a possible proportion of men who have done something related to sex to a women without bothering about whether it was welcome e.g. catcalling, sending dick pics, sulking if a partner was uninterested in sex etc.

I don't know if this will work short term, long term - maybe? From the comment at the end of the Finland article it will take much more to change the cultural conditioning of centuries. It will make clear that men may face criminal proceedings if they do certain things which may stop them. It will not however change the way they see women in their own community. It is in some cases reinforced by religious doctrine as well.

As shins pointed out there is still some way to go here and in many other cultures, for example in many Latin American countries there is a significant problem with domestic violence and even in Japan which we would think of as extremely progressive there is a great deal of misogny. No one is saying that British or indeed European men are perfect, but we certainly have come some way even from my mother's generation who were expected to give up work when they had children and had less opportunities than we do today.

The crux of the matter is we have men and boys who are settling here from extremely conservative cultures which do not view the rights of women in the same way. To enable them to function in this country they have to understand how life works here, this means treating women differently to how they have been used to. There are a multitude of things that work differently in this country to many others, recycling, how to access a doctor, using a bank, finding leisure activities, how to greet people in different situations. Perhaps this information could be included in all that? Including appropriate behaviour and gender equality definitely could be included in PHSE lessons for younger children which obviously both sexes could attend.

well balanced post sportinguista. No one is saying misogyny is confined to Muslim countries. However having grown up in a muslim country then moved here at 15 I know that all sorts of things we take for granted: being able to walk down the street as equals to men without being scared, equal opportunities, equitable health care, a judiciary which does not favour male offenders in case of domestic violence etc, are not givens in many muslim countries.
Furthermore some immigrants who moved here in the 60s, 70s and 80s now complain they were not helped to understand the country and integrate, so hopefully this will help the new arrivals.

I think this is a major problem with the west tbh.
We have our own societal norms and belief system that differs from theirs.
Can we dictate how they behave?

The irony is that these issues are dealt with in RS at dd's school... from which Muslim dcs are excused.

Jacquetta, this is the actual quote;
I think ot comes down to the fact that a large proportion of men, maybe even half?, have had sex with someone they have had to take advantage of, coerce, manipulate or force to have sex with them.

Coercion, taking advantage of, manipulation or force amounts to rape. Not dick pics, not cat-calling. Another poster backed it up, saying she had read a study;

^I agree with AyeAmarok numbers. I cannot remember which study I had come across bit yes most men have actually 'raped' a woman in their life.
I remember well because I had read the research paper to DH who vehementally was telling it just was NOT possible......I'll have to find that research again. Someone else had post it MN.^

So it appears that I have not taken it out of context. It's a pity you didn't take the point up with the poster in the other thread, rather than me in here, if you think they were both wrong.

It's not just this but a lot of things we just understand from growing up here are not automatic for those coming from other parts of the world. I live in an area of high immigration with a variety of cultures and it's all sorts of things, like not fly tipping, not spitting in the street, greeting people in an appropriate fashion, queueing nicely, not trying to smoke in cafés etc. And social gestures and cues vary across the world, for example playing with your earrings in certain countries is seen as a sexual signal! I even once suggested to local council that they do orientation packs in various languages to be given out to new arrivals so they understand all these things straight away, no room to get confused. Although one thing that helps is understanding the local language quickly and mixing with the locals so you learn from what they do.

Hi Grimarse

Thanks for hunting down the quote and giving it more context.

'Manipulation' and 'taking advantage of' do not amount to rape in the current legal sense, provided that the woman has the freedom and capacity to consent. Therefore Aye's comment was not an estimate that 50% of UK men commit rape or sexual assault.

Aye's phrasing made it clear she thought a large proportion of men had had sex under one of those conditions, though she wasn't clear how many, 'maybe half?' was a tentative statement. Your phrasing didn't reflect this tentativeness, IMO.

gillybeanz Tue 02-Aug-16 14:29:20
"I think this is a major problem with the west tbh."
"We have our own societal norms and belief system that differs from theirs."
"Can we dictate how they behave?"

Yes, we can. We can't dictate thoughts or beliefs, but behaviours we certainly can. If you move somewhere, you obey the laws and try to fit in. As in, 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do'. E.g. For some Americans it is a societal norm to carry a concealed weapon, we absolutely can dictate that they do not do so in the UK.

You seem to be suggesting that our societal norms should play second fiddle.

Can we dictate how they behave?

Yes we can. See post above mine.

I listened to the report on Womans Hour, where they discussed how this was done in Norway, they described a very white, very typical Norwegian town which hosted asylum seekers, mostly Syrian, they were housed in 'normal' housing, encouraged to integrate, and were obliged to attend these classes as a condition of getting their benefits. The reporter was initially positive about the classes but became less so. A few things stood out for me- one, many of the asylum seekers were educated professional people (often forgotten). They had the view that the education should be 2 way, example given, refugees are expected to accept that in Norway women are free to dress as they wish, short skirts etc if they want, this does not mean they are sexually available. BUT, Norwegians see a woman in hijab and assume this means she is repressed/uneducated etc, this is not true either. The reporter also commented that if she moved to Saudi Arabia and was forced to attend classes on local culture, she might nod, smile and appear to agree but would never accept that in fact she should be veiled and never drive a car.

Jacquetta - 'Manipulation' and 'taking advantage of' - I understood these phrases to mean a lack of enthusiastic consent, but I am not a legal expert, so I stand corrected.

I think there's a lot to say for raising awareness to ensure that not only do men know that e.g. domestic violence is against the law, but that women also know that the options are available to them to escape and see their husband / father / whoever prosecuted.

However, education has limits - domestic violence continues to be an issue within the UK because unfortunately just setting a law doesn't prevent something from happening. Education combined proper integration may see a gradual change of norms over time which has got to be beneficial and short of that if we limit out right criminal behaviour outside the home by these classes then at least it's a step in the right direction.

Obviously preventing criminal behaviour within the home would be the ideal, but I think that is harder to achieve, not less desirable.

A massive amount of generalisations being made here about such a huge variety of cultures.