Safeguarding girls and protecting women post Jimmy Saville & #metoo

[SpareRibFem]

I don't understand, there was a lot of hand wringing after the revelations about Jimmy Saville became widely accepted. #metoo there was more handwringing about the need to listen to women when they are telling you something that makes you uncomfortable.

Saville was allowed to get away with what he didn't because he created an aura of fear and people would afraid of the backlash if they spoke up. Those that did suffered.

We were promised something like that could never happen again...

And yet now despite many women and girls saying they feel afraid and uncomfortable sharing single sex spaces with someone with a penis weren't told we're bigoted and verbally abused for saying that. Our employers are contacted and told we're bigots, we're doxxed.

And organisations like girl guides are going still further in saying it must be kept a secret when girls are being forced to sleep and change with a male bodied teen with a penis (& teen levels of hormones) and I'm not even allowed to identify what sex that male bodied teen with a penis is on a public forum

Girl Guides are taking that approach despite the knowledge that abusers use secrecy and shame to their advantage.

Just like with Saville anyone who excesses concerns is shouted down and accused of being the person in the wrong by the powerful. There is a culture of fear now. Celebrity voices in particular (thinking people like Munroe Bergdorf, Stephen Fry and long list of others) are given more weight to shout down women's concerns. Male bodied people feelings are paramount despite almost all sexual abusers being male bodied (and most of the tiny tiny number of female bodied sexual abusers working with and being in thrall to a male bodied abuser)

Did we as a society learn nothing from Saville & the multitude of other abuse scandals that women and children/girls should be listened to, that celebrities voices help hide abusers, that telling girls to keep secrets from their parents about the presence of penises in their bedrooms and changing rooms and showing them they will be blamed and abused if they transgress and tell someone creates an environment where abuse can flourish.

There is so much confusing misinformation

Agreed. Probably because certain organisations spread it around, and most of us tend to accept what we are told at training events held at our workplace, purportedly delivered by experts

I have read that if a transperson doesn't want the risk of previous names coming back on DBS check, they need to go through an official helpline.

I don't know what happens if someone with a GRC doesn't either declare their previous name or go through the official helpline. I don't know if there is a risk that crimes don't follow them. But the system must be set up to stop anyone using a new name to avoid crimes being declared?

I had a link on a government website, but it is no longer there.

sarahjconnor thank you for your courage in telling us your story. You don't come across as unhinged at all: quite the reverse - you come across as utterly sane. And righteously angry.

Savile was known about at the time - Irvine Welsh even put a not-so-thinly disguised cameo in one of his novellas Ecstasy - I just got my copy off the shelf and it was published in 1996, five years before Savile's death.

I'm not surprised you're furious with the school - I would be apoplectic. But it is truly terrifying how people just don't get it. I had a scary conversation a year or so ago with a good friend, discussing a mutual friend I'd lost touch with. Turns out his daughter (who I knew back when she was a toddler) has "gone off the rails". Smoking, drinking, drugs, prematurely sexualised behaviour. Talking about her "bad" behaviour, I said "well, teens don't just do that out of nowhere - has something happened to her? Because that's the sort of behaviour I'd expect in a child who'd suffered sexual abuse." "Oh yes," said my friend, breezily, "something happened a couple of years back, but that's got nothing to do with this..."

I wanted to scream - how dense can you be? Of course it's got everything to do with the girl's current behaviour.

Just to say I am enjoying this thread. Particularly the dots connected that opposition to selfID is being shut down - and that any future victims will be shut down in the same way. Exactly that.

for Sarah It is a massive conspiracy of gaslighting to be told the things you were. I guess most of his victims were told the same thing. :(

Funny how some of these predators set off the creep-detector, isn't it? When the Savile crimes finally got the open acknowledgement, I just wasn't surprised. Glitter either. Or Cosby. One that didn't trip my detector was Harris though. But I think it shows that you should always listen to that creep-detector, it usually picks them.

Lisa tells the story that a teacher on her social work training told the class that statistics said that at least one of the class was there in the hopes of getting into a position where they could abuse women or children. And that the sooner they learned to incorporate that into practice and reflect on similar power relationships, the better the social worker they would be.

LangCleg's comment earlier is really important.

Its not just about DBS checks.

People working with children and vulnerable adults wil often, if they are reflective, have an unease or question something.

They need to be able to do this (with integrity)

So basically if you change your name and say your trans you can eliminate your criminal and financial history. I can’t imagine this will be abused

so basically if you change your name and say your trans you can eliminate your criminal and financial history. I can’t imagine this will be abused

& your online prescence & no doubt (to a degree) the ability and liklehood of other people feeling able to to discuss it. See transphobia/ deadnaming / misgendering / literal violence /hate crime etc

Seems like offenders have more rights than victims now - the fight to erase their online history, right to erase their irl history easily yet victims are doxxed, their personal lives and habits examined in minute detail and trashed, hounded our of their home & country - the difference in treatment by the media and law is very marked now - and no redress for victims whilst the mob and media ride roughshod over them

So basically if you change your name and say your trans you can eliminate your criminal and financial history.

No. Paris Lee's criminal history will show up on a DBS check. Paris could ask that their previous name not be given, but the offence would still be shown, just under the new name not the old one.

Same with financial history relating to a loan, for example.

I know someone (not trans) who has had their criminal past removed from Google under the right to be forgotten (?), but the authorities are still aware.

Sarahjconnor

Engaging with TRAs on here seems like light relief in comparison to the overwhelming and profound swell of frustration I have when I read reports such as yours.

I can't imagine the feelings of isolation in the wake of Savile's assault on you when you were disbelieved and it was minimised.

And then the hope and relief when he was exposed, the report came out and you were asked for your testimony.

Only to go right back to zero, in your daughter's school.

Even reading it my frustration levels are going through the roof, so God only knows how you managed to keep yourself from exploding.

Fucking hotpants indeed.

Bloody well done to you.

On the Important thread started by Justine and outlining many of the concerns of Mumsnet users

RedToothBrush responds to Justine's comment,
"If we lose our ability to have civilised conversations without insulting language or hyperbole then we become just another ranty social media space that no one needs to take seriously."

Red writes:
"Justine I agree with this in principle but I also have a fear here too.

The thing about Godwin's Law is important. People think that invoking it is always hyperbolic.

The trouble is it's use will increase as authoritarianism becomes more common. What we see in Trump's America with children in cages, pregnant women in shackles and denied medical attention when they miscarried and Trump's decision to pressure countries into not following a UN resolution to support breastfeeding are horrendous. The worrying thing is this is what they allowed the cameras to see. There is now a legal case where a child in state care was returned to her parents with lice. She was three.

Things have to be seen in this context.

Things have been normalised very quickly which we thought impossible. And there is every suggestion this will get worse, in terms of what is accepted.

I think it therefore becomes very difficult to avoid hyperbole if you are politically aware and conscious of the dehumanising process.

This very much affects women first and hardest; in terms of child protection and in terms of economic hardship and in terms of social status and standing.

It does all come back to the fact of where women's rights came from and why they evolved. Unless you understand that comprehensively, with so many political shockwaves and changes going on, it will be very easy to undermine women's right unwittingly.

Especially when so many cabinet ministers are middle aged white men, including some who are on record with a strong dislike of feminism and opposition to women's rights.

Fear doesn't come from no where. What you have to assess is whether that fear is justified and can be explained rationally even if it sounds far fetched initially. It may be on the mark.

We live in a comfortable society, where so many of us have no first hand comprehension of hardship or adversity. This leads us into a false sense of security and apathy.

The notion that 'I'll be just fine. It doesn't hurt me' can be naive and dangerous.

The one lesson from history you should learn is that bad things can happen, especially if good people don't want to see it coming.

Women who have survived something have shaken off that complacency. They understand that bad things can happen to anyone. It means that they might be more able to spot worrying trends and dangerous policy than others. "

They should be listened to harder for this reason alone."

^This is relevent both in the macro of politics & policy but also in the day-to-day upholding of child protection and the safeguarding
of vulnerable adults.^

It wasn't just a fear.

It was also a failure to want to listen.

People did not want to believe that someone who 'did good' or 'was nice to children' or was 'a national treasure' was a monster.

Why?

Because their world is nice and shiny and safe. If they allow themselves to see the evil then their security evapourates and it forces them to face a significant shiting of their world view. If that happens it forces them into a position where they have to do something or they have to justify to themselves doing nothing.

Its easier to just ignore it or to try and discredit the people making the claims rather than confront that inner sense of safety and security and expose themselves to the reality of the world not always being was nice and cosy.

Jimmy Saville going unchallenged isn't just about how many powerful friends he had. Its deeper and darker than that; people actively WANTED to turn a blind eye and protect their imaginery world rather than to face up to something vile.

Their own beliefs and vision of the world was more important than the reality that other people were facing.

People who don't have that blindness, tend to have already had that sense of being untouchable and invunerable shattered in some way by an event or experience. They can not afford to be blind; its a matter of self preservation and survival.

Thats definitely way the likes of the Guardian didn't want to touch Rochdale; their belief in being anti-racist was too dominant. And sadly its also why the far right were allowed to breed in that blind spot.

Do not underestimate the role of apathy and lack of empathy in this dynamic, combined with gross naviety and ideological idealism and superiority.

Crossed post with you R0wantrees.

This is so important.

Nothing is unconnected in political trends.

Do not underestimate the role of apathy and lack of empathy in this dynamic, combined with gross naviety and ideological idealism and superiority.

This needs to be repeated.

This is so important.

Nothing is unconnected in political trends.

This also needs to be repeated!

I also think RedToothBrush that one of the reasons why Mumsnet is so powerful (and perhaps targetted) is that the platform rarely deletes posts or threads. On other social media, visible comments can be deleted or hidden from public view. On Twitter when an account is suspended or banned, all of their posting history is 'burnt'.

Nothing is unconnected in political trends

The posts, the links & the connections can be read here and found by anyone using the site.

I often think of this when particular threads here are bombarded with mass reports and zapped entirely, derailed or the focus of others elsewhere.

Women have always been the truthsayers generally and closing us down, along with other whistleblowers, is where the harm starts. That's why MN's net stance is so disappointing where political correctness is conflated with fact.

We see in live action on here, how an organisation's "reputation" stifles legitimate and important truths being aired. How the organisation and its owners' reputations take centre stage ahead of the safeguarding concerns of many mothers and women about what is happening under the guise of self-id.

So instead of embracing the uncomfortable truths. and supporting them being aired to a wider audience so that any perpetration can be stopped plus safeguarding strengthened, the women whistleblowers on FWR are singled out, punished and harmed, by a lack of organisational empathy and wisdom.

We are on reality TV on FWR, playing out the dynamics of what victims of sexism, harassment and assault experience in organisations all across the world, when they try to complain. This is why the grooming gangs proliferated, why Rochdale and so on went unchallenged plus why Savile et al got away with their offending, unscathed and enabled, over decades. Because individuals' and organisations' reputations take precedence over the unpalatable truth.

Learning to listen to uncomfortable truths, without discrediting the messenger, is a skill many don't have.

During the course of my business I had cause for concern regarding someone who had been convicted of pedopophilia. I found it impossible to get any information from any public or police sources. You could argue that it was not in my interest to know this information, except I didn’t want to put children in possible danger as they would be living in close proximity with this man. He was even on the secret electoral roll register so to all intend and purposes didn’t exist.

We live in a world where paedophiles target single mothers on dating websites. They look for the women who have had previous bad relationships including DV so that they are a) vulnerable and b) grateful for a man who is "kind" to her and "welcoming" of her children.

This is why safeguarding matters. This is why trans lobby material is dangerous (to the trans children themselves) when it encourages schools to allow confidential disclosures. A child with a secret is a child ripe for exploitation. This why trans lobby material is dangerous (to the trans child themselves) when it consigns multi-agency working to the bin. A child without a multi-agency team behind them is vulnerable to the abuser infiltrator that Lisa Muggeridge was warned about in her social work training. And all this is before we even consider the interests of girls in this context.

And everything Red and Woman said about why nobody but a few women on a parenting website and a few other brave women who are being castigated for it are saying or doing anything about this clear and present danger to our children. Nobody wants to step out of their bubble to acknowledge the context.

There will be an abuse scandal if this is not checked.

It is worth considering the narrative and messages within some online transgender communities about these being your 'family' especially when parents and carers don't understand / affirm the child or young person's identity.

If a parent carer had concerns based on internet usage, could they find out much about an adult's identity?

It is worth considering the narrative and messages within some online transgender communities about these being your 'family' especially when parents and carers don't understand / affirm the child or young person's identity.

SarahCarer was talking about this yesterday. If you think you are being kind to GNC kids as a trans person, by offering them support, don't talk about being an alternative family and other similar stuff. You might not be an abuser but this is what abusers do when they are grooming young people. Check the techniques, don't mirror them, and offer support in a different way.

You might not be an abuser but this is what abusers do when they are grooming young people. Check the techniques, don't mirror them, and offer support in a different way

This is such an important and nuanced point.

This needs to be said clearly; heard and understood