If Only Bigots Have Boundaries - How Will Safeguarding Be Possible In This Brave New World?

[EmbarrassingAdmissions]

If Only Bigots Have Boundaries - How Will Safeguarding Be Possible In This Brave New World?

There's so much gaslighting and minimisation. "They're just bodies." "Don't look." "Don't go there." "You're a bigot."

If only bigots have boundaries - and bigots are to be suppressed, deplatformed, sacked, and harassed for their boundaries and educated into dismantling them - how do people who identify as non-bigots hope to retain safeguarding in any meaningful way?

Or do children, women, and vulnerable people not need safeguarding any more?

Did someone solve that while I wasn't looking? Because it feels like a societal level decision in which I was neither consulted nor involved.

No one was above or beyond suspicion.

Can't be said enough.

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

If Only Bigots Have Boundaries - How Will Safeguarding Be Possible In This Brave New World?

There's so much gaslighting and minimisation. "They're just bodies." "Don't look." "Don't go there." "You're a bigot."

If only bigots have boundaries - and bigots are to be suppressed, deplatformed, sacked, and harassed for their boundaries and educated into dismantling them - how do people who identify as non-bigots hope to retain safeguarding in any meaningful way?

Or do children, women, and vulnerable people not need safeguarding any more?

Did someone solve that while I wasn't looking? Because it feels like a societal level decision in which I was neither consulted nor involved.

No one is perfectly free to be a bigot, and I see little deplatforming in the UK press - quite the reverse!

But freedom to be a bigot and free speech is also free for others to call you out on it.

Mishy, which is more important; worrying about being called a bigot, or safeguarding for children/vulnerable adults?

I hear you OP, some things I see online are extremely disturbing.

But I am optimistic that good will prevail. The mainstream are waking up to the dangerous logical conclusions that things like self-ID or ineffective law on transgender rights would lead to.

There are increasing number of men in high places who get the importance of all this stuff.

Shame that it's the men in high places that we need to convince - but that's the patriarchy innit?!

I believe we are succeeding.

*No one is perfectly free to be a bigot, and I see little deplatforming in the UK press - quite the reverse!

But freedom to be a bigot and free speech is also free for others to call you out on it.*

Talk about missing the point...

Any thoughts on effective safeguarding, Mishy ?

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

The creepy part is he only found out by accident. They sometimes don't unfriend you officially. This way they can see anything you post on various pages?

Why would somebody you know reasonably well do that rather than have a conversation with you if they have concerns? It's almost as if they've made up their minds.

I think it's a case of one or two people spreading the word that X is persona non grata. A lot of weaker individuals just follow along like sheep. If they quibbled it might be them next ? That makes four people I know who have quit Facebook recently.

Mishy

But freedom to be a bigot and free speech is also free for others to call you out on it.

You did read the OP didn't you Mishy? Are you saying that campaigning for stronger safeguarding in the aftermath of the attitudes of many telling little girls that they should not look at the penises in their single sex spaces, is bigoted and that you are calling us out on it?

Is that what you meant to do?

Really mishy

Safeguarding is now bigotry?

I'm a doctor. I share a 'characteristic' (well a qualification) with thousands of well-meaning medics. I also share it with Harold Shipman. I have various checks and balances put on me because of the latter.
One of those is access to means. The method he chose to murder vulnerable people with would be a lot harder for me. Even if I wanted to.
That's safeguarding. We can't see inside people's heads and note who has the murderous intent, but we can see situations that would allow that intent to turn to action and do our level best to change it to make it least likely. Restrict the means. Single sex spaces is an example of this.

I also dislike how the conversation seems to end up talking about female spaces as the target service. For example, a swimming pool with male and female changing facilities. The 'debate' talks about how men who identify as women or whatnot are 'excluded' by keeping the facilities single sex. That's just a lie. No one is excluded from the service (the swimming pool). Males are excluded from the female spaces and vice versa. Yet the reaction is like they can't get where they want/use what they want and I think it's really telling. It's not about participating in public life. It's about invading private spaces.

I remember that creepy bot ''t*rf crawler'' thing that was made to monitor this board for certain 'problematic' words to report, and safeguarding was one of those words.

The kind of people so dead set against safeguarding, or desperate to brand it 'phobic', 'bigoted', 'offensive' or 'stupid' are likely the very reason we need safeguarding to exist in the first place.

I can't think of a single innocent reason to be so against it, especially when it comes to children.

That creep was so self righteous about it.

I've had to have DBS checks through my volunteer work. It didn't once occur to me that it was some kind of terrible slur on my character.
Frankly, anyone who immediately screams bigotry the moment they come up against basic safeguarding and boundaries is raising red flags left, right and centre.

Helleofabore, I don't think you get safeguarding, and that's probably not your fault, but it does matter.

We don't force enhanced DBS checks on people who want to work with children and vulnerable adults because we believe they're all perverts with evil intentions; we do it to identify the 0.0X% who are, and protect people from them.

We don't build houses to resist the wind strengths of an average storm; we build them to resist the once in a century event.

We err on the side of caution because people's lives and well-being are precious to us as a society. And look - evil and devious people still sometimes get through! Safeguarding is about thinking the unthinkable and preventing it.

Nobody who takes safeguarding seriously ever says, "Well, most people are well-intentioned and honest, so let's not suspect anyone. It'll probably never happen."

Do you have contents insurance or a burglar alarm to guard against the unlikely event of a robbery? Do your doors have locks and do you use them? Do you lock your car when you leave it? Do you have life insurance in case a tree falls on you?

If you didn't bother, probably nothing bad would happen, right? But I bet you bother. Because the unlikely, even the unthinkable, might happen.

When you lock your house, are you accusing all your neighbours of being thieves or are you just taking wise precautions?

How many little girls are you willing to allow to be molested to spare the feelings and stroke the sensibilities of a few grown men? Just a round number for the UK per year would do. 5? 50? 500?

I'll tell you my round number of acceptable collateral damage. It's 0.

How many little girls are you willing to allow to be molested to spare the feelings and stroke the sensibilities of a few grown men?

me, NewlyGranny?

I am with you all the way. 0.

Perhaps my sarcastic tone has not been obvious enough.

@PaySeeWhiTa

I'm a doctor. I share a 'characteristic' (well a qualification) with thousands of well-meaning medics. I also share it with Harold Shipman. I have various checks and balances put on me because of the latter. One of those is access to means. The method he chose to murder vulnerable people with would be a lot harder for me. Even if I wanted to. That's safeguarding. We can't see inside people's heads and note who has the murderous intent, but we can see situations that would allow that intent to turn to action and do our level best to change it to make it least likely. Restrict the means. Single sex spaces is an example of this.

I also dislike how the conversation seems to end up talking about female spaces as the target service. For example, a swimming pool with male and female changing facilities. The 'debate' talks about how men who identify as women or whatnot are 'excluded' by keeping the facilities single sex. That's just a lie. No one is excluded from the service (the swimming pool). Males are excluded from the female spaces and vice versa. Yet the reaction is like they can't get where they want/use what they want and I think it's really telling. It's not about participating in public life. It's about invading private spaces.

Great post and I really like your take on the service aspect of swimming pools etc.

I come back time and time again to the question 'What kind of man wants to enter a woman's changing room and strip off in front of women and girls?' Because none of the reasonable, respectful men I know would dream of it — partly out of fear of accidentally exposing himself. Any man who wants to use women's single-sex facilities is automatically the kind of man who shouldn't be in there.

I feel a little akin to Joyce Grenfell in her character, the Vice-Chancellor's wife, in the section where she speaks to the anarchist and worries about the drains because "Plumbing is central to the better life."

They always turn everything around. Them denying someone boundaries pretty much is the definition of bigotry, so what do they do, turn it around and say no, the bigotry is having boundaries.

Reminds me a lot of Trump, he also accused others of everything applying to him.

The two most popular terms of misogynistic abuse that have arisen in the last 5 years, Karen and T*RF, both describe women who assert their normal, everyday rights and defend their normal, everyday boundaries.

I assume you are in favour of abandoning the DBS system because it's 'just plain wrong'

No, you are dead wrong about that.

Assumptions are often snares, and a major inhibitor of useful, effective action. And a suggestion that only bigots have boundaries is beyond the fanciful

Assuming that a different way of looking at the world = 'don't care about safeguarding' or assuming that all people must be perverts because some who share a characteristic with them are perverts, is just plain wrong.

That's what safeguarding is! You do assume all people could be perverts.

That's why, even though I am part of the sex class that only commits 2% of all sex offences, I still had to have a DBS check to get my job and at my place of work there are rules in place about being alone with children in certain situations.

And a suggestion that only bigots have boundaries is beyond the fanciful

You might want to take that up with Mishy who made the original suggestion.

Have I missed an outline of how safeguarding might be retained or reimagined?

Would some institutions and practices be retained (UK setting)? If so, which ones?

If some are to be deprecated - does anything replace them, and if so, what?

Is there a proposed new framework for safeguarding? Will it be based on a deliberative process with relevant stakeholders?

Assuming that a different way of looking at the world = 'don't care about safeguarding' or assuming that all people must be perverts because some who share a characteristic with them are perverts, is just plain wrong.

Why do we even have single sex spaces in certain situations then? Why is my DH, who is definitely not a danger to women and is a lovely man, not allowed in female changing rooms?

I've posted this link on another thread.
This is what happens when safeguarding fails. 60,000 children got abused. The article is more about the financial settlement (which will bankrupt the organisation)
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57692428

Predators will find ways to get to vulnerable people. Removing or weakening safeguards just makes it easier.