Thread to discuss the reality of parts of the UK absorbing large numbers of men from other cultures

[BernardBlacksMolluscs]

This thread is to replace the one that got deleted earlier today, and the TAATs that came after it.

As per MNHQ in site stuff, we're OK to have this conversatrion

www.mumsnet.com/talk/site_stuff/4687254-how-do-we-discuss-the-reality-of-parts-of-the-uk-absorbing-large-numbers-of-men-from-other-cultures?reply=121883255

Where have you copied and pasted that from? The paragraph numbers are still present ! And what relevance, do you suppose it brings to this conversation?

lifeturnsonadime it looks like a wikipedia extract. The purpose is to characterise her as the Wrong Sort of Woman who it is acceptable to target misogynistically without having to hand in your "male feminist" card.

Anyway. Let's hear from Nimko who is far more interesting to listen to.

*extract

Duffield, who is also chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party, is not the first female Labour MP to fear her own side. Ruth Smeeth and Luciana Berger both took bodyguards to the Labour conference during Jeremy Corbyn‘s leadership.

As depressing as all this is it’s also not surprising. I know what it is like to fall foul of the progressive Left and the abuse you get when you do. My crimes were twofold.

First, I started a campaign against FGM which was deemed culturally insensitive to the Somali community, of which I am a member. This was enough for me to be blocked by my local Labour MP on Twitter and feel so unsafe and unwelcome that I left Bristol for London.

But as horrific as it was, the experience was nothing compared to the trolling I got for having the audacity to stand for a Women’s Party in a seat held by Labour. There was of course no chance that I would win, but I was not prepared for the abuse I experienced at hustings and online, abuse that led to death threats and being obliged to employ security.

Continues: article

EndlessTea, go to Feminist Goals and Orgs working towards them for Ayaan Hirsi Ali's charity and other similar charities

Let's have a panel of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nimko Al, Suella Braverman and Priti Patel.

That would ensure that the rights of all women and minorities were represented

that was when Nimco Ali was standing for the Women's Equality Party which is being trashed elsewhere on Mumsnet for supporting the rights of the "Wrong Sort of Woman"

Just because you don't agree with someone 100% doesn't mean all of their points are invalid.

WEP has trashed itself by a few male members going to war with women in the party and driving them away. Several of them post daily about getting rid of women.

Only 180 people attended the WEP conference this year. That's absolutely tragic.

It's now basically just a couple of hundred TRAs. This is what happens when they get involved.

for the lurkers what Ministry means by the wrong sort of woman is male ones.

It's really quite telling Ministry that you are trying to use a woman who is the victim of FGM and who has been scapegoated by the Labour party as some kind of 'gotcha' in your own personal crusade. Apparently if women mention cultural differences it is racist but for anyone else it is fair game, right?

Well, this is what I think. Male violence against women doesn't become acceptable because she votes for a different party to me.

Women's personal safety should not be conditional on their politics. It's like women are morally expected to save themselves from male violence by pandering to the egos of the currently winning party. We should have the right to follow our principles. Instead, it's clear that we're supposed to choose our allegiances based on which party's male supporters issue the most death threats.

Which illustrates perfectly that the actual issue is whether women are autonomous beings or not. This question is relevant to ALL women

Outwardly there is autonomy in west, although even in the west It could be argued that it is no more than a veneer of autonomy.

There are clearly things it is better we do not speak of.

I posted this on another thread, after some variety of misogynistic racist troll turned up. That one had a thing about wanting to punish muslim women for being muslim. I'll post it again, because I was in a more literate phase then.

Some women don't seem to realise how dangerous it is to settle for conditional condemnation of misogyny and sexual violence towards women. If aggressive threats (e.g. threats of rape) and sexually intimidating behaviour are acceptable against other women who oppose your male allies politically, then you don't have rights either. You are simply accepting that it is your responsibility to walk on eggshells to keep their favour, and that your safety from having rape used as a tool of discipline against you should rest on whether you pick the winning side.

I wonder also if part of the reason, historically, is that whenever politicians start talking about "community engagement" and "talking to community leaders" they always gravitate towards the men - so it becomes: older, white, man goes and talks to older ethnic minority man and that's a tick in the community engaged box. Nothing wrong with either of those groups of people but it means the opinions, values, concerns of a whole swathe of other people is ignored.

There are definitely women who have left Islam who talk about these issues and campaign on them. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, obviously, I've talked about her lots. But also Sarah Haider springs to mind. I just read this interview (www.christianpost.com/news/interview-ex-muslim-woman-on-life-under-sharia-law.html) with Nonie Darwish - I thought it was interesting when she discusses what it's like living under Sharia law and says:

The predicament of women is it divides women. Women are not allowed to freely meet and very often men tell the wife that you can't befriend this woman. If a Muslim woman living in the Middle East, or even in the West, starts adopting activities such as joining a feminist movement she becomes an apostate immediately. And the punishment for apostasy is death.

So in this environment women are placed almost in an impossible situation where they are almost forced to become against each other instead of supporting each other.

Yes to all of this.

I was getting worried how tunel vision this thread was going.

It’s not ’culture’ (hating women isin’t culture) or country thing.
It’s certain male behaviour.

The absolute worse men I have encountered have been white, I know it doesn’t fit the narrative here, but it’s true.
And many of those men were married. I wonder how many women on this board have oh so woman respecting white husband who has harrassed women.

Of course the thread needs to be corralled onto safer ground.

All cultures around the world are equally sexist.

Women’s rights are identical in every country and culture.

Nothing to see here.

@Sonervousimgonnathrowup i was married to a vile, white man. But, because I live in the UK I was able to leave, financially supported and received legal aid to divorce.

THAT is an upside of “British culture” is it not?

Yes, completely agree that the problem is that men band together to abuse and objectify women, and when they do that they focus on women they can "other" in as many ways as possible: race, culture, class AS WELL AS her sex.

Look at the recent stories about misogyny in the fire brigade, or the police. There's no "foreign men" angle there, but it's still happening. The biggest problem we have is refusal to investigate these incidents, not a lack of willingness to talk about "British values."

I am getting tired of this denial

It’s sacred caste bs

Why aren't we allowed to talk about this? Name the problem in the problem?

Anyway, I think the ‘dream’ round table discussion wouldn’t just be feminists who come from the communities, or communities with similar cultural values and assumptions about women, particularly western women, which are the topic of this thread, it would need to include women with no familiarity with that culture, who are made to feel unsafe in Birmingham, or wherever, too. Also perhaps some men who have experienced the listlessness of unemployment as an asylum seeker in a foreign country.

@IwantToRetire We were talking about that earlier in the thread. I agree that there can be a big problem with large groups of men moving elsewhere and basically echo-chambering themselves into very bad behaviour (not always). If you look at some of the UN scandals like Dyncorp it seems like they almost created their own micro-culture where absolutely appalling things were normalized (not just by the perpetrators but by all the people who looked the other way). "Culture" can be something that applies to a whole country - it can also be something unique to a workplace, an online community, or a small group of men/women away from their families. It's not always bad. But you need to be able to talk about it when it is bad -even though doing so does NOT mean everyone within that group is bad. e.g. there were many people working for the UN in former Yugoslavia who were not sex trafficking children, or knowingly turning a blind eye. But the UN itself was so defensive over its reputation that it strove to cover up when whistle-blowers tried to bring it to the worlds attention. And punished the people speaking out. And were therefore 100% culpable for the repeated abuses.
That doesn't mean humans are always bad or men will always be rapists. There are many cases of positive micro-cultures, or examples where integration works really well (where I live is a good example.) But you don't get that without being willing to let people talk about problems when they exist. And that hasn't just happened on this thread - it also happened on the thread about Incels, on the police thread etc. And it always side-tracks the discussion and actually makes it more extreme.

OK I'm gonna let you in on a little secret that'll blow your mind.

Did you know that some people - if they're very clever and want to know lots and lots about a subject - will sometimes read books by authors who aren't alive anymore!

They do this so that they can understand the foundations and development of an academic theory or way of thinking.

For example, people studying politics at university will often start by reading Marx or Engels, who are dead men who lived a very long time ago. Even though Marx' and Engels' theories were discredited, or found to be failures in practice, people still read them so that they can understand the basis of current theories and schools of thought.

In fact, some people even read Plato and Aristotle! Plato and Aristotle are REALLY dead men who lived a super, SUPER long time ago!

Maybe, one day, when you've grown up a bit, you'll be able to read some Plato or Aristotle too!

Or maybe you can find somebody to do a simple summary on Tik Tok.

I find the deflection on this thread fascinating

do people not know that FGM is a thing? Do they think it happens everywhere or just in certain cultures?

if it’s just in certain cultures, then the attitude to women in that culture is inferior to that in cultures that don’t practice FGM, right?

I think it comes from all this ‘totally tolerant, no judgment’ stuff

frankly if being tolerant means tolerating FGM, then I’m not up for that. We have to be able to pick and choose what we tolerate

and I note that there was no argument about the punishment Nimco Ali suffered for speaking out about FGM, just a defence of it by characterising her politics as beyond the pale

Yes, completely agree that the problem is that men band together to abuse and objectify women, and when they do that they focus on women they can "other" in as many ways as possible: race, culture, class AS WELL AS her sex

Yes. But also that other people (men and women) go out of their way to cover up or distract from the fact its happening - maybe because of reputational damage, loyalty to their workplace/in group/fear or conceeding political ground etc. And to do this they suggest either that the women complaining are lying/exaggerating; that their motivations are sinister; or by whataboutery. Which is EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING ON THIS THREAD.