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

I don't disagree with you, maybe it's a 'kill two birds with one stone' thing...... destroy her ability to experience pleasure whilst at the same time letting other men know that you own and control her?

I think the cringing away from admitting that the UK is superior in terms of racial equality, women's rights, children's rights, workers' rights, and gay rights is part of the problem. If we want to preserve these things, we have to be able to say why! Because they're good. Because they are better (superior) to the alternatives. Because they are what liberation movements across the world are striving for.

If that makes you "cringe" then how much do you really understand and value those rights in the first place?

Yeah, I honestly don't know. I think things start for one "reason" and may continue out of tradition that no one can really explain. I always think of Shirley Jackson's story The Lottery. They don't know why they do it either, but it feels like there's no alternative.

I think this conversation is uncomfortable and I have been clutching my pearls repeatedly as we veer into a forbidden territory of words and ideas. Talking of ‘superiority’ or ‘advance’ is cringy when as a British person I have been well-groomed in the self-deprecation, apology, and self-abnegation of post-colonial white guilt.

Yet, I know it is necessary to go there.

People will cringe, people will clutch their pearls, people will gasp, people will judge.

Never mind. We need to move on.

I think that it is primarily a way to control women, and the rape deterrent thing is either total bullshit, or a two birds with one stone form of branding as you say.

I actually feel for Muslim women, especially those who were born here and gone to school here.

I think to be so blinkered about the behaviour of men from their community is to ignore the treatment of women and young girls as merely a commodity.

I remember when we had changed school, there was a school disco for the fund.

Great time, kids loved it.

DD at the time was a very girly girl (not anymore, pure goth) and so had a party dress on, sparkly shoes, and a JoJo bow.

One of her new friends was a lovely girl from a Muslim family. She was like a little ray of sunshine and DD is still in touch with her.

She was so upset at the disco. She said she wanted to wear bows and party dresses. DD, being in primary and having a very simple world view, asked her why she couldn't, even saying she would bring her a bow on Monday.

The friend had to explain she wasn't allowed to. She had to wear a head scarf and cover her body. So even when she wore a dress it was glittery or short sleeved and if it was she had to wear leggings and a long sleeve top underneath.

It just seemed so sad to me. She was a little girl, in the UK, surrounded by kids in western clothes, and she wasn't able to wear what she wanted due to a religion.

I get that they have every right to follow whatever religion they wish. But when it means a gender is treated as second class, to be sold off and told what to do, well that doesn't sit right for me.

It took decades before any real attempt at action was taken on honour killing or forced marriage. Again, the agencies who should stand up for everyone no matter what failed to.

And we still see deaths of women who have escaped. It's horrifying.

So turning a blind up to the behaviour of men also ignores the behaviour towards all women including their own wives, mother's, sister and daughters.

I’ve got a slightly different issue, where I overheard some girls - about fourteen years old, all giggling and planning some sort of huge sleepover with a large group of friends. They were saying that they had to reassure their parents that every girls attending is a Muslim so it could go ahead.

It makes me wonder what fun, memorable teenage events my kids are being excluded from because the majority of their classmates are Muslim. It gives me a tinge of sadness in the opposite way.

I'd just note, I know not all refugee families want to be in these kinds of enclaves either.

I have a family I attend church with who came to my area from another part of the country, where they were settled where there was already quite a large group of people from the area of Africa they came from. There were significant problems developing there with boys and young men joining gangs, and they did not want their boys to get into that, so they moved to a place where there were actually very few people of their ethnic background.

Now, they have been very happy to have extended family members join them, and over the years have seen a lot of benefit in being able to support each other, like extended families do, especially the elderly members who haven't been able to pick up the same language skills. But they aren't interested in their young kids doing anything other then becoming working members of the larger community which would have been less likely where they lived before.

The other thing I would say is that some parts of this family, even with family support, have required substantial infrastructural support. The idea that the kinds of numbers of people who will be applying for refugee status across the west in the next 50 years will all be able to be supported in this way seems to me like a real question. It's not at all clear to me that we have the resources to accomplish that in a way that will result in integrated, happy communities.

I suspect that we could see the collapse of the refugee system as it exists now, and if we don't think about how else we might do things, it's going to be bad for a lot of people.

I think there are two elements and sometimes it takes some real thought to unpick them.

There are real differences of values, or sometime just way of thinking, that are substantial and significant. There is a western cultural patrimony, just like other cultures have their own products, and as westerners the things we value in our culture are related to that. It's not a one dimensional culture, it includes all kinds of belief systems and religions, but they have related characteristics and a shared history. Even the ability to appreciate other cultures and pluralism. If we allow those things to become undermined, we may find we lose some things that are deeply important to us.

There are also things that represent a more derivative difference, or sometimes have an arbitrary quality, and often these are based on geography or sometimes accidents of history. Something like what counts as reasonably modest socially acceptable clothing, for example. In one culture if women cover hair and another they don't, but cover their breasts, and in a third they go naked - well that probably is related to the relative climate in the places where those norms develop. Wearing a lot of clothes in the jungle is counter-productive. Not so much a real moral difference. And you can still talk about where that might tip into something else, or whether London can accommodate either headscarves or full nudity, as a practical issue. There are lots of things though that when you see their origin they are basically logical.

I actually tend to see full female coverage as in some ways the mirror of the kind of sexualization of women's clothing in many western societies, and things like botox. I think that some other societies can have a healthier attitude to respect for the body than ours often does. And there are other values that are found in other cultures that may also have a lot to offer - an aversion to intoxication, for example.

But we suffer now because of this deep belief among mant progressives that western culture is deeply immoral and corrupt in a way that other cultures aren't, and that it has no values to offer us so it doesn't matter if any are lost - indeed, that would be a bonus. And a lot of that is underpinned by very biased teaching about history, you can even see that on an AIBU thread now where it's clear some posters think slavery was a uniquely western phenomena that was perpetrated exclusively or mainly on racial grounds throughout it's history. They've been given an understanding of history that is purely in terms of an anti-colonial lens.

These kinds of things can develop over time, often the earlier forms may have looked quite different. I would not be at all surprised if FMG started out as a much more limited intervention, in fact I would be surprised if that was not true.

But I think it's also worth thinking in very pragmatic terms about the problems faced by people living in the past. Rape is clearly one problem. Another is unwed pregnancy and venereal disease, which affects people generationally in pre-antibiotic days. How do you control the sexuality of teen girls before marriage? Because they don't always behave totally rationally in terms of avoiding sex themselves. Prizing virginity isn't just about some kind of moralistic abstraction, until very recently it had very concrete, specific consequences. Very young marriage is one way to minimize the time teens might want to sow wild oats, but there can be all kinds of pressures working against that kind of solution too.

Over time these kinds of very pragmatic concerns can become intertwined with all kinds of other values, as well as rituals.

Multiculturalism has led to a very simplistic way of thinking - that whatever minorities do should be upheld and supported. And that challenging anything is racist. This has disadvantaged women & girls in all communities. Labour ex-MP Ann Cryer did some wonderful work in speaking out against forced marriage and the Rotherham abuse gangs, but repeatedly came up against the post-colonial white guilt attitude referenced by a PP.

@ReformedWaywardTeen It just seemed so sad to me. She was a little girl, in the UK, surrounded by kids in western clothes, and she wasn't able to wear what she wanted due to a religion. So sad. And made doubly and triply unfair because she hasn't chosen her religion (it's no co-incidence that all religions have the ceremony to join shortly after birth), and her brothers can wear anything they like.

this

I ummed and ahhed before using the word superior

and I used it very carefully, citing the specific areas in which I think British culture is superior to that of much of the rest of the world

but do I think British cultural attitudes to women are superior to those in Saudi Arabia? you fucking bet I do - and you think that too (general, western, liberal you), whether or not you're prepared to say it out loud

@MangyInseam pssst! Don’t mention modern-day Mauritania (20% of the population in bonds).

@Limer Nice to see you here - still talking about it since Cologne 2016! 🙏

Thank you for your detailed and nuanced analysis @MangyInseam 🙏

I'm glad to see this thread is still going despite attempts by a few to derail discussion. Thanks to everyone who contributed, especially those who shared their very personal and upsetting experiences with male sexual harassment and violence.

Women should be able to talk about such experiences and concerns without being shutdown as bigots or racists. It's a terrible state of affairs that successive generations of women in the UK and Western Europe have campaigned and worked hard over decades to obtain freedom and equality for younger women and now we're at the stage where women are avoiding certain places, limiting their movements in some neighbourhoods or altering the clothing they would wear to avoid the risk of being targeted by men from foreign countries or men who haven't integrated into the wider culture despite being born here.

Once again it is women who are impacted the most by poorly thought out policies and lack of resources. It shouldn't come as any surprise that there are real consequences to having large numbers of (mostly young) men pushed into localities with no effort to keep them occupied via employment, and no long-term plan to help them successfully integrate into the dominant culture, along with little deterrent for bad/criminal behaviour.

But do I think British cultural attitudes to women are superior to those in Saudi Arabia? you fucking bet I do - and you think that too (general, western, liberal you), whether or not you're prepared to say it out loud.

I do. But I am not the one you have to convince. That's my point.

It’s a disgraceful state of affairs that a) anyone resident in this country should require convincing and b) those who need convincing are seen as people we should alter our words, approach, our arguments and our evidence to convince.

Fuck it. I don’t care what they think. They are either utter mugs or racist, misogynist, classist arseholes or a combination of both. Fuck em. Why do you care what they think @Lentilweaver? Why do you want to represent their interests in this thread? What do you get out of it?

Yes, British laws on treatment of women and protection of women are superior to those in Saudi in my view. Of course there may be some things superior (I think for true ethnic Saudis they got so rich from oil that they had even more of a cradle to grave welfare state than the UK although I suppose even that may not be regarded as a morally good thing).

Absolute and relative right and wrong is always an interesting issue. Even on topics like we tend not to beat our children these days there have been big problems with some people from abroad coming here and thinking they can discipline their children however they like (never mind beat their wives). Perhaps we need better to ensure they know both the laws and culture when they come here.

Surely if you want to convince someone of something you start by being convinced of it yourself

and if you can’t even bring yourself to say that thing out loud you ain’t gonna get very far

I am not representing anyone's interests in this thread. But it's more complicated than simply forming a circle jerk of people saying British values are better. Just like obesity is not solved by people saying it is better to be thin. We all know that.

I will leave you to it.

But it's more complicated than simply forming a circle jerk of people saying British values are better.

Sorry @Lentilweaver but I don't like you calling this conversation a 'circle jerk'. For one thing, to the best of my knowledge, we are all women here. Many of the women have spoken in detail about traumatic sexual assault and harassment. It's insulting to refer to this conversation as a 'circle jerk'.

I also don't really understand what you mean by implying that the conversation is too simplistic. If it's more complex then please contribute. There has been a wide range of views given and lots of back and forth between those with different opinions. I don't understand why you are not engaging with posters who have engaged with you, but instead characterising the whole thread as something gross.

Sincerely, if you have an argument to make, then make it and defend it. If all you can do is insult others, then I guess that should tell you how robust your argument actually is.

@Hooverphobe I don't recognise your name - but if you remember me, I remember you! Defending women & girls since Cologne 2016 (and before)!

By circle jerk, I mean a discussion where everybody reinforces each other's views. I didn't characterise the whole thread as something 'gross'-???-nor did I say anything negative about women sharing tales of sexual assault, which of course should be shared. I don't think I have insulted anyone.

I am not sure there are any minority women left on this thread though. Anyway, I am out. Probably a discussion better had in person.

it's a shame you're leaving rather than staying to explain your position

particularly if you're worried about too much consensus on the thread

I thought a 'circle jerk' was where men wanked together. So as a metaphor for describing women talking about sexual assault, it struck me as gross and insulting. Maybe you didn't know what it meant.

But I agree with Bernard. If you're worried about there being too much consensus, stay and put your point of view.