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 think everyone is reinforcing each other. It has been and is an interesting thread particularly for those of us in areas adversely affected by a very large amount of immigration from cultures with behaviours or values that might be sexist, homophobic etc.

Not everyone has agreed with everyone else. eg I posted that if newcomers continue their preferred cultural practices within their own group and do not adversely affect the host culture that might be fine and someone rightly pointed out that might not be a good point of view of mine if they were engaging in FMG against the law etc and I agree, although if they complying with the law and not disturbing neighbours etc then closed cultures do not necessarily cause us problems.

Even though it is such a sensitive topic I don't think we need any special rules as some parts of MN have about only those affected being able to post however as we are doing quite well in mentioning other views eg I mentioned that in its day Islam was protective of women (4 wives means you don't abandon the first 3 which was useful i those olden days as a female protective measure).

I tihnk it is very important so everyone in the Uk can live in harmony with each other than those in areas where they are now outnumbered by newcomers, particularly single young men, are allowed to explain the problems that are caused and that someone then seeks to resolve those issues.

Putting aside your outrageously rude and dismissive take- that a careful and nuanced discussion on a feminist forum is like a group of men masturbating together (are you revealing who you are in that?), let’s have a look at your analogy.

“Just like obesity is not solved by people saying it is better to be thin. We all know that.”

Unfortunately, the matter at hand is a situation more like trying to organise a Slimmers World meeting where everyone is saying “well being obese or thin - who is to say what is better? This is a very fat-phobic topic to even approach”.

If you want to lose weight, you first need to establish that it is better to not be obese and why. Doesn’t mean you hate obese people.

We are absolutely in the position where we need to say it out loud. We need to say it for our own benefit, so we can think clearly again. We (our country) have been through decades of turning a blind eye to it in order to be culturally sensitive. This has led to horror and abuse of women.

Women’s rights in the UK are superior to those of Saudi women.

Perhaps, if you haven’t been groomed in post-colonial white guilt yourself, you can’t see why it’s actually necessary.

Afaik 'Circle jerk' is used to imply that people are just indulging themselves and not interacting, but it's a figure of speech I've only seen used in red pill/mgtow/MRA communities, to me it seems VERY odd and incongruous here?
Bit like the ex pm saying that money used to investigate CSA had been 'spaffed up the wall'
(now I feel a bit sick but tbh I think it was the mention of the ex pm- sorry to others who may be affected)

Both very blokey terms- boarding school blokey terms.

I think 'echo chamber' would have been a better term, then.

'Circle jerk' is gross; I've never heard it used to mean 'echo chamber' before.

I don't think anyone believes that other cultures in general, or even specifically, are all bad, or that all cultural differences are bad, or evidence of being an "inferior" culture, whatever that would mean.

But the thread is really about discussing a very specific aspect of culture in comparison with that specific aspect in the UK or west. So that is what is being talked about, and there is some consensus because it is something that a heck of a lot of people are concerned about.

There's certainly room to discuss what is the most fruitful approach, what can or can't be mitigated, or the origins of certain cultural practices, and I think there has clearly been some disagreement about these things in the thread, which has been interesting.

One thing I will say is that I have in the past year or so been seeing a lot more skepticism about some of the typical progressive approaches to the problem of immigration from places where there are cultural differences - specifically people being less sure that education is as effective as they might like, or that enclaves are a good thing. I tend to think this is because people are seeing in real life that these things are not working as well as they had expected, which is making them question how immigration can work overall. But maybe that's not an accurate impression.

I think of a circle-jerk as meaning people praising each other for their perceived brilliance in a kind of smug way. I don't see that as what is going on here. I don't see the topic being discussed as the Western treatment of women = all good, the non-Western = all bad either. Yes, the rights women have both in law and via culture are undeniably better in the UK than, say, Afghanistan, no question. Nobody's saying therefore that the UK is perfect nor that there are no benefits for women living in non-Western cultures. I think any such accusations are arising out of what hasn't been fully explored on this thread, rather than what has been said. But the topic of the thread isn't 'the benefits for women of living in highly patriarchal, non-Western cultures'. If that discussion is wanted, fair enough, but another thread should be started.

It would be indeed, but I think calling it a circle jerk suggests that the poster has absolutely no empathy with the people posting and has no self-reflection about the down side of their own culture(s), in their mind it’s-

….this makes me uncomfortable….let’s immediately brush it all under the rug….the only reason why anyone from other backgrounds would mention shameful and embarrassing stuff about my own….is to parade their dominance….no other possible reason whatsoever…. I don’t need to listen to this…..these people are just wanking off about their own superiority……getting off…..in fact I am not going to stay for this…..I’m gonna flounce.

‘Echo chamber’ wouldn’t cut it if you want to mischaracterise the motives of the other posters on the thread, which I think was the actual point.

I think there's an additional irony that it's because we have a culture of female liberation/ women working, earning, owning property, late and free marriage, sexual liberation, practical clothing that we are a wealthy, highly developed country that migrants want to come to.

If we had the customs of eg Somalia we wouldn't have had the Industrial Revolution, won 2 world wars etc. No one would want to come here as we'd be poor.

But the authoritarian patriarchs that come here don't get this.

They think they can cherry pick our wealth, that has come off the backs of liberated working women, but keep women in chains.

Everyone that arrives should have their DNA taken and anyone who commits a crime should be deported.

If the government can remove Shamina Begums citizenship why can't they do the same to violent men?

It’s a good point. About the second thing that occurred to me after the Taliban stopped women working in Afghanistan (right after ‘you utter bastards’), was that action was going to plunge first individual families, and then the whole country into poverty

My thought also. Women have always worked, it's not a new thing, and banning them from doing so is likely to damage any economy. Utterly stupid bastards, the Taliban.

About the criminal element. I think we have to accept that there will be a lot of rule-bending/breaking involved for the majority of people who journey here to seek asylum. There’s human traffickers facilitating a lot of it, and even the more benign facilitators will be telling people what lies to tell and what truths to refrain from telling when they are speaking to authority figures, in order that they aren’t sent back. Loopholes like the ‘unaccompanied minor’ one are fully taken advantage of. So even the most upstanding asylum seekers will probably have lowered their standards of integrity in order to get here. Desperation would do it to you.

I think we need to do whatever we can at this end, in the UK, to stop that hostility towards our rules and laws forming into a habit. This is another reason I feel so strongly that we need to disperse and integrate newcomers as quickly as possible, so people who have made it through don’t reinforce this hostility by being grouped together and forming separatist subcultures.

Additionally, our UK residents present a danger too, because a huge percentage of homeless UK men are those who have been released from prison, (because their tenancies lapsed while they were inside) and they occupy a lot of the hostel accommodation for single men alongside single male asylum-seekers.

It is a recipe for radicalisation, drug addiction, criminality and becoming a nuisance.

I think we need to do whatever we can at this end, in the UK, to stop that hostility towards our rules and laws forming into a habit.
I mean, honestly, the rest of the world doesn't take rules and regulations as seriously as Northern European countries. I live in another Western European country, and it's surprising to me how, even here so close to home, things like drink driving are far more tolerated. There's a lot more suspicion towards anything to do with law and order. I wouldn't feel as confident reporting a sexual offence here as I would in the UK, which I know is far from perfect. In other places in the world, there is practically vigilante justice given free reign, bribery and knowing the right people all part of getting by. I think this is another difficulty with people coming to the UK from cultures that have very different attitudes to law and order, not so much intentional criminality, but ignoring rules, regulations, licences etc.

I used the word 'patriarchal'. I said something like 'conservative patriarchal religions and woman-hating cultures.'

'Patriarchy' can mean two different but closely related things:

1. It's a word from anthropology that means 'rule of the fathers' and is applied to cultures in which the fathers and elder men of the community have a direct say over the affairs of everyone else, including younger men and boys, and most especially women and girls of all ages.

In their most fundamentalist forms, all three of the Abrahamic religions meet this test. I posted a podcast upthread of a discussion between three women from each of these three religions. They all went through the same kind of shit with the same kind of justifications, just wrapped up in different cultural norms and with differing levels of danger.

www.filia.org.uk/latest-news/2021/10/5/women-leaving-faith

2. 'Patriarchy' can also be used in a wider sense to refer to all societies in which women are culturally subservient to men (regardless of what the law says), which is basically all cultures. And really it is all the same thing, it is all patriarchy.

In this wider sense, women feeling the need to shoot themselves full of botox and lip fillers is pretty damn patriarchal.

Sheila Jeffreys wrote an excellent book on this stuff called Beauty and Misogyny in which she treated western beauty practices as 'harmful cultural practices', i.e. in the same way as we treat non-western practices such as FGM, breast ironing etc.

She just gave a good talk on this subject:

I prefer to use 'woman-hating' for the wider, 'everything' sense and reserve 'patriarchal' for cultures in which elder men have direct, explicit control. Because we do need a specific word for that, that doesn't just mean 'everything / all cultures', especially in these sorts of discussions.

Maybe this account of what's happened in Denmark can shed a light...the Danes - as is known worldwide have a great welfare system - much more generous than ours. It's paid for by Danish taxes and the entire population working - 99% of Danish women with children over 1 year work full-time and the children are in wrap-around daycare, and after school clubs - it is rare to see any children between aged 1 and 16 in public on a working day before 6pm - they're in after school/daycare clubs. They are compliant about taxes cos of the massive benefits they get - like totally free University tuition! etc. But recent immigrants, in particular from traditional muslim countries, have disrupted this economic model - these women don't work outside the home - many more are dependent upon benefits - they have been settled in public housing that have become ghettos - to the point that some generations down there is no assimilation to Danish culture - children start school at age 7 having not learned Danish in nursery - future prospects poorer, some were radicalised and ended up fighting for Isis abroad...which in turn generated a reaction from Danes - the tax payers who had funded the education and lifestyle of these home-grown jihadis -

The Danes Ideas include: no female chid can marry abroad and bring home a 'husband' from, say, Pakistan until she is over 25 and makes more than £30, 000 per year - this law, brought in by a right wing party was not repealed by the recent left coalition because it worked to end forced marriage; breaking up the ghettos and dispersing immigrant communities; totally refusing to comply with EU requirements to accept a certain number of refugees on the grounds that they cannot assimilate to Danish society; housing illegal refugees on remote Danish islands....

And to those who - like all of us - want to welcome to our shores the refugees and those escaping conflict - what is your figure - the number - the UK should accept? If our population is increasing 1/2 milliion a year, are we going up to 80 million, 100 million? And of those, what proportion will assimilate, or intend to assimilate? In the UK we support 5 million on 'out of work benefits' - that's the entire population of Denmark - what can we stretch to - 10 million?

edition.cnn.com/2018/12/05/europe/denmark-immigrant-island-scli-intl/index.html

Finally, having lived abroad for 11 years myself, it was never my intention to assimilate...I wanted to get an education, expand my horizons, live - but I always wanted to come home. As I think many immigrants do - or create a facsimlie of 'home' wherever they are - as we can see, dotted throughout the UK, with all their positive and sometimes very negative qualities.

Your post doesn't seem relevant to this thread.

It's all about claiming benefits and what age mothers should go back to work.

or create a facsimlie of 'home' wherever they are - as we can see, dotted throughout the UK, with all their positive and sometimes very negative qualities
I agree, it's human nature and it leaves us with quite a predicament.
If we let them some immigrant groups would dominate and impose their native culture on ours
Our govt encourages this because it fires up the hard right and makes them vote tory to deal with the problem....they need to keep the problem going because they need the votes

'it is rare to see any children between aged 1 and 16 in public on a working day before 6pm'

I don't have a problem with migrants disrupting this economic model, I think it's really unhealthy.

The problem I have is with dangerous men.

'And to those who - like all of us - want to welcome to our shores the refugees and those escaping conflict - what is your figure - the number - the UK should accept?'

I have no answer.

In the UK we do not accept our fair share compared with the rest of Europe. Europe as a whole does not accept its fair share compared with most other countries. The refugee crisis is only likely to get worse and it's a worldwide crisis. Most refugees worldwide live in neighbouring countries or internal displacement camps in terrible conditions.

The idea that the UK can come up with a figure for the number of people we will accept and stick to it, and that's that, problem solved, is ludicrous.

I agree with a PP, the entire refugee convention is likely to break down in the near future and it will be horrible for everyone.

Interesting @LangClegsInSpace - I get the need for a distinction, but I think ‘woman-hating’ doesn’t capture the part male domination plays - what is driving the pornography that is making women engage in more and more invasive, painful and humiliating beauty practices? It’s porn made by and for men.

I am thinking out loud, but I would think of traditional, conservative, religious patriarchal cultures as being more ‘directly patriarchal’ and the patriarchy in the UK as ‘indirectly patriarchal’ - where the processing of females for male use, can go unnoticed and instead be thought of as ‘liberating’ for women. But I suppose the ‘modesty’ thing is similarly deceptive. I like dressing ‘modestly’ - so I can go out with hairy legs without getting abused or judged for it - which is freeing.

@macj1 that Danish story is eye-popping. It seems a bad idea to me to ghettoise illegal immigrants with criminals on an island. That’s surely just going to result in a proliferation of jihadis isn’t it?

Agree with you re: wrap-around childcare that pays for these benefits - so who should pay? The point I'm making is this icon of a liberal, generous country is a model that attracts those from war-torn countries - but where are their limits - and our limits? Mona Sidique, on R4 'thought for today', as a Muslim woman in Edinburgh, said she hated Xmas because all the Xmas trees and carols reminded her that she was no longer in a Muslim country. We are not a Muslim majority country - our foundation is Christian (whether or not you attend, that is what we are celebrating - right now) Have always wondered when rich Muslim dominated countries like Saudi and Qatar are going to step up to offer their religious comrades home and refuge.

There is always going to be that longing for home, hearth, country and customs - if you come from a very overtly patriarchal society - women are the possessions of men, dress modestly - it is always a struggle to see women dressing as they do in the West.

Mona Sidique, on R4 'thought for today', as a Muslim woman in Edinburgh, said she hated Xmas because all the Xmas trees and carols reminded her that she was no longer in a Muslim country.

My goodness what a grump! All the my kids classmates are insisting on getting trees, decorations, chocolate advent calendars and secret Santas at school - they all want to join in.

It wouldn’t matter what country I was in, I’d never miss out on the local festivals (unless it involved cruelty towards animals or something).

Considering our head of state is also the head of the church, this country is a Christian country, even if most people are atheists.

The problem I have is with dangerous men
whom are in control of their womenfolk and will use them strategically to gain access if they can