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

Hissing is derogatory

I remember the mother of a girl who'd been abused by the Rotherham grooming ring saying that a social worker had said her 14 year old daughter had made a lifestyle choice to be a 'sex worker'. The girl had been in care at the time.

no-one would think a middle class girl was making a life style choice to be a prostitute. but it seemed to me that those girls in care were viewed as aliens, allowing completely illogical choices to be attributed to them

I never understand how anybody tries to classify this as racist. It's about culture, not skin colour.

I came on to say similar. I grew up in Brussels, also large Algerian/ Moroccan/ North African communities there. The street harassment was unfuckingbelievable. Starts when you are around age 12, or I suppose once old enough to be out with friends without parents. On a night out (wearing jeans and jumper) you would just expect to be hassled many, many times.

Like the previous poster I (and all my female friends) were harassed, verbally abused, groped and followed. It was terrifying at times. I never told my parents. I think partly because I was embarrassed, partly because I thought it was just to be expected and partly because if I did they might have stopped me going out with my friends. I told them about it as an adult as a result of the Femme de la Rue documentary. I can’t find a link to full thing but part of it is here (highly recommend):

My parents were shocked and had no idea how bad it had been. I can remember being absolutely amazed when I came to England for uni. That girls would go out in skirts! Wouldn’t have crossed my mind. In many years I have ‘only’ been groped once in the UK.

I think it’s really important to confront these issues. I was definitely think there was an aspect of not speaking up about it because it might be deemed racist. Anyway fuck those guys. I hope my daughters never have to experience the same thing here.

I'm really sorry you've been through it too @ExBxl14

It really is not the same (at the moment) in the U.K. and I think hordes of British men on holiday don't harass and assault young teenage girls in the same way.

@RiveDroite Oh, I know it's done to be insulting. It's just a fucking weird thing to do of an evening, stand about on a street corner and pretend to be a snake.

Possibly off-topic, but if we're talking about the racist, misogynistic etc. attitudes of our police force, one of the excuses SYP used for not intervening was that they were scared to arrest Pakistani men owing to 'political correctness'. Any BAME person I know would laugh bitterly at the notion that their skin colour made it less likely that the police would be interested in them.

Look, maybe these other cultures are 'worse' than ours, maybe they aren't, but there are serious structural, institutional, issues here too. Also, we're on a downward trajectory. It's a much more nuanced thing than ours being a few bad apples, and others being stone-age fundamentalists. And I do think we need to be really careful not to slip into dog-whistle territory. Apart from anything else, it achieves nothing.

When I first moved to London in 2014 I lived in Shadwell and was regularly followed and called a white whore, asked for sex and told all white women are slags. I was terrified, used to have panic attacks before walking back from the tube and started wearing a fake wedding ring to see if it made it stop - it didn’t. I got grabbed on one occasion. It really scares me that we are failing to protect our women and girls, at all.

A genuinely disturbing strand, the direction of which is to persuade people that white indigenous British rapists are not that bad after all.

Bollocks.

All rapists are the same. It doesn't matter what colour their skin is or what language they speak.

@RiveDroite bit of a shit club isn’t it! Thank you and sorry you had it too 💐

I don’t know about the hordes of British guys abroad, I’m sure they can be drunk assholes but I can’t imagine they hang around in gangs trying to grab 13 year old girls and telling them they want to fuck them.

As I said I’ve never experienced anything like it in the UK. Those grooming gangs seem to have been a bit more subtle about it, haven’t heard about street harrassment in the same way.

Look, maybe these other cultures are 'worse' than ours, maybe they aren't, but there are serious structural, institutional, issues here too. Also, we're on a downward trajectory. It's a much more nuanced thing than ours being a few bad apples, and others being stone-age fundamentalists. And I do think we need to be really careful not to slip into dog-whistle territory. Apart from anything else, it achieves nothing.

You're misrepresenting what others have said (strawmanning) and engaging in whataboutery.

The thing about dog-whistles is that only dogs can hear them. So if a dog turns up saying there was a whistle, but no one here blew it, what should we do? In other words, the idea of a 'dog whistle' is just another silencing tactic.

You’re kidding yourself if you think women are treated worse in Britain than, for example, Afghanistan. You’re making excuses for abuse and violence against women by ethnic minority men by deflecting it and claiming “British men behave badly.

no one is claiming British men or culture is perfect not that immigrants groups are problematic per se. What we are saying is that there is certain general cultural misogyny in certain groups and countries and, this is an issue.

If there is an issue with Pakistani men (for example) in grooming gangs, we should discuss that rather than constantly go on about white men or British men in a false comparison. Surely if we have learned anything from all those scandals it should be not to excuse horrendous misogyny and sexual violence because the perpetrators happen to be from an ethnic minority and we are scared people will think we are racist.

Marking. As someone from "another culture" where many women are not treated well, I think this must be discussed.

This is funny isn't it. You've mentioned that you were sexually harassed as a young woman by men from a certain region to be told that rape from men of any colour is just as bad. As if you wouldn't actually know that!

Doesn't mean that you didn't experience the harassment!

@thedancingbear thank you for your insight, the contents of which are entirely predictable

If there is an issue with Pakistani men (for example) in grooming gangs, we should discuss that rather than constantly go on about white men or British men in a false comparison. Surely if we have learned anything from all those scandals it should be not to excuse horrendous misogyny and sexual violence because the perpetrators happen to be from an ethnic minority and we are scared people will think we are racist.

Yep.

Total crap. No one but no one has said anything like that at all.

Possibly off-topic, but if we're talking about the racist, misogynistic etc. attitudes of our police force, one of the excuses SYP used for not intervening was that they were scared to arrest Pakistani men owing to 'political correctness'. Any BAME person I know would laugh bitterly at the notion that their skin colour made it less likely that the police would be interested in them.

I can well believe that the police fear being perceived/depicted as racist not that they are wary of being racist. It isn't the same thing.

I suggest that posters don't throw morsels to the under-bridge-dweller whose purpose here will be to get the thread deleted. Ignore.

I'm in the club too. .

It's nothing like the behaviour of males who have been raised in the UK. It's hard to explain really. But it is the cultural attitude towards women that is the difference.

The idea that these beliefs are irrelevant or disappear once a person is 'an immigrant' is absolutely ridiculous and is the reason we must talk about it.

@SueVineer thank you for your insight, the contents of which are entirely predictable

@lifeturnsonadime agree completely. Sorry you’re in the club too💐