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

The most creepy, inappropriate men with 0 respect for women that I have ever met have been white British men. My husband and his circle of friends and family are from an Asian country that you’d probably look at and judge and assume they’re sexist. They’re actually all extremely respectful around women, far more so than any British men I know.

So what you're saying is that there is a difference between men of different cultures or ethnicities. In your experience, white British men are more sexist than Asian men. Isn't that just as racist as saying that men from certain Asian countries are more sexist than white British men?

Once you've acknowledged that men from certain cultural backgrounds behave worse towards women than those from other cultures, you've accepted the basic premise - which means that you can't legitimately complain about racism when other women say their experience is different from yours.

I think this is the thing with issues like Rotherham which is an example of failures to collect data. it is easy to say that it is laughable that the police would protect ethnic minorities but if they don't have the data to build a pattern on which men are committing crimes because relevant information is missing from reports because the report writer has been told not to refer to it for fear of being accused of racism, then how can the police address the patterns n a sensible way that protects women from harm?

This is about systems that lead to failures it is not a claim that the Police overtly goes out to protect people of ethnic minorities.

Very true.

I agree. Complaining about racism and then making broad generalisations about “their culture”. 😑Oh

Is there any evidence about this being an issue? I know about Rotheram etc which were mostly UK born men.

I've bought it for my kindle now so I'll have a read.

This is from the blurb on Amazon: In 2014, sexual violence in Western Europe surged following a period of stability. In 2018 Germany, “offences against sexual self-determination” rose 36 percent from their 2014 rate; nearly two-fifths of the suspects were non-German. In Austria in 2017, asylum-seekers were suspects in 11 percent of all reported rapes and sexual harassment cases, despite making up less than 1 percent of the total population.

This violence isn’t a figment of alt-right propaganda, Hirsi Ali insists, even if neo-Nazis exaggerate it. It’s a real problem that Europe—and the world—cannot continue to ignore. She explains why so many young Muslim men who arrive in Europe engage in sexual harassment and violence, tracing the roots of sexual violence in the Muslim world from institutionalized polygamy to the lack of legal and religious protections for women.

A refugee herself, Hirsi Ali is not against immigration. As a child in Somalia, she suffered female genital mutilation; as a young girl in Saudi Arabia, she was made to feel acutely aware of her own vulnerability. Immigration, she argues, requires integration and assimilation. She wants Europeans to reform their broken system—and for Americans to learn from European mistakes. If this doesn’t happen, the calls to exclude new Muslim migrants from Western countries will only grow louder.

It would be good if a few of us have read this book as it will give us a better basis for discussion. Are there any other books along similar lines that might also be worth reading?

Unfortunately that won't happen. There needs to be organising and high profile campaigning to shame politicians and policy makers into concrete action. And we can't rely on any help from so-called mainstream feminist or women's organisations that feast on a steady stream of public funding for themselves and their mates. In fact, it's more likely any kind of grassroots campaigning will face severe opposition and hostility from these orgs.

You’ve perhaps inadvertently defied your own bias there.

if the men in Rotherham were in fact 2nd/3rd generation then it confirms that “old ideas” are not abandoned at Heathrow , but instead replicate themselves through future generations.

whilst the chattering classes quack on about food outlets.

shasha this Asian country your husband&Family are from: does the law in this country give equal rights to men and women? And, whatever the answer is, do you think the state of the law reflects the Cultural laws in that country or not?

Also, nobody says everyone single person/family of nation X is conditioned to believe Y. I well remember the case of a rural Pakistani (I believe) father backing his daughter, who had been ‚revenge raped‘ through the courts -against the customs and social pressure from his village. Against their expectstions he didn’t hide her in shame or honor kill her or force her to marry the perpetrator as a ‚compromise’. But that does not change the fact that those societal expectations were there, due to cultural norms.

Same here. I don't think this discussion is racist. What I am less certain of is the way to move forward, because I am not sure that British born men are that much better, though perhaps their misogyny is better disguised.

Well said. Of course it's going to be easier for those on the right to claim that the problem is really foreign men (Muslims at that), rather than anything the government or police should have done or should be doing now. Or to look to hard at the misogyny and classism already existing in British society.

Much easier to ignore the fact that so few rapes lead to conviction that rape is effectively decriminalised. That police and the courts are so under-funded that nothing is done. That police forces are stuffed full of misogynists and actual sexual attackers, who the police choose to take no action on. That women who have correctly sexed people are pursued by police forces, trained to believe that non-crime hate crimes are a thing worse pursuing.

Focusing on foreign boogeymen will of course be like nectar to the ears of corrupt, racist, misogynist police and governments. And of course, foreign or ethnic minority criminals and sex attackers should be treated just as harshly as any other.

But from my perspective, the problem is the whole lot are currently getting off scot free. Not just brown ones. All of them.

If someone can convince me that this focus specifically on men from particular cultural or ethnic backgrounds is going to increase conviction rates, reduce sexual assaults and rapes etc then I'm all for it.

If not, I'm going to continue to be verrry sceptical about a long thread which ever-so conveniently points the finger at a specific subset of men, while ignoring the wider issue. 🙄

Talking of Austria: there, the case of a 13 year old made waves, who was drugged by an overdose of LSD (I believe), so she would be easier to rape. The three involved Afghan men (two adult, one 17, I believe) are currently standing trial. The girl had gone to the flat willingly and consumed some drugs willingly - but not the overdose that was mixed in the drink that apparently killed her, together with the air restriction during the abuse. The trial is ongoing.

I fully get that this is more a problem of males totally outside of any Social control, left to themselves. But what also needs to be said is that particularly one suspect during his first interrogation made it entirely clear that he thought the fuzz was overblown, as it had just been a woman, and a Christian one at that. This was then (beside the notorious right wing rags) picked up by main stream media and particularly the (very) left wing Falter, who started a wider discussion in left wing circles.

Now, obviously, one can say, an Austrian guy could have done the same and would have found a different way to minimize it.
But still, that this guy was so far removed from Western cultural norms that he didn’t understand that his response will not help but hurt his own case gave me pause.

I would agree and why I suggested it's not about who is responsible for the abuse, it's about the people in a position of trust doing what they should and actually taking complaints seriously.

Look at Yewtree. That was white guys in a powerful position due to celebrity using it to degrade women, girls, boys and anyone they were let near and included vulnerable people. Some were given knighthoods and mates with Royalty and government officials.

But once again, that allowed the police and social services fob off the victims. They had an attitude of "can't possibly be" doing that. In one high profile case, his victims were often from the care system. So they were ignored.

The best way to stop abuse of anyone is to ensure the police do their jobs and however much they believe a complaint may be malicious or made up, it should be investigated, in case, and not determined by the class of the potential victim

That poor girl. That's tragic.

I'm going to buy it now.

In Austria in 2017, asylum-seekers were suspects in 11 percent of all reported rapes and sexual harassment cases, despite making up less than 1 percent of the total population.

I think, it’s important to really interrogate stats like this. Not last because we are talking about reported rapes. Not rapes.

It is probably quite likely that the ethnicity and social status of a rapist has a considerable influence on whether the victim feels they can report and what the consequences of reporting might be. It affects whether she’ll be believed or demonised. We know this is the case. Just as we know that her own social
status and ethnicity will impact on her decision to report.

It’s hard to know whether the strong skew towards asylum-seekers in the rate of reported rape actually represents a greater rate of sexual violence in male asylum
seekers or whether the rates reflect that women know they are more likely to be believed and treated appropriately if they report rape by an asylum-seeker than if they report the well/respected, white, Austrian who raped them during a date they’d agreed to. Or their husband. Or co-worker. Or whatever.

There is also the issue of the asylum
seekers not being culturally assimilated enough to choose the ‘right kinds of victims’. It may well be that the sexually violent men with better understanding of Austrian society were simply better at picking women who wouldn’t report them than newly arrived asylum-seekers. It may even be that the misogynistic othering within the asylum seekers’ own cultures made them more likely to assault women who would report them for various reasons.

I’m not dismissing her argument about the problems within the cultures she’s discussing at all. Just saying that it’s extremely complex and the stats might be less immediately compelling than they appear.

Similarly, it probably isn’t a coincidence that the Rotherham perpetrators were mostly British born and chose victims who would t be believed. If they’d known less about British society and culture, they might not have been able to distinguish between a sympathetic and unsympathetic victim so effectively.

Yeah, beastlyslumber, a really tragic case. And revealing. You had a lot of victim blaming in the public discourse, too.

That might be your experience. Whereas that is not the experience of some of the women who have posted here. And they are free to share their concerns and worries on the issues that affect them.

I am an Indian woman who has lived in the Middle East and India, and I've been living in the UK for over 16 years. I find most British men are far more respectful of women and I feel much safer living and traveling here on my own that I ever did in those countries. And it is so disappointing to read the experiences of sexual harassment of women on this thread that mirrors the experiences I faced in India and the Middle East. I wanted to get away from the horrendous issues that women faced in these countries and thankfully where I live now I have not had to deal with such stuff for a long time.

I'm sick of the repeated attempts to shame white women into keeping silent about their abuse and harassment just because it's not white men who are doing it, and also deliberately ignoring those of us who are immigrants and agree with these issues and concerns.

Why do some people seem to think that there can only be one kind of a problem at a time?

Yes, many British males are misogynist, violent and abusive towards women and girls.

Also yes, there's a separate problem of males from other cultures who are importing different misogynistic values with them and proving to be a threat to women and girls.

Both things are real and serious. Only the second thing is the subject of this thread. But for some reason people think that the answer to the second problem is to talk more about the first problem.

I was sexually assaulted multiple times in Cairo. It doesn't help me to say that I could have also been assaulted in the UK. Because I know I'm able to walk down a busy high street in a capital city in the UK without being groped and dragged into alleyways, which was not the case in Cairo. Was I just unlucky? Or is there something about the culture there and the way women are seen that means I was always going to be more vulnerable in Cairo than in London? If hundreds of young male Cairenes came to London, wouldn't it be reasonable to worry that there would be more sexual assaults on the streets there?

So what policies are you suggesting, based on the 'findings' you claim, that men from particular ethnic or religious backgrounds are (according to you) more likely to commit sexual crimes against women?

Can you share the data, please, both on facts showing that this demographic is more likely to commit these types of crimes? And then the important 'social sciences' research that has been carried out that gives evidence-based recommendations to address this propensity and that has worked to reduce sexual crimes among this demographic?

If you have this data, please link to it. Because I've seen none of it on this thread.

What I've seen has been a lot of hand-wringing about 'foreign men' that sounds exactly like the kind of thing that any self-respecting member of the far right would adore, plus some anecdotal evidence from individual women saying that they have experienced violence from some men from specific cultures and/or who looked a bit foreign, usually in other countries.

What I haven't seen is any suggestion of how - even if it were to be true, that men from particular demographics are more likely to commit sexual crimes against women - the police or courts or governments should act differently to address this?

If what those on this thread who advocate for a change to address this issue want is less immigration, or less immigration for men (just men? what about the women?) from particular countries, then OWN IT. Say that's what you're advocating for.

This thread is being called racist because it looks racist. Singling out men from particular demographics for particular special treatment is wrong, whether you're Labour politicians in Rotherham wanting to turn a blind eye to sexual assaults by certain groups of men from that demographic, or Tory MPS wanting to blame brown men for their own failure to take action on VAWG across all demographics, over 12 years of government, leading to shockingly low conviction rates. They're both as bad as each other.

Find the problem. Fix it. Refer to brown men from a particular demographic if, and only if, that's going to solve the problem. I don't care what colour a particular rapist is. Unless knowing that fact is going to translate into meaningful policies that make a difference to sexual assault rates and conviction rates affecting all women. If you've got those policies, and evidence they work, then I'm all ears.

If not, then yes, this whole thread just reads like racist whataboutery.

this guy was so far removed from Western cultural norms that he didn’t understand that his response will not help but hurt his own case gave me pause

That’s a good example.

It’s definitely very complex, but there is possibly some element of culturally-unassimilated immigrants just exposing some deeper aspects of misogyny in particular ways.

There may also be issues around who actually makes it to Europe to seek asylum and what they need to do to achieve that, which may skew the population arriving in various ways. it very clearly isn’t a representative cross/section of society that arrive in Europe as asylum seekers, so it’s worth considering whether particular types of problematic men are over represented partly because of what is involved and the characteristics that make success more likely.

all very complex. No easy answers.

I'm sick of the repeated attempts to shame white women into keeping silent about their abuse and harassment just because it's not white men who are doing it, and also deliberately ignoring those of us who are immigrants and agree with these issues and concerns.

Yes. We keep being told we're racist to talk about this. So women and girls should shut up unless they are not only perfect victims but also have the perfect politically correct perpetrator to name?

Yes, there is a real need for clear data on offenders to be collected across Europe by the relevant authorities, and women should feel able to engage with reporting and data collection mechanisms that focus on their experience without self-censorship for fear of being perceived as racist.

I've mentioned it a few times now, but I do think Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book is going to be a useful resource for this discussion. xxyzz you're asking for data - I think this will provide some of what you're looking for.

If anyone has any other relevant books or resources, feel free to recommend them.

Maybe worth opening a new thread for discussion of 'Prey'. I will need to read fast!

Can you share the data, please, both on facts showing that this demographic is more likely to commit these types of crimes? And then the important 'social sciences' research that has been carried out that gives evidence-based recommendations to address this propensity and that has worked to reduce sexual crimes among this demographic?

If you have this data, please link to it. Because I've seen none of it on this thread

Have you ever stopped to think why robust data might not exist? It's been pointed out very clearly on the thread. Yet you ignore that and choose to call women who want to talk about it racist. You minimise the experiences of other women including women who are immigrants themselves.