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

As has been pointed out above, for most British women, it's probably considerably easier to point at a foreign man and say he raped/assaulted them than it would be for them to say their white British husband/boyfriend/friend was the perpetrator. The former is more likely to be believed and the woman given support than in the latter case.

So the idea that there are hordes of white women' disproportionally staying silent over fears they'll be called racist if they name their non-white rapist/abuser seems...unlikely.

Let's not forget that the issue in Rotherham wasn't that the girls involved failed to report the crimes. They reported them over and over. The problem was that the police (largely staffed by white British men, let's not forget) chose to ignore these reports of rape and abuse, and blame the lifestyles of the largely poor and disadvantaged girls instead.

And white British male police forces aren't only doing this when the rapists or abusers are foreign men or brown men.

They've clearly chosen to ignore and discount all male violence against women and girls.

Which begs the question, if what you really care about is ending violence against women and girls, why you're so keen to focus on the actions of just one particular demographic, rather than the wider problems overall??

Well xxyzz one policy I advocate (I‘ve written about it above) is working with young men from cultures, where it is their duty to protect the honor of their sisters, and teach them that what they should protect is their sisters‘ freedom of choice. Ahmad Mansour has initiated such a project in Berlin (notably WITH and not against community leaders). Why not extend the program beyond Berlin.

Another helpful policy change would be to give structure to the young men who have come. It is madness to leave them on their own and then act surprised when sh*t happens. Those three guys in Austria were known to authorities, for drug sale. To social workers also sexual transgressions were known. Ideally you involve them in programs (including language and values education) before the shit hits the proverbial fan, but at the latest when they offend, they need to get them off the street and away from train stations.

You have much less issues with such lads in remote, rural communities. Social control is much tighter. Integration chances are higher. Given that they live in housing given to them by the state, this should be easily done.

Actually, there are stats for Germany and Austria that show clearly, that incidences of sexual transgression are greater among certain migrant groups. You can obviously choose to believe that the stats are the product of rape victims being racist in their reporting patterns, though I wonder where is the proof for that.

How am I minimising the experiences of other women including women who are immigrants themselves?

All I'm doing is asking for data. The plural of anecdotes is not data. That doesn't mean the individual experiences weren't deeply distressing to the individual. But you can't base policy on single anecdotes.

The poster I was responding to said that research in 'social sciences' was leading to 'policies' that were addressing this - so this should be easy to provide, yes? Unless that poster was bullshitting?

I'm not saying that providing data is easy. Or that solving VAWG is easy.

But we have to start with evidence.

Because if you don't, and the whole thread is 'some foreign men did something bad' (usually in other countries), then yes, expect to be called racist. And don't expect to be taken seriously.

If you actually care about reducing VAWG, you'll care deeply about getting hold of the data and policy evidence too. And if you don't, and try to attack those asking for it, that tells me everything I need to know about you, and about what your actual goals are in this thread. 😡

That was at @lifeturnsonadime

This is what I always think. Yes there was a problem with men from that culture abusing white girls. However, why weren’t the predominantly white professionals protecting them? And also, for all those girls who were in care, they presumably had white parents who were abusing them, otherwise they wouldn’t have been in care.

However, I do think that the misogyny from some other cultures is ‘worse’ than that within the UK culture. Add together that, plus institutional misogyny within in police force and it’s a bad mix.

I’ve never been more glad to get home after visiting Tunisia. The men were ducking gross, making horrible lip curls at me the whole time. I actually started to walk with my eyes to the ground which I never do here.

Okay xxyzz have you read 'Prey' or do you have any other resources you'd point us to? There is a lack of data and many of us on this thread have pointed to that. I agree we need data. As I've said, repeatedly, Prey looks like it's stuffed full of research. I also linked to AYA's interview with Jordan Peterson where he grills her on the data in her book, including asking about the gaps in the data. He is very meticulous, as I recall. Suggest that might be helpful for you to listen to.

At the same time, I'm not interested in silencing women talking about being raped or assaulted just because they don't have a statistic to back them up. Especially not interested in silencing immigrant women just because their experiences don't align with someone else's ideas about what we should and shouldn't be allowed to talk about.

The problem with these claims about Rotherham is that the collective failure to respond to the gangs was rooted far more in misogyny than racism.

Certainly where I am in SE London, collective institutional failure has led in a number of brutal murders by white men as well, most recently that of Zara Aleena by Jordan McSweeney who had a record as long as your arm and was still let out.

If you actually care about reducing VAWG, you'll care deeply about getting hold of the data and policy evidence too

I do, but a starting point of that is the ability for people to record correctly without fear of being accused of racism.

And if you don't, and try to attack those asking for it, that tells me everything I need to know about you, and about what your actual goals are in this thread. 😡

And in what way have I attacked you?

Absolutely ridiculous.

As is the implication that my actual goals are motivated by racism!

I have pointed out that there is evidence that social care departments were told not to record the ethnicity of perpetrators. I have pointed out that I think that this results in poor quality data. This does not mean I have racist intent.

I don't usually comment on threads on this board but having read some of this I can relate to it as I am sad for the future if we can’t do something constructive about it.

In my life I have learned one major lesson – you cannot change other people’s behaviour; you can only change how you react. There will always be those who carry out sexual abuse, either individually or in groups, white or brown, rich or poor. We can try to educate men the world over, and I applaud those that want to try to do this, but it is not a quick fix.

I have myself been a victim of rape and abuse on many occasions in my life, by more than one person. I didn’t report any of it as I lacked confidence and felt I was in some way to blame. I have always blamed myself.

I think we need to start at home, within our own schools and communities, to build much, much more self-esteem and self-respect in our young girls. It is not victim blaming to want to help girls learn to have a stronger voice. We need to call out misogynistic behaviour at a very young age and change the culture to really ensure that we shout louder as a group to stop it in its tracks. As a teacher, I think we could do more to raise awareness and teach children that even the smallest infraction will be taken seriously, so victim knows they will be supported without any judgement.

What have you done when you were been groped in the street?
What have you done about it when you were subjected to verbal abuse?

We need much stronger and less intimidating support system to help those that need it. Forget the police – that again needs to change – we as women need to come together to change society’s attitude to make this behaviour unacceptable in our country whilst making it less embarrassing and shaming to come forward. We need a strong women’s organisation across the country that will help to tackle all instances of abuse at a local level on the ground, that all women are familiar and comfortable with, can report to and feel they are taken seriously and supported. Our police force unfortunately doesn’t offer this yet. We need something that stands between women and the police – from my point of view, I wanted something less scary, warmer and more comforting.

I think the point is, that people DO think and feel, and have experiences, and come to conclusions that are different to each other in this issue. Whether we think they should or not!
Multiplicity is a reality and for any positive changes to happen, that has to start from working with the reality that is.
As an observer of 'This Thread', what I see is people feeling relieved to be able to actually discuss issues that have felt impossible and forbidden.
I also see lots of challenges, argument (including yours), and as a result this is turning out to be an extremely thought provoking exploration.
The diversity of opinion being aired and worked through here, in these polarised, echo chambery times is to me, deeply refreshing, and psychologically healthy. Some people may actually have their minds changed- in any direction- and space for that possibility is why we need to champion free discussion and interacting with people we disagree with.
Most people are only exposed to data that confirms there own positions, to have a space where people can share research you wouldn't normally come across is important too. It's great that you can call out to someone on here to 'show you the data'.

To be able to discuss contentious, emotional, and deeply held beliefs, in a space where everyone will be exposed to different perspectives, conclusions, and beliefs feels dangerous, and that's the uncomfortable edge where nuance and solutions can be found.
Change and growth cannot come through through suppression (or shaming)- this has the opposite affect.

In my life I have learned one major lesson – you cannot change other people’s behaviour; you can only change how you react.

Woah. Hold on. Of course you can change people's behaviour. You can make it against the law for them to behave in certain ways. You can ban them from certain behaviours. You can keep them out of places so they can't do these behaviours.

What have you done when you were been groped in the street?
What have you done about it when you were subjected to verbal abuse?

Is this a joke? When I was sexually assaulted, multiple times, in Cairo, I fought and ran away and asked women to help me. I stopped going out alone, even in daylight. I covered myself up and tried to make myself invisible to men. When I was raped, I finally left the country. I was traumatised and had a mental breakdown.

Please tell me what I did wrong and how I should have been a better victim so that I could have a better reaction.

we as women need to come together to change society’s attitude to make this behaviour unacceptable in our country

Well I agree with this part, at least. But the whole point of this thread is that this behaviour is - at least in theory - unacceptable in the UK. Whereas it's totally acceptable in some other places. Personally I think part of the answer was already set out earlier in the thread: if you can't assimilate to British laws and cultural norms, then you can't come here. How that is set up and enforced, I don't know. But I believe that's what we should be pushing for.

You can obviously choose to believe that the stats are the product of rape victims being racist in their reporting patterns, though I wonder where is the proof for that.

I don’t think it follows that women who may consider how the ethnicity or social status of the man who raped them might affect how they’ll be treated as part of deciding to report are ‘being racist’.

That’s a gross oversimplification. And, as always seems to be the case, is blaming the victim for behaviour that is shaped by societal context.

In fact, I suspect that the effect is one of stifling huge numbers of reports against ‘nice, middle class, white husbands and fathers’ rather than ethnicity prompting reports. It’s that women abused by these supposed ‘nice men’ do not feel able to report it for cultural reasons. The fact that women who’ve been victimised in different circumstances might feel more able to report a sexual assault doesn’t mean the victims here are ‘being racist’.

@beastlyslumber A lot of the behaviours we are talking about are against the law here already - it is not stopping them from happening. That's why I say we need to shout louder - we need to do more to stop it.

On the second point I think you have misunderstood me. I am not suggesting that people haven't fought back when they are abused - but I believe most people in the UK are not reporting the more minor incidences of being groped or verbal abuse in the street. Unfortunately the police really aren't interested. Your answer was to run away and hide - I am sure most of us feel the same. What I am saying is that we need a mechanism for taking even the smallest incidences more seriously, recording them and letting the women involved be heard. The police wont do this.

In my life I have learned one major lesson – you cannot change other people’s behaviour; you can only change how you react.

I have such a big problem with this trite, pop-psychology stuff.

It all sounds so reasonable and helpful. Pragmatic even. But, yet again, we find that the problem is shifted on to the victim.

All too easily, it starts to become about judging how the victim reacts and totally displaces attention from the problem behaviour.

The fact that the reaction is judged on the basis on ‘resilience’ or ‘empowerment’ or whatever other positive sounding concept you’ve decided to use as the measure of a ‘good response’ doesn’t make it ok.

at the very least we could ask what it was that enabled the supposedly ‘resilient’ to respond that way rather than insisting that others who responded differently should have responded differently.

We’re still in the requirement for the victims to be judged according to their behaviour.

@Unicorn1919 Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but you don't seem to be addressing the topic of the thread.

Yes, the fact is that raping women and girls is against the law here and it's also against cultural norms to grope women doing their shopping or drag women into alleyways to rape them or to call them whores for wearing a t-shirt or walking down the street without a man.

This thread is discussing what happens when those males whose norms include routine public assault and harassment of women come to a country where women have a reasonable expectation that they can go about their normal business wearing what they want and unaccompanied by a man.

Whether or not the police do enough to enforce the laws protecting women and girls is not the topic of this thread and it's a derail from the actual question under discussion.

@Rocksludge I was trying to avoid the victim blaming - I am obviously not very good about making my point though. What I am suggesting is that we find a way to be less tolerant. We need to make more of a fuss, colectively. The only way I can see this happening is if we can record and take seriously even the most minor incidences so the perpetrators are called out and the behaviour is made much more obviously less acceptable here. A younger me should have felt more confident to shout about it - why didn't I? I am not what I assumed would be a typical victim. Who should I have shouted to? No obvious support network was available to me.

What I am suggesting is that we find a way to be less tolerant.

So a good starting point for me would be tightening immigration restrictions to say that unaccompanied males cannot be given asylum in the uk except under certain conditions. To make it clear that if you want to live here, you must assimilate to the culture and if you assault a woman you'll be deported. Maybe there are better ways of doing this. But let's be clear that this is about preventing and punishing male behaviour, not telling women to toughen up.

This thread is discussing what happens when those males whose norms include routine public assault and harassment of women come to a country where women have a reasonable expectation that they can go about their normal business wearing what they want and unaccompanied by a man.

...and I am asking what we are doing about it. We should be reporting every incidence of this behaviour and making it clear that it is unnacceptable. In an ideal world, every one of them would be arrested and charged. Unfortunately even where that happens, the sentencing is inadequate.

@beastlyslumber I agree that we need to screen immigrants better - but many of those causing the problems are presumably assylum seekers that have not yet been fully processed. Stopping certain ethnic groups from entering our country is always going to be problematic. Trying to educate these incomers is important but like many things, these men may just pay lip service to the training just to get in. I think we also need to change their perception of our culture by being treating offenders more harshly. Yes, preferably sending them home. Unfortunately the government seem to be struggling with that.

I have pointed out that those on the left who chose to ignore or cover up sexual assault by men from particular demographics were wrong to do so. Likewise those (including those in the police, or in government) who choose to particularly focus on 'foreign' perpetrators while turning a blind eye to white men who rape or sexually assault are also wrong to do so.

I am not saying that you personally are motivated by racism. I don't know you. I have no idea what motivates you.

What I am saying is that this thread as a whole has generally not come across as the reasoned thoughts of those looking to address VAWG so much as the polemic of those looking to attack foreigners, for reasons unknown.

If that isn't the case, then more focus on UK-based data and policy would be a good place to start. I appreciate people have mentioned AHA, but she has not, it would appear, seem to have written about the UK at all.

Are you aware of your own confirmation bias?
You accept the police don't record data but also demand women produce data to support their claims.
Multiple posters have said they want more education for immigrants and you perceive that as an attack.
Multiple posters have said they want more protection for women but thats also been ignored.

And there we have it.

Good to see that the aim is about reducing numbers of immigrants, including asylum seekers. 🙄

Always better when the cards are on the table, is it not?

So at least we know exactly what we are dealing with.

Nothing racist to see here at all. Oh no.