Evidence re GC women and white supremacism please?

[Froodwithatowel]

I'll quote JCJ here as I do not want to derail the other thread:

From my, and many other people's observation, over the last couple of years, the UK GC space, especially on twitter, has progressively merged with both the US MAGA/Christian nationalist space, and those of UK white nationalists.

It is not easy to make sense of that X thread, but this statement is one I want information on. I don't do parroting, I believe in critical thinking, evidence and independence of thought, and I have learned to be deeply cautious of being accidentally vaccuumed into the 'so and so smells so do what I tell you' strategies so very tediously rife at the moment to get people in line and useful to others, we live in very grotty times.

So please would some kind person provide me with evidence that women wanting rights, equality and single sex spaces are entangled with religious extremism and white nationalism? Actual evidence. Not aspersions, but evidence.

Obviously, nuns involved in girls' education are not Evangelicals. They also weren't working with 'trafficked' women, they were working with girls who started not doing their homework, falling asleep in school, showing signs of dropping out, who it turned out were trying to earn money in one of the few ways open to very young, very poor women. 'Rescuing' them meant giving them and their younger siblings the means to resume and complete their schooling without risking their lives.

Foreign missionaries are a tiny minority now in the Catholic church in the global south - handing governance over to the locals has been ongoing for more than 60 years - even back when I discussed the situation with my friends, they were old, working with women they may have taught as children but who now made the decisions.

SuePine, re The Netherlands: a cursory google search brings up research and news reports that make clear that:

a) the number of legal brothels in the Netherlands increased after 2000 (ie there was an increase in prostitution);
b) that illegal prostitution has also increased significantly in recent years (and is deemed ‘out of control’ but some local politicians) as a result of the closure/restrictions of introduced during the covid/lock down era forcing women onto the streets to continue paying their bills (depite legal status and paying taxes, there was no support when the brothels were closed); and
c) this is compounded by the rise in activity of criminal/immigrant gangs, both in the smuggling in of girls and the unregulated provision of services.

Ie, the protection that legislation sought to offer prostitutes as been an abysmal failure. The idea that the Netherlands is a prostitutes haven is naive and complete disregards the plight of the women forced to work in the sex industry.

You might have found a couple of missionaries who were good but if you want to know what Evangelical missionaries get up to in poor countries then read what is says here The Crusade Against Sex Trafficking | The Nation

That article is a lot more balanced than your take on it, which implies that all evangelical missionaries behave as IJM were doing back then. You are implying that evangelical missionaries are bad, and that just maybe one or two missionaries, definitely not evangelical ones, may possibly be among the good guys. It is clear that the issue of trafficking is very intractable, with no easy solution. It’s possible that IJM were (are?) well meaning but naïve; that may apply to other agencies too. The violent pimps, traffickers and police carry on as before, and we can all criticise everyone from the sidelines, but at least we can bash evangelical missionaries.

Good points ROGC

Any society that has women who feel that the only option for survival is to sell their bodies for sex is a society that has failed women. Any society that has men who feel that it is acceptable to pay a woman to have sex is a society that has failed women. The rest is just niceties.

1. Fine, so the number fluctuates, as you could easily have surmised I just did a very quick google. I still guarantee you that there is far more sex buying going on in Switzerland. The number for those who have bought sex are almost double, estimates are 0.5% of men do it on a daily basis.
2. "I have shown you the evidence that the amount of prostitution increased in Sweden". Have you though? "In 1996 it was 1.3% and in 2008 it was 1.8%". The number barely moved in more than a decade, i.e. with a lot of other factors changing.
3. "You might wonder how one statistic can go down and another go up". I really don't. But then again you don't care because you just want to be condescending.

Your empathy with other women does you credit but I’m sorry to have upset you 💐

I agree with you that it is hard for teenagers growing up in our current culture, and particularly hard for girls when they realise how vulnerable they and their rights are. I can 100% understand why so many of them are reacting by trying to escape.

I don't support legalization I support decriminalization. New Zealand has decriminalized prostitution. The amount of prostitution has not increased in New Zealand since decriminalization. The number of brothels has decreased. Women work more on their own or together, making the rules for themselves and keeping the profits for themselves.

I didn't say that the Netherlands is a prostitutes' haven, I said that as far as I can tell the number of murders of prostitutes has decreased since legalization. That surely has to be the most important thing. This is the opposite of what the Evangelical politician Jim Wells stated in the Northern Ireland Assembly ahead of the introduction of the Nordic model. Rachel Moran, who isn't an Evangelical, repeated his false statistic on Woman's Hour.

This thread is about should feminists cooperate with social conservatives. I have tried to explain why I believe they should not.

I would like to know where you got the information about an increase in trafficking in the Netherlands.

1. I'm going to accept what you say about Switzerland because I know next to nothing about it. I don't even know what system they have there.
2. You say the number barely moved, but think what an increase like that means. It means that if you had 130 before, you now have 180. This isn't the only evidence of an increase. Most disturbing is the figures for people who have sold sex at some time in their lives. For both men and women the figures show a big increase between 1996 and 2008, then a fall after the financial crisis of 2008. Even so the proportion of Swedish people who say they have sold sex was higher in 2014 than in 1996. This is ignored by pro-Nordic model campaigners. What they usually say is that there was a drop from 13% to 8% then another drop to 7.5% on the last survey. They miss out the figure for the penultimate survey which was more than 10%. They want you to believe that there was a continuous drop. Then they usually throw in one of the incidence stats, saying that the last survey it was 0.8% for men who had paid in the previous 12 months. They don't tell you the incidence stats for 1996 and 2008 which shows a rise, or that incidence stats are by far the most important statistics. Then they often round it off by saying that the 0.8% figure is the lowest in Europe, which is a complete lie. It's not surprising that Google might repeat all this, but it is all wrong.
3. These statistics aren't difficult to understand. You just need a complete set of figures, that you only get with the Mujaj and Netscher study, and to understand the difference between incidence and prevalence statistics.

1. Ok
2. But these numbers are affected by so many things, and while in relative terms in may look like a lot, in absolute terms it isn't and may have a variety of causes. Let's not pretend Sweden is having some major cultural issues. Again, you are just showing the numbers fluctuate. All this says to me that introducing it in the long term has not had much impact, in either direction.
3. Why are you still trying to explain statistics to me? At first it was just you being condescending, now it's becoming compulsive.

What I am trying to show is that prostitution did not decrease in Sweden from 13% to 8% to 7.5% to 0.8%. This is what people think and say. This is what Sarah Champion MP said in a 2018 House of Commons debate. I have some respect for Sarah Champion because she did a lot to help exploited teenage girls in Rotherham, unlike the previous MP Denis MacShane who was so obsessed with trafficking he failed to see what was happening under his nose.

I like to think that Sarah was led astray by some of the other members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation. People like Fiona Bruce MP of the Evangelical Alliance. In the debate Sarah stated "The most recent study of prevalence rates found that 0.8% of men in Sweden had paid for sex in the previous 12 months, which is the smallest proportion recorded in two decades and the lowest in Europe".

There are two things wrong with this. First, it is not 'the lowest in Europe'. Second, it is not a prevalence rate, it is an incidence rate. So she doesn't understand statistics. You might, but there are a lot of people who haven't got a clue. They don't have to learn statistics, I just want them to understand that what they believe is false.

You have people who think that the solution to the problems in Germany is to have the Nordic model. That will get rid of it all, they think. That would be a wasted opportunity to help German women.

@BusyMummyWrites01

I have been looking for evidence of increased trafficking in the Netherlands since legalization. What I have found is that the US State Department rates the Netherlands in Tier 1 whereas it rates Nordic model Ireland in Tier 2. Tier 1 means fully compliant with the minimum standards for elimination of severe forms of trafficking in persons.

This is what the report says
"The Government of the Netherlands fully meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government continued to demonstrate serious and sustained efforts during the reporting period, considering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its anti-trafficking capacity; therefore the Netherlands remained on Tier 1. These efforts included more than doubling the number of traffickers the government prosecuted and convicted; dedicating funding, for the first time, for the country’s next national action plan (NAP); and launching an awareness campaign targeting consumers of commercial sex in advance of the implementation of legislation criminalizing the knowing solicitation of a sex trafficking victim."

Netherlands - United States Department of State

What does all that have to do with evidence that GC women are in some way linked to white supremacism?

I was wondering the same.

I think after more than 2 weeks and 13 pages it's conclusively proved (again) that there still isn't any. It's just a 'sky is falling' line thrown out to try and discredit the wrong kind of woman and keep her in line.

There is no clear connection between being Christian and being racist. A Christian being a racist is disobeying Jesus called the Christ's commandment to love one's neighbour as oneself. That means they are disobeying God, which they should think carefully about.

This is a good rebuttal of specific criticism of Christianity

having googled hptftu I was pleased that I'd guessed it almost correctly (I thought 'power' rather than 'propensity' - the latter is obviously better).

It's a very good read - Unapologetic, by Francis Spufford

Christianity is the most practiced religion of sub Saharan Africa. It would be a little weird if they were all Racists.

Neither the quote of Jane Clare Jones nor the rest of the original post mention 'white supremacism' as such. I don't know who the 'UK white nationalists' are, but I think I know who the 'US MAGA/Christian nationalists' are. We're talking about Donald Trump, and previous Republican presidents such as George W Bush, and the Evangelicals who support them.

When George W Bush wanted a crusade against pornography and prostitution, he wanted feminists to help him. The feminists who wanted to help him were a particular type of feminist, the followers of Catharine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. Radical Feminists. Most GC women seem to be Radical Feminists.

You might say what is wrong with opposing prostitution. There are different ways you can do that. Going into a foreign country like Cambodia and not asking people what they need harms women. Especially when America is responsible for the poverty that countries like Cambodia are in.

Radical Feminists and Evangelicals share the same false statistics, the pretence that they really want to 'shift the burden of criminality' from women to men, from prostitutes to their clients. Lots of women arrested but not many men. Manipulation of the evidence about effectiveness of policies. No money available to help women to exit. That's the reality.

The thread title is Evidence re GC women and white supremacism please?

The OP does not mention prostitution. Maybe you should start your own thread to discuss that issue, and let us see can anyone answer the opening question.

This is just the most enormous load of nonsense, and very much the opposite of either “GC” or “Radical Feminism”. You really don’t know what you’re talking about at all.

The days of saying any old rubbish you like about gender or prostitution, and just pretending it’s true because you want it to be, are coming to an end.

Radical Feminists today are interested in GC and surrogacy. They have been interested in pornography and prostitution for a long time. In all four of these areas they share opinions and false statistics with Evangelical Christians.

It would help if you told me which of the facts that I presented to you are 'rubbish'. I can prove that certain feminists helped George W Bush in his damaging crusade against trafficking. I can prove that in Nordic model Ireland very few men have been convicted of paying for sex, but many young women are convicted of 'brothel keeping'. Little money has been made available to help women exit prostitution. All you have to do is read the official report into the effects of 2017 law. It is called The Implementation of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017, Part IV – An Interim Review by Dr Geoffrey Shannon.

People like you have been told that the amount of prostitution in Sweden dropped by half after the 1999 law. That is not true, although people will want to continue to pretend it's true. They will not be able to maintain this position for much longer.