Kellie Jay Keen is actually brilliant in publicising the GC cause (unlike many academics) and so what if you don’t agree with everything she says?! Her events are great. It’s disingenuous to say that Muslim ideology is no worse than other religions. We live in a democracy, flawed though it is. How many Islamic states can say that? Women are second class citizens in Islam, advocates of women’s rights shouldn’t deny that. We have free speech, we need to use it!
Thank you for your work on this and for this piece. I read something by a victim of one of these grooming lines - while the groomers were of Asian origin, the rapists included plenty of white men. That bit always seems to be forgotten.
I tend to see the blindness re white grooming gangs and white male abuse as akin to property crimes. Their language is filled with possession terminology: “our women” “our girls”. They’re “ours” to profit from and abuse, not yours.
These are male abusers and groomers of Children. That’s what they all have in common. All religions to a greater or lesser extent treat women and children especially girls as less than men or actively subjugate them. It’s Men for the most that groom and abuse children. Men
Thanks for this and for all your efforts in the past. Clarity of thought is so important at the moment with the ratcheting up of tensions happening from so many angles. I signed the GC letter on the far-right and have been ejected from a small GC group for announcing it, albeit with a few harsh words about KJK. Her fans don't take kindly to any criticism of her.
I'm not about to deny her considerable achievements, but I can't escape the notion that she's more about herself than her purported 'cause'. She's great on rhetoric, but clarity and nuance are not her strong suit, deliberately so, I suspect. It's not like she's stupid. I listened to her response to the letter and found it a jumble. She broad-brushes what she calls 'the left' as elitist and takes cover in associating herself with, variously, Brexiteers, farmers and truckers, as though the people who took to the streets to riot in England were all in common cause with those groups. There were good arguments for Brexit, the truckers were Canadian and concerned about covid, and the farmers were mostly EU concerned about sub-standard grain from Ukraine which they couldn't sell if they'd produced it themselves. I'm afraid her jumble is just daft, and not a little cowardly. She implicitly includes herself and 'wimmin' in that dreamt-up coalition of farmers, truckers, Brexiteers and the morons who were rioting in England. This is just shadow-boxing. It's exhausting and not a single blow is landed where it ought.
To me, in part, this whole noxious stew stands in testimony to the degradation of language that has been wrought by critical social justice. Personally, I'm all for diversity, equality and inclusion according to the original and proper meanings of those terms. I can't quite believe that I should be expected to be abashed to say I'm anti-racist, because some Johnny-come-lately thinks that to say so means I've fallen afoul of CRT gobbledegook. I could see clearly from the start that CRT was much more apt to engender racism than to solve it, and some of the people espousing objections to it have been led by American critics, notably James Lindsay, who like a lot of Americans doesn't seem to know the meaning of 'the left'. I reject and resent being lumped with Ibram X Kendi, Diangelo et al as though they have a baldy clue about what leftism has always meant to me, and I resent the loss of its meaning to thuggish populists who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag.
I'm not familiar enough to comment beyond saying that your contextualising of Rotherham etc as a systemic failure across the board rings true. I've had some experience of the criminal justice system around sex crime and from that experience know full well it doesn't work, even for a 'privileged' white male such as myself. The bar is set very high to be considered a 'credible' witness. The process is brutal. In Northern Ireland, victims of CSA are precluded from seeking redress if they have a criminal conviction. I fall in that camp, and it seems obvious that people who carry that stuff around with them would be prone to getting involved in crime, particularly drug-related crime, as many end up addicts. Seeing victims of very broad systemic failures exploited in the way Keen has done, extremely cheaply, is infuriating.
There are so many strings being pulled at the moment. I knew we were in for trouble when 'post-truth' and 'alternative facts' became things. It seems that now you can level any amount of actual facts at people and they remain unmoved. I'll be forever grateful to my parents for encouraging me into higher education, which was the only route out of the grind of Northern Ireland by the 80s and 90s, when it seemed no end to the conflict was in sight. It's regrettable indeed that with so much information readily available, people don't have the tools to sort wheat from chaff. It's deeply regrettable too that academia is so in thrall to half-baked American readings of mid-wit French philosophers. Academia -- people's way out -- has been poisoned. Must we start over again?
To give Keen her due, I think we've missed a beat, been complacent, maybe even smug. I think we ('the left') were sold a pup by Tony Blair and we're now reaping what he sowed. It took a long time for me to admit as much because he fixed Northern Ireland as if by abracadabra, breaking the back of injustice that had gone on for so long out of sheer political laziness and the apparent lust for a fight rather than fair dealing. Perhaps coming from this background is what gives me this perspective: when the state doesn't seem to be on your side and keeps you wrong-footed as if by policy, careful, precise thinking as far as possible becomes extremely important if the enemy is to be identified and combatted. In all of this history that has been transpiring for 20 years now, I'm sorry to say I accuse that amorphous glob called America for this mess. We are all inside that whale. The sooner we see it the better.
Really interesting. I don't know if I blame US beyond saying that when US sneezes UK catches a cold.
Re KJK response to that letter - I found her mockery of me nothing other than school ground tactics. She knows nothing of my history and nothing about the actual work I have done.
Yes, LWS has empowered many, but trying to stoke divisions between 'the elite' and 'the people's is the very definition of populism and populism is not something to be lauded.
Populism lands us in some very challenging places and sits in opposition to democracy. Just have to think of populist governments now - Duarte, Putin, Erdogan. They sell a vision of 'we the people' where in fact they dismantle the mechanisms by which the peoples' voices can be heard and where law applies to all.
Good to read the history. But you have to remember that we as women understand the 2 tiered policing happening right now. KJK was almost killed because of it in NZ. Her ‘Let women Speak’ events have been events marred by violence because the police won’t do their F’ing jobs and start charging these trans activists with harassment and assault. We see the 2 tiered policing in all its forms openly and on display in UK, Australia and Canada. We understand the lies and cries of ‘far right’ to anyone not drinking down the narrative and being good little sheep, and that includes those saying that immigration in the numbers and speed it’s happening is not working. The UK government have brought this on themselves, their disregard for the working class and their concerns has backfired. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. There will always be racists who take advantage of situations. This is way more than racism. This is class war and pushing a multicultural ideology on the populace that hasn’t worked.
Thank you Jo for your detailed account of your research on child sexual abuse of careleavers by predatory gangs, and on the changes since 1993 in law, attitudes (to some extent) and terminology -- but not matched by the diminishing capacity of social and other services to care for vulnerable children "in care".
All of which it's so important for more of us to know: to offset the prevailing rightwing media-generated myth of "Asian grooming gangs" that underpins so much British racism. With uncontrolled immigration and Tory disinformation about "illegal immigrants" -- rather than asylum seekers -- to keep it simmering. And racist misinformation on the peroetrator of the Southport murders to make it explode into rioting.
It's salutary to learn more of the real story, to combat racist media myths that still inform even leftwing minds about "soft policing" of ethnic minorities (re Rochdale and,Rotherham)-- but in total contradiction to all we've read about racist policing based on "sus law", and systemic racism within police forces.
And it's hardly a surprise that while "two tier policing" is a slur and even an inversion of any facts in terms of racism, any real two tier policing is based on historical and persisting misogyny.
And it's based on a perversion, surely, of the law that treats female victims of male sexual violence only as witnesses to a crime -- which at least explains the apparently perverse routine actions of the police in seeking to undermine, rather than support, the evidence of rape victims.
No wonder that half of rapes are never even reported: not even because of the pitifully low prosecution rate of two percent, but because women do not trust the police to believe them, or to do anything about it. And expect to be blamed, not treated as victims.
Such a useful and well-informed piece, Jo: thank you for a very important contribution. I have to say I regard KJK as very much part of the current far-right offensive, which in important respects is different from the UK racism of earlier decades. David Rosenberg has written an excellent piece about this in today's Morning Star. Put simply, we're in the post 9/11 era, one where the 'war on terror' has greatly amplified Islamophobia while giving it a degree of 'respectability' in Establishment circles and the mainstream media. Hatred of Muslims is now the cutting edge of racism, whether in the UK, the USA, or in France, where I live. This stoking up has gained even greater purchase in the context of global protest against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The current riots (or continuing threat thereof) in the UK are being fuelled by Islamophobia: hence the focus on mosques, and the foul slogans characteristic of far right gatherings. That KJK is willing to endorse the 'narrative' put about by Yaxley-Lennon and his thugs is further evidence of her politics and priorities. As for Islam: I have a lot of admiration for its rich history, cultural impact and variety of forms. For me, the sight of feisty Muslim girls in their thousands marching for Palestine through the streets of London and other cities is an inspiration -- and an indication of more equitable times ahead. I'd far rather work with these young women than invest a moment of my time on social media 'influencers' (although the latter need to be challenged -- and you've done so brilliantly!).
PS I've not fallen out with KJK. There is nothing personal here. Let Women Speak has meant a lot of a lot of women. But the politics that KJK is espousing at the moment and some of her comments are just plain wrong (see above) and, in my mind, divisive in themselves. I've been too long in the game to see the hard work of feminists (and leftist and even Labour) be so misrepresented.
I too am glad you haven’t fallen out with Kellie-Jay. When I was reported for “hate crime” (I put half-a-dozen GC stickers on notices in an NHS hospital referring to women as “person with a cervix”), I was harangued, while feeling very ill, by the extremely hostile Head of Security, immediately prior to a radiotherapy session. I wasn’t even dressed properly and the male security guard was videotaping the whole thing. She was adamant I had committed a hate crime and had called the police.
My story goes on a bit but without Kellie-Jay I would have had, like the girls in those awful grooming gangs, no one to tell, no one to care.
KJK was well out of order in dragging the grooming gang saga into a smouldering powder keg. But given her ballsy activities supporting women’s rights against the trans activists I can forgive her. It’s a shame two of the GC movement’s gladiators should fall out. That’ll put a smile on the face of the trans activists who constantly want to tar the GC movement with the far right brush and thus undermine them.
The Prof shining a light on the fate of girls from poor and chaotic backgrounds being almost a prey species available to predators of every colour and class is horrific. That we have ignored it for so long is evidence we are a damaged society with a large underclass in many of our cities. Maybe no mystery about frustrations breaking into rioting.
The street version of the grooming scandal has had its shortcomings fully exposed by the Prof but I suspect as an example of a state’s reluctance to act decisively when minorities are involved it will continue to resonate. No one doubts the how the state would have responded had a gang of white Scotsmen been serially abusing young Pakistani girls.
Actually there were instances and the response was no different. There is not doubt that the administration of justice is not blind. No doubt. But where girls and women are concerned, where male sexual violence is concerned, we have (literally) centuries of the failure of women and girls to achieve justice.
I agree, the focus should be firmly on MVAWG, no matter what their background, creed or skin colour. Out of interest, have things improved for these girls since May's commission, or is it still an ignored problem? Have things got better for care leavers?
Wahadism and radical Islam has a lot to answer for. I have no problem in pointing out or campaigning against repressive mysiogynist regimes, like Iran's Government or the Taliban, without feeling the urge to attack individual Muslims on the street.
No argument from me and good to hear you haven’t fallen out with KJK. She is needed. Overturning centuries of injustice and fighting off trans activists’ new assault on what rights women have is going take some ‘ ungentlemanly warfare’.
Thank you, I really feel I know something now I needed to know. As an immigrant from Denmark (9 years in Scotland now) many things here in UK look rather opaque to me - there's so much history I don't know. Now I know a little more.
The fate of those girls can break your heart. Thank you for your work.
Regarding racism - Denmark has that as well. Danes are rather laid back in comparison to British people - that goes for things like transactivism and racism as well as resistance to both. But I've been thinking for many years that the left in Denmark (my political "home" since I was young) was complicit in the rise of racism. When we shut down each and any attempt to talk about concerns about being able to absorb a lot of refugees, about how you can feel provoked by expressions of cultures and beliefs that are foreign to you, like different ways of navigating in public spaces etc - where do people go? I personally feel a bit unease talking to a woman in burka, but mentioning it could immediately get me called out for rightwing racism. And I think that was in part the reason for the rise in racism and right-wing nationalism. People in social housing areas should be able to talk about concerns for the local Christmas tree - if they're not, we end up with anger about "Muslims rejecting Christmas and Danish values and wanting to replace them with their own" at the same time as "Muslims taking place in line for buying Christmas roasts - haven't they got their own holydays", "Can I be safe with a Muslim doctor or a Muslim bus driver during Ramadan - don't they know they live in a Christian country now?" Anything bad done by an immigrant could be called "typical for those bastards". And as I said, I think the left is complicit. Shortsightedness, bigotry and anger flourish, not only (a lot of socioeconomic factors are involved as well) but also because it isn't acceptable to talk about the cultural challenges in a decent manner. When "No debate - you're a racist" is the answer, people vote for the parties with "immigrants out" on the program. In Denmark, that resulted in the "Burka law", prohibiting women to wear it, resulting in many of them feeling they had to stay at home (making a law about what women are allowed to wear declaring that they shouldn't be told by their husbands or imams what to wear is ... Well, I'll stop here). And there has been a mentally burdened man making demonstrations around the country with quran burnings, protected by the police, who spend thousands of hours of overtime of it, because he had had death threats and had to be protected. That's as far as it gets in a laid back country, but it has affected a lot of people negatively, nevertheless. And has laid the ground for many young people to feel that they can never be accepted, and thereby leading to much bigger tensions in the future ...
Sorry for my rant. My point is that with "No debate" (and the feeling of righteousness in those who declare it) we lose opportunities to work towards a better future. My heart bleeds, but I have to say it: the left is the culprit in this. What is the use of working for better socioeconomic conditions for people under pressure in need of them, if at the same time you tell them you don't want them to speak about some of their worries, and that they're some kind of second class citizens for wanting it?
Not a "rant" but an honest personal account of the further problems created by not being allowed to speak about the problems of immigration and integration in Denmark. Self-deception of the "if we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist -- so don't talk about it or will stir up trouble" variety?
There is the same unease in Britain: with not much in between outspoken racist antipathy to uncontrolled immigration, inflamed by misinformation and disinformation which fuelled the riots, and attempts at justifying more immigration on economic grounds of supplying needed skills and labour: while simultaneously not processing asylum claims and preventing asylum seekers from working, and housing them at public cost (which also fuels racism).
It's virtually impossible to express concern about uncontrolled immigration eg in terms of a chronic housing shortage (which also fuels racism), or the UK as one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet, needing land for rewilding -- not for ever more houses, not for an ever growing population -- without being branded a racist.
I have great respect for everything you've done and do but I think people need to stop using misinformation as a slur, it's a weaponised term and we know press and agencies like police are reluctant to identify racial groups involved, showing the 'misinformation' from the other side.
Does the BBC enlighten us by referring to their birth in Cardiff or does it hide an important fact, why does the media withhold information about the background of child murderers.
Also, the left is deaf on concerns about immigration. Amidst all those social problems pervading all levels of society does it make sense to admit large numbers of new people, many from war torn dysfunction. Also while the majority of abusers are likely white do we know the rates- isn't it possible some recent immigrants struggling with integration and economic problems are more likely to be part of these criminal milieu thus justifying the heuristic people might have to some degree. Though I would guess customers/child abusers would tend to represent fairly equal across most characteristics.
Good points raised about the simplifications and risks of populist thinking though.
I can see what you're saying but there is a legitimate public interest to be considered against this. I don't know on the various standards that are in play. But it seems like in Europe, the identity of immigrant attackers has routinely be hidden in some cases yet I think that's genuinely of public interest to know.
it is that ol fashioned opportunitstic power money and control? For such gang mentality ; women and girls are the easy way in -to get to live like kings - to ignore that fact is negligent, dumb, naive. Women forced to share even a smaller bite of the non-collective pie, to accomodate men - Was designated by original feminists fight to be "our stuff"; Now if we complain we are are abused and labelled bigots by marauders - if women don't want men who on the premise they "identify as women" gives men women's prizes; legal rights etc etc etc - the easy way is to dismiss by stereo types and lazy labels and ignoring sex, grim cultural realities as this sets up festering problems- now manifest in scenes of public buses being lit up - crimes and rapes are relative - it is a tinderbox... please support brave women with balls who call out reality.
An interesting and thought provoking article. One thing I find missing is the observation that not all cultures and religions are the same regarding attitudes towards women and girls. All are bad in their own way, but men of Muslim heritage and Muslim countries do have particularly oppressive and offensive attitudes about women and girls. Just because a subject raises unpleasant issues and is difficult to discuss doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be discussed.
Not sure I agree. This is a generalisation. Catholicism? The Magdalen Schools in Ireland and csa by priests? Fundamentalism is a problem. Look at the legacy of Christianity in many African countries. We cannot say that Islam - as a religion - is more or less oppressive than Christianity. None of the world's major religions cover themselves in glory. What about Mormonism? To single out a group (Muslim men) because of their heritage is negative stereotyping. Now, that said, I recognise that many countries in this world are much more repressive in terms of how they treat women. Iran for instance. Or the practice of suti in India a century ago (connected with Hinduism). When we talk about these things we need to do so responsibly and with clarity and avoid generalising.
The generalisation comes in when you say 'men of Muslim heritage' - do you mean all men of Muslim heritage - if so this is the same as saying men of black heritage are problematic. All men of Irish heritage are ... fill in the blank. See what I mean?
Great answer. It’s so easy when impassioned, as women challenging sexual violence and exploitation of women ands girls so often are. to become blinkered to nuance and use broad brush strokes… although of course the broadest possible brush stroke does apply. This is about exploitative men of every hue, faith, ethnicity and social strata and a society which fails to protect women and girls
Jo, it feels like you are starting with an ideology (to see all cultures and religions as no more or less awful to girls or women than any others and not offend an “oppressed “ group) rather than the empirical evidence that Muslim countries and cultures are worse for girls and women. It’s exactly this method of starting with the ideology despite the facts and observable evidence that I’m against as a gender realist. The left does this all the time which is why I stand apart from it now and I prefer to begin with the evidence some of which have been mentioned in the replies and get to the answer from that. There’s just too much to ignore. Even the terrorist targeting of the Taylor Swift concert in Vienna this week by 3 Muslim men is evidence not to ignore.
I don't think the Magdalen Schools or child sexual abuse by Catholic priests can be compared to the fact that in Afghanistan today, 14.2 million women live in a state of abject slavery. In Iran, in Saudi Arabia, and to various degrees in essentially all Muslim countries, male supremacy is unquestioned, and unquestionable. If we look broadly and historically at the treatment of women in Islamic nations, the pattern has been pervasive and persistent for 1400 years.
Yes, Catholicism has been deeply misogynist. But Islam has subjugated and continues to subjugate women in a much more totalitarian way. It is a betrayal of all of those subjugated women to pretend otherwise.
I do not agree that all religions are the same right now or whataboutism, Jo. We should be able to speak honestly about this - and nowadays Islam *is* more oppressive to woman and to other religions than most other religions. We are not worried about Mormonism in this country. Islam has not reformed in its original patriarchal values, unlike Christianity and Judaism, for example. Mohammed married a girl of 6 and had sexual intercourse with her at 9 years old, according to the Koran. The fact that there are many decent Muslims does not negate the teachings of an unreformed religion which I am not required to respect.
my woman friend told me once - she'd been abused as a Malasian wife; " As long as your Muslim husband is a good man ; but if not Women have no recourse often" A lived insider reality
For clarification, this is my substack and I will remove comments that are accusatory or have nothing to do with the post itself and) or are just plain offensive.
I would like to know what you think of Marguerite Stern. Interviewed by Julie Bindel three years ago here: https://thecritic.co.uk/the-radical-feminist-campaigner-who-has-nothing-left-to-lose
Lately in the news for this: www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/260273/radical-feminist-who-desecrated-notre-dame-cathedral-apologizes-to-catholics
As mentioned at https://europeanconservative.com/articles/essay/from-feminists-to-conservatives-an-unexpected-transition she is “willing to talk about the ravages of uncontrolled immigration and militant Islam as a threat to Western women”.
Her record shows that she could be criticised – as KJK is – as a self-publicist.
Does her stance on Islam – that it’s worse than Catholicism – make her a racist?
Personally, I think not. Stern is one of the foremost French campaigners against trans ideology today, rather like KJK in the UK.
What do you think?
Kellie Jay Keen is actually brilliant in publicising the GC cause (unlike many academics) and so what if you don’t agree with everything she says?! Her events are great. It’s disingenuous to say that Muslim ideology is no worse than other religions. We live in a democracy, flawed though it is. How many Islamic states can say that? Women are second class citizens in Islam, advocates of women’s rights shouldn’t deny that. We have free speech, we need to use it!
Thank you for your work on this and for this piece. I read something by a victim of one of these grooming lines - while the groomers were of Asian origin, the rapists included plenty of white men. That bit always seems to be forgotten.
I tend to see the blindness re white grooming gangs and white male abuse as akin to property crimes. Their language is filled with possession terminology: “our women” “our girls”. They’re “ours” to profit from and abuse, not yours.
These are male abusers and groomers of Children. That’s what they all have in common. All religions to a greater or lesser extent treat women and children especially girls as less than men or actively subjugate them. It’s Men for the most that groom and abuse children. Men
I am not a cultural relativist. I am also atheist. I agree that all the world's majority religions are used to justify sex based inequalities.
Thank you for this. Very enlightening.
Thanks for this and for all your efforts in the past. Clarity of thought is so important at the moment with the ratcheting up of tensions happening from so many angles. I signed the GC letter on the far-right and have been ejected from a small GC group for announcing it, albeit with a few harsh words about KJK. Her fans don't take kindly to any criticism of her.
I'm not about to deny her considerable achievements, but I can't escape the notion that she's more about herself than her purported 'cause'. She's great on rhetoric, but clarity and nuance are not her strong suit, deliberately so, I suspect. It's not like she's stupid. I listened to her response to the letter and found it a jumble. She broad-brushes what she calls 'the left' as elitist and takes cover in associating herself with, variously, Brexiteers, farmers and truckers, as though the people who took to the streets to riot in England were all in common cause with those groups. There were good arguments for Brexit, the truckers were Canadian and concerned about covid, and the farmers were mostly EU concerned about sub-standard grain from Ukraine which they couldn't sell if they'd produced it themselves. I'm afraid her jumble is just daft, and not a little cowardly. She implicitly includes herself and 'wimmin' in that dreamt-up coalition of farmers, truckers, Brexiteers and the morons who were rioting in England. This is just shadow-boxing. It's exhausting and not a single blow is landed where it ought.
To me, in part, this whole noxious stew stands in testimony to the degradation of language that has been wrought by critical social justice. Personally, I'm all for diversity, equality and inclusion according to the original and proper meanings of those terms. I can't quite believe that I should be expected to be abashed to say I'm anti-racist, because some Johnny-come-lately thinks that to say so means I've fallen afoul of CRT gobbledegook. I could see clearly from the start that CRT was much more apt to engender racism than to solve it, and some of the people espousing objections to it have been led by American critics, notably James Lindsay, who like a lot of Americans doesn't seem to know the meaning of 'the left'. I reject and resent being lumped with Ibram X Kendi, Diangelo et al as though they have a baldy clue about what leftism has always meant to me, and I resent the loss of its meaning to thuggish populists who couldn't think their way out of a wet paper bag.
I'm not familiar enough to comment beyond saying that your contextualising of Rotherham etc as a systemic failure across the board rings true. I've had some experience of the criminal justice system around sex crime and from that experience know full well it doesn't work, even for a 'privileged' white male such as myself. The bar is set very high to be considered a 'credible' witness. The process is brutal. In Northern Ireland, victims of CSA are precluded from seeking redress if they have a criminal conviction. I fall in that camp, and it seems obvious that people who carry that stuff around with them would be prone to getting involved in crime, particularly drug-related crime, as many end up addicts. Seeing victims of very broad systemic failures exploited in the way Keen has done, extremely cheaply, is infuriating.
There are so many strings being pulled at the moment. I knew we were in for trouble when 'post-truth' and 'alternative facts' became things. It seems that now you can level any amount of actual facts at people and they remain unmoved. I'll be forever grateful to my parents for encouraging me into higher education, which was the only route out of the grind of Northern Ireland by the 80s and 90s, when it seemed no end to the conflict was in sight. It's regrettable indeed that with so much information readily available, people don't have the tools to sort wheat from chaff. It's deeply regrettable too that academia is so in thrall to half-baked American readings of mid-wit French philosophers. Academia -- people's way out -- has been poisoned. Must we start over again?
To give Keen her due, I think we've missed a beat, been complacent, maybe even smug. I think we ('the left') were sold a pup by Tony Blair and we're now reaping what he sowed. It took a long time for me to admit as much because he fixed Northern Ireland as if by abracadabra, breaking the back of injustice that had gone on for so long out of sheer political laziness and the apparent lust for a fight rather than fair dealing. Perhaps coming from this background is what gives me this perspective: when the state doesn't seem to be on your side and keeps you wrong-footed as if by policy, careful, precise thinking as far as possible becomes extremely important if the enemy is to be identified and combatted. In all of this history that has been transpiring for 20 years now, I'm sorry to say I accuse that amorphous glob called America for this mess. We are all inside that whale. The sooner we see it the better.
Really interesting. I don't know if I blame US beyond saying that when US sneezes UK catches a cold.
Re KJK response to that letter - I found her mockery of me nothing other than school ground tactics. She knows nothing of my history and nothing about the actual work I have done.
Yes, LWS has empowered many, but trying to stoke divisions between 'the elite' and 'the people's is the very definition of populism and populism is not something to be lauded.
Populism lands us in some very challenging places and sits in opposition to democracy. Just have to think of populist governments now - Duarte, Putin, Erdogan. They sell a vision of 'we the people' where in fact they dismantle the mechanisms by which the peoples' voices can be heard and where law applies to all.
Thanks for the comment. It is thought provoking.
Good to read the history. But you have to remember that we as women understand the 2 tiered policing happening right now. KJK was almost killed because of it in NZ. Her ‘Let women Speak’ events have been events marred by violence because the police won’t do their F’ing jobs and start charging these trans activists with harassment and assault. We see the 2 tiered policing in all its forms openly and on display in UK, Australia and Canada. We understand the lies and cries of ‘far right’ to anyone not drinking down the narrative and being good little sheep, and that includes those saying that immigration in the numbers and speed it’s happening is not working. The UK government have brought this on themselves, their disregard for the working class and their concerns has backfired. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. There will always be racists who take advantage of situations. This is way more than racism. This is class war and pushing a multicultural ideology on the populace that hasn’t worked.
Thank you Jo for your detailed account of your research on child sexual abuse of careleavers by predatory gangs, and on the changes since 1993 in law, attitudes (to some extent) and terminology -- but not matched by the diminishing capacity of social and other services to care for vulnerable children "in care".
All of which it's so important for more of us to know: to offset the prevailing rightwing media-generated myth of "Asian grooming gangs" that underpins so much British racism. With uncontrolled immigration and Tory disinformation about "illegal immigrants" -- rather than asylum seekers -- to keep it simmering. And racist misinformation on the peroetrator of the Southport murders to make it explode into rioting.
It's salutary to learn more of the real story, to combat racist media myths that still inform even leftwing minds about "soft policing" of ethnic minorities (re Rochdale and,Rotherham)-- but in total contradiction to all we've read about racist policing based on "sus law", and systemic racism within police forces.
And it's hardly a surprise that while "two tier policing" is a slur and even an inversion of any facts in terms of racism, any real two tier policing is based on historical and persisting misogyny.
And it's based on a perversion, surely, of the law that treats female victims of male sexual violence only as witnesses to a crime -- which at least explains the apparently perverse routine actions of the police in seeking to undermine, rather than support, the evidence of rape victims.
No wonder that half of rapes are never even reported: not even because of the pitifully low prosecution rate of two percent, but because women do not trust the police to believe them, or to do anything about it. And expect to be blamed, not treated as victims.
Such a useful and well-informed piece, Jo: thank you for a very important contribution. I have to say I regard KJK as very much part of the current far-right offensive, which in important respects is different from the UK racism of earlier decades. David Rosenberg has written an excellent piece about this in today's Morning Star. Put simply, we're in the post 9/11 era, one where the 'war on terror' has greatly amplified Islamophobia while giving it a degree of 'respectability' in Establishment circles and the mainstream media. Hatred of Muslims is now the cutting edge of racism, whether in the UK, the USA, or in France, where I live. This stoking up has gained even greater purchase in the context of global protest against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The current riots (or continuing threat thereof) in the UK are being fuelled by Islamophobia: hence the focus on mosques, and the foul slogans characteristic of far right gatherings. That KJK is willing to endorse the 'narrative' put about by Yaxley-Lennon and his thugs is further evidence of her politics and priorities. As for Islam: I have a lot of admiration for its rich history, cultural impact and variety of forms. For me, the sight of feisty Muslim girls in their thousands marching for Palestine through the streets of London and other cities is an inspiration -- and an indication of more equitable times ahead. I'd far rather work with these young women than invest a moment of my time on social media 'influencers' (although the latter need to be challenged -- and you've done so brilliantly!).
PS I've not fallen out with KJK. There is nothing personal here. Let Women Speak has meant a lot of a lot of women. But the politics that KJK is espousing at the moment and some of her comments are just plain wrong (see above) and, in my mind, divisive in themselves. I've been too long in the game to see the hard work of feminists (and leftist and even Labour) be so misrepresented.
I too am glad you haven’t fallen out with Kellie-Jay. When I was reported for “hate crime” (I put half-a-dozen GC stickers on notices in an NHS hospital referring to women as “person with a cervix”), I was harangued, while feeling very ill, by the extremely hostile Head of Security, immediately prior to a radiotherapy session. I wasn’t even dressed properly and the male security guard was videotaping the whole thing. She was adamant I had committed a hate crime and had called the police.
My story goes on a bit but without Kellie-Jay I would have had, like the girls in those awful grooming gangs, no one to tell, no one to care.
KJK was well out of order in dragging the grooming gang saga into a smouldering powder keg. But given her ballsy activities supporting women’s rights against the trans activists I can forgive her. It’s a shame two of the GC movement’s gladiators should fall out. That’ll put a smile on the face of the trans activists who constantly want to tar the GC movement with the far right brush and thus undermine them.
The Prof shining a light on the fate of girls from poor and chaotic backgrounds being almost a prey species available to predators of every colour and class is horrific. That we have ignored it for so long is evidence we are a damaged society with a large underclass in many of our cities. Maybe no mystery about frustrations breaking into rioting.
The street version of the grooming scandal has had its shortcomings fully exposed by the Prof but I suspect as an example of a state’s reluctance to act decisively when minorities are involved it will continue to resonate. No one doubts the how the state would have responded had a gang of white Scotsmen been serially abusing young Pakistani girls.
I don’t forgive anyone using violence against women and girls as a cover for racism. It’s a prop for bigotry.
Actually there were instances and the response was no different. There is not doubt that the administration of justice is not blind. No doubt. But where girls and women are concerned, where male sexual violence is concerned, we have (literally) centuries of the failure of women and girls to achieve justice.
I agree, the focus should be firmly on MVAWG, no matter what their background, creed or skin colour. Out of interest, have things improved for these girls since May's commission, or is it still an ignored problem? Have things got better for care leavers?
Wahadism and radical Islam has a lot to answer for. I have no problem in pointing out or campaigning against repressive mysiogynist regimes, like Iran's Government or the Taliban, without feeling the urge to attack individual Muslims on the street.
No argument from me and good to hear you haven’t fallen out with KJK. She is needed. Overturning centuries of injustice and fighting off trans activists’ new assault on what rights women have is going take some ‘ ungentlemanly warfare’.
Thank you, I really feel I know something now I needed to know. As an immigrant from Denmark (9 years in Scotland now) many things here in UK look rather opaque to me - there's so much history I don't know. Now I know a little more.
The fate of those girls can break your heart. Thank you for your work.
Regarding racism - Denmark has that as well. Danes are rather laid back in comparison to British people - that goes for things like transactivism and racism as well as resistance to both. But I've been thinking for many years that the left in Denmark (my political "home" since I was young) was complicit in the rise of racism. When we shut down each and any attempt to talk about concerns about being able to absorb a lot of refugees, about how you can feel provoked by expressions of cultures and beliefs that are foreign to you, like different ways of navigating in public spaces etc - where do people go? I personally feel a bit unease talking to a woman in burka, but mentioning it could immediately get me called out for rightwing racism. And I think that was in part the reason for the rise in racism and right-wing nationalism. People in social housing areas should be able to talk about concerns for the local Christmas tree - if they're not, we end up with anger about "Muslims rejecting Christmas and Danish values and wanting to replace them with their own" at the same time as "Muslims taking place in line for buying Christmas roasts - haven't they got their own holydays", "Can I be safe with a Muslim doctor or a Muslim bus driver during Ramadan - don't they know they live in a Christian country now?" Anything bad done by an immigrant could be called "typical for those bastards". And as I said, I think the left is complicit. Shortsightedness, bigotry and anger flourish, not only (a lot of socioeconomic factors are involved as well) but also because it isn't acceptable to talk about the cultural challenges in a decent manner. When "No debate - you're a racist" is the answer, people vote for the parties with "immigrants out" on the program. In Denmark, that resulted in the "Burka law", prohibiting women to wear it, resulting in many of them feeling they had to stay at home (making a law about what women are allowed to wear declaring that they shouldn't be told by their husbands or imams what to wear is ... Well, I'll stop here). And there has been a mentally burdened man making demonstrations around the country with quran burnings, protected by the police, who spend thousands of hours of overtime of it, because he had had death threats and had to be protected. That's as far as it gets in a laid back country, but it has affected a lot of people negatively, nevertheless. And has laid the ground for many young people to feel that they can never be accepted, and thereby leading to much bigger tensions in the future ...
Sorry for my rant. My point is that with "No debate" (and the feeling of righteousness in those who declare it) we lose opportunities to work towards a better future. My heart bleeds, but I have to say it: the left is the culprit in this. What is the use of working for better socioeconomic conditions for people under pressure in need of them, if at the same time you tell them you don't want them to speak about some of their worries, and that they're some kind of second class citizens for wanting it?
We need to start the "Better future" now. Talk
.
Not a "rant" but an honest personal account of the further problems created by not being allowed to speak about the problems of immigration and integration in Denmark. Self-deception of the "if we don't talk about it, it doesn't exist -- so don't talk about it or will stir up trouble" variety?
There is the same unease in Britain: with not much in between outspoken racist antipathy to uncontrolled immigration, inflamed by misinformation and disinformation which fuelled the riots, and attempts at justifying more immigration on economic grounds of supplying needed skills and labour: while simultaneously not processing asylum claims and preventing asylum seekers from working, and housing them at public cost (which also fuels racism).
It's virtually impossible to express concern about uncontrolled immigration eg in terms of a chronic housing shortage (which also fuels racism), or the UK as one of the most nature-depleted countries on the planet, needing land for rewilding -- not for ever more houses, not for an ever growing population -- without being branded a racist.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
I have great respect for everything you've done and do but I think people need to stop using misinformation as a slur, it's a weaponised term and we know press and agencies like police are reluctant to identify racial groups involved, showing the 'misinformation' from the other side.
Does the BBC enlighten us by referring to their birth in Cardiff or does it hide an important fact, why does the media withhold information about the background of child murderers.
Also, the left is deaf on concerns about immigration. Amidst all those social problems pervading all levels of society does it make sense to admit large numbers of new people, many from war torn dysfunction. Also while the majority of abusers are likely white do we know the rates- isn't it possible some recent immigrants struggling with integration and economic problems are more likely to be part of these criminal milieu thus justifying the heuristic people might have to some degree. Though I would guess customers/child abusers would tend to represent fairly equal across most characteristics.
Good points raised about the simplifications and risks of populist thinking though.
I can see what you're saying but there is a legitimate public interest to be considered against this. I don't know on the various standards that are in play. But it seems like in Europe, the identity of immigrant attackers has routinely be hidden in some cases yet I think that's genuinely of public interest to know.
Thank you for this extensive history. I hope between you and KellyJean there can be reconciliation and even collaboration.
Brillant, accurate analysis.
actually her name is Kellie-Jay
it is that ol fashioned opportunitstic power money and control? For such gang mentality ; women and girls are the easy way in -to get to live like kings - to ignore that fact is negligent, dumb, naive. Women forced to share even a smaller bite of the non-collective pie, to accomodate men - Was designated by original feminists fight to be "our stuff"; Now if we complain we are are abused and labelled bigots by marauders - if women don't want men who on the premise they "identify as women" gives men women's prizes; legal rights etc etc etc - the easy way is to dismiss by stereo types and lazy labels and ignoring sex, grim cultural realities as this sets up festering problems- now manifest in scenes of public buses being lit up - crimes and rapes are relative - it is a tinderbox... please support brave women with balls who call out reality.
An interesting and thought provoking article. One thing I find missing is the observation that not all cultures and religions are the same regarding attitudes towards women and girls. All are bad in their own way, but men of Muslim heritage and Muslim countries do have particularly oppressive and offensive attitudes about women and girls. Just because a subject raises unpleasant issues and is difficult to discuss doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be discussed.
Not sure I agree. This is a generalisation. Catholicism? The Magdalen Schools in Ireland and csa by priests? Fundamentalism is a problem. Look at the legacy of Christianity in many African countries. We cannot say that Islam - as a religion - is more or less oppressive than Christianity. None of the world's major religions cover themselves in glory. What about Mormonism? To single out a group (Muslim men) because of their heritage is negative stereotyping. Now, that said, I recognise that many countries in this world are much more repressive in terms of how they treat women. Iran for instance. Or the practice of suti in India a century ago (connected with Hinduism). When we talk about these things we need to do so responsibly and with clarity and avoid generalising.
The generalisation comes in when you say 'men of Muslim heritage' - do you mean all men of Muslim heritage - if so this is the same as saying men of black heritage are problematic. All men of Irish heritage are ... fill in the blank. See what I mean?
Great answer. It’s so easy when impassioned, as women challenging sexual violence and exploitation of women ands girls so often are. to become blinkered to nuance and use broad brush strokes… although of course the broadest possible brush stroke does apply. This is about exploitative men of every hue, faith, ethnicity and social strata and a society which fails to protect women and girls
Jo, it feels like you are starting with an ideology (to see all cultures and religions as no more or less awful to girls or women than any others and not offend an “oppressed “ group) rather than the empirical evidence that Muslim countries and cultures are worse for girls and women. It’s exactly this method of starting with the ideology despite the facts and observable evidence that I’m against as a gender realist. The left does this all the time which is why I stand apart from it now and I prefer to begin with the evidence some of which have been mentioned in the replies and get to the answer from that. There’s just too much to ignore. Even the terrorist targeting of the Taylor Swift concert in Vienna this week by 3 Muslim men is evidence not to ignore.
I don't think the Magdalen Schools or child sexual abuse by Catholic priests can be compared to the fact that in Afghanistan today, 14.2 million women live in a state of abject slavery. In Iran, in Saudi Arabia, and to various degrees in essentially all Muslim countries, male supremacy is unquestioned, and unquestionable. If we look broadly and historically at the treatment of women in Islamic nations, the pattern has been pervasive and persistent for 1400 years.
Yes, Catholicism has been deeply misogynist. But Islam has subjugated and continues to subjugate women in a much more totalitarian way. It is a betrayal of all of those subjugated women to pretend otherwise.
I do not agree that all religions are the same right now or whataboutism, Jo. We should be able to speak honestly about this - and nowadays Islam *is* more oppressive to woman and to other religions than most other religions. We are not worried about Mormonism in this country. Islam has not reformed in its original patriarchal values, unlike Christianity and Judaism, for example. Mohammed married a girl of 6 and had sexual intercourse with her at 9 years old, according to the Koran. The fact that there are many decent Muslims does not negate the teachings of an unreformed religion which I am not required to respect.
my woman friend told me once - she'd been abused as a Malasian wife; " As long as your Muslim husband is a good man ; but if not Women have no recourse often" A lived insider reality
Hear, hear
see above.
For clarification, this is my substack and I will remove comments that are accusatory or have nothing to do with the post itself and) or are just plain offensive.
As I said, I will remove comments that are accusing me of things that are incorrect or are just mean or are racist.