r/Glasgow Tools

2 of 2.

> You seem to be of the opinion that our culture is just as bad if not worse than that of the mostly Middle Eastern cultures these men come from. That we have no moral high ground in which to educate them. You are quite frankly wrong and I’ve no idea why you approach this problem with such futility.

Didn't say it was just as bad or worse. Nor am I approaching it with "futility". I'm saying that it is hypocritical to have glaring problems with misogyny in our own culture and be doing little to re-shape the view Scottish men hold of women, while funnelling loads of resources trying to re-educate into a tiny minority of people. That time and money and effort would have a bigger impact on the overall ocurrence of sexual crimes if we spread the efforts across the wider population. The term "rape culture" feels relevant here. Clearly not every man is a predator, but a lot of men unintentionally reinforce a culture that validates predators. Things like rape jokes, sexist jokes, calling women sluts, etc. Casual misogyny, whether you want to admit it or not, provides part of the foundation for the misogyny that leads to direct harm to women. When a guy repeatedly approaches a woman in a nightclub, gets knocked back, goes in for a kiss or a grab of the arse, gets slapped, and goes back to his laughing pals, he's just had it reinforced that there are no social consequences for him when he sexually assaults a woman. Sure, she slapped him, but his pals didn't go "you fucking arsehole what the fuck are you doing?", they responded "hahahaha you got knocked back hahaha" (and in case you want to question this - I've seen this happen multiple times where I'm the one that slapped the guy) because lots of men don't treat this stuff with the seriousness they should.

> I think it’s sensible to single out young immigrant men for education on how to approach and treat women as they do in other countries as there is clearly a problem here with some as there is in other countries. It’s not absurd to assume these people need help integrating and neither is it unhelpful to do so.

The thing I don't understand is how, exactly, you propose to do this? Send a wee letter out to everyone who responds to the census saying they're a male with an Asian background with a "hello, we have assumed that there's no way you might know how to behave in Scotland because you're *a particular type of foreign*, please attend a class on how to not be a rapist, Kind regards, Scottish Government"? That's fucking insulting for the vast majority of Asian people who are perfectly good people. What would this education entail? "In this country, we don't go up to women and repeatedly ask them for sex. Except when we do...". Because regardless of the specific cultural differences - what the guy in the video is doing has been done to me plenty of times by a white Scottish guy. Nothing in the video is actually unique to Asian guys. We'd be lying if we tried to suggest that these things are just not done here, because they are. White guys calling women sluts and feeling like they're entitled to sex because she's "dressed like a slut" happens aaaalllll the time. Plenty of white guys have fundamentally exactly the same view. We're being delusional if we try to pretend that it's all down to "foreign cultures".

If someone is in their 20s and beyond and hasn't yet taken on board that they can't harrass women via women telling them to repeatedly go away, I'd much rather get them done criminally and enact actual consequences, so we should focus on giving police the resources to deal with these crimes instead of taking the report and sending you off with a crime reference and a number for Victim Support. I honestly think it's far better to start young, and this comes back to my point about the time and effort being better spent on more general efforts. People move here and they have kids, those kids go to school along with all the future White Guys of Scotland. Do the work when they're young, have school be a good influence on them as they grow up, reinforce respect and everyone's right to dignity throughout their 10+ years at school.

> I just don’t get your argument that because some white guys are vile arseholes we shouldn’t bother or have no right to educate others.

Might be because that's literally not my argument. Educate others, but don't laser focus on a tiny minority of people at the expense of dealing with the wider problem. If efforts to deal with the wider problem make no material impact to the occurence of sexual crimes within a particular community, regroup and reassess what would, fine. But right now, I don't think we're making nearly enough effort to address the larger problem that we're at the stage of tailoring it right down to address a very specific demographic. Most of the replies to this post evidences to me that we haven't culturally matured to the point where I can trust that men are holding each other accountable. Lots of "the best thing to do is make a scene/shout sexual assault/start screaming" advice from people who have quite clearly never been in this kind of situation to understand just how scary it is and how difficult it can be to "make a scene". They don't intend to be, but it is patronising as fuck and feels a little bit like there's an implied judgement applied to anyone who doesn't make a scene, and the advice is all round unhelpful because *we know*. Lots of "Asian men are bad for this". Lots of arguing with women, like me and others, who are trying to get the conversation to be about the reality of what is happening to us and who is doing it. The conversation about how to solve the problem of sexual harassment and assault against women should be centered on women. There is absolutely no way that it is reasonable for a guy to tell me I'm derailing the conversation by asking for attention to be paid to the facts of my experience (and of plenty of other women's experiences).