Fascism in Germany

So here is an interesting question. Why, with all our years of feminism and demands for equality, do African and Gulf states have more women doing STEM subjects at University than western countries? education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/women-earning-stem-degrees-middle-east-and-north-africa/
One view says that we think of those subjects as "male" whereas the Gulf and Africa have no such history and come at the subject equally. But I do wonder if separate classes for girls and boys helps.

Oh I would criminalise the men not the women doodle.
The info on those who work in prostitution us horrendous, high rates of child sexual abuse etc.

There is brilliant essay somewhere on the myth of choice, I wish I could find it.
Please link it if you do come across it, as I would be interested to read it.

I don't know what to think on the 'choice' thing. The trouble is that most things involve choice, and whereas yes, I can see that advocating that people have the choice to serve you or to act in ways that are detrimental to themselves can be hypocritical, removing that choice can also be self-serving and reinforce hierarchies.

To use the prostitution example - of course there are many sex workers whose 'choice' is born of limited opportunities and options, or who are coerced into it because of addiction or fear. But isn't the answer to that to remove the conditions that drive them to 'choose' sex work, rather than to remove the option for those who have made the choice to earn a living this way? Criminalising it is an easy option by comparison, and in any case is unlikely to give them more choices if they become convicted criminals. In fact it is likely that they will be less likely to find other work and more likely to have addiction problems after time in jail.

Also, there is the perennial question of who decides which choices should be available to others? Feminism, like many other philosophical or political perspectives is not a doctrine. People interpret it differently, and different viewpoints are valid. I don't believe that feminism can ever foreground men, for instance - to me that is a contradiction in terms - but there are those who disagree.

Waters always get muddied when religion, politics and lifestyles overlap. I believe in freedom of religion, and freedom not to have one. I also believe in freedom of expression within the law, whether that means a woman choosing to wear a burkha or choosing not to in the face of her husband or father's opposition. The difficulty, of course, is in knowing the motives behind someone's clothing choices. By all means make it an offence to force or otherwise coerce someone to wear one unwillingly, but surely removing any choice to wear it willingly is not just anti-feminist, but anti-democratic and anti-freedom. Just who gets to make the choice to remove the choices for others?

So when we talk about the wearing of hijabs it's as well to remember that we had our own (by that I mean C of E) cultural 'requirement' for women, back in the 40s and 50s, to 'cover-up' similarly.

Roman Catholics, too, Dickens.

And the Christian requirement for women to cover their heads, particularly in church, stemmed from much the same as the Islamic belief in women as sexual objects whose uncovered state (be it hair, face or parts of the body) would inflame men's passions and sully the purity of the woman...

Vintagewhine

There are nearly 4 million Muslims living in the UK. Most live peacefully with their neighbours, pay their taxes and contribute to this country just like people of other faiths or no faith. Yet as soon as a Muslim does anything controversial it's seen as acceptable to stereotype the whole Muslim community. It is not. It's also unacceptable to assume that all women, regardless of faith, regard "equality" in the same way. Equality is not being told by other women how to conduct their lives, it is about "choice". Many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, it's not the garment of oppression that some Western women think it is, nor is it required as part of religious observance. I'm fully aware that women in some religious communities are repressed by men but it's the men misrepresenting religion that are doing the oppression not the religion.

I'm fully aware that women in some religious communities are repressed by men but it's the men misrepresenting religion that are doing the oppression not the religion.

A very good point.

In effect then, it's not the religion we should be challenging but those that appropriate it for their own agenda. But it's hard to question a culture engineered by such individuals or groups without appearing to be attacking the religion. Hence the accusations of Islamophobia.

So really, the religious 'wars' are, in fact, culture wars?

Head-covering for women is an interesting issue. My grandmother (C of E) always felt the need to don a headscarf when leaving the house - and it wasn't in order to cover a head full of curling rollers - it was what women did. Similarly, my mother, dragging me to church, insisted that I cover my head before entering it as, if I remember correctly, did all other females. I went to a boarding school (co-ed) and, on Sunday, all the girls had to wear their school hats, whilst the boys removed theirs. I remember being very miffed about this but didn't have the vocabulary nor intellect to articulate my disapproval.

So when we talk about the wearing of hijabs it's as well to remember that we had our own (by that I mean C of E) cultural 'requirement' for women, back in the 40s and 50s, to 'cover-up' similarly.

It's the same idea that says prostitution is a choice for women and we should all cheer on that choice. It ignores the reasons why it is women who make that particular choice, it ignores the complexity of oppression, and generally ends up in an awful place for women.
Those who defend these 'choices' tend not to enact them in their own lives they let other women do that. There is brilliant essay somewhere on the myth of choice, I wish I could find it.

Galaxy

Sorry I dont believe in choicey choice feminism it tends to be utterly disastrous for women and ignores the hierarchies and oppression that shape the choice of some.

What's "choicesy, choice feminism"? Choice as far as I am concerned is the result of effective legislation that removes the hierarchies and oppression thus giving women the freedom to make choices in how they want to live their lives. I don't want to be told how to live my life by other women anymore than I want to be told by men.

^It seems it is always Muslims complaining about something that does not suit a noisy minority. If Christians emigrated to
a Muslim country do you think you would be able to ask them to change school hours or demand other customs? It just id not done.^

I'm sure that the original visas which permitted people of different faiths to emigrate to the UK didn't make that permission conditional on conforming to the 'British' way of life.

I think we should consider the fact that many of them are from countries that the British commandeered in the name of Empire and then expected the citizens to accept British laws and British way of life...

I didn't misread anything.

Callistemon21

growstuff

All Muslims Annie1?You are writing about a stereotype.

Annie1 didn't say that at all.

You must have misread her post.

So what percentage of Muslims did she mean?

Sorry I dont believe in choicey choice feminism it tends to be utterly disastrous for women and ignores the hierarchies and oppression that shape the choice of some.

There are nearly 4 million Muslims living in the UK. Most live peacefully with their neighbours, pay their taxes and contribute to this country just like people of other faiths or no faith. Yet as soon as a Muslim does anything controversial it's seen as acceptable to stereotype the whole Muslim community. It is not. It's also unacceptable to assume that all women, regardless of faith, regard "equality" in the same way. Equality is not being told by other women how to conduct their lives, it is about "choice". Many Muslim women choose to wear the hijab, it's not the garment of oppression that some Western women think it is, nor is it required as part of religious observance. I'm fully aware that women in some religious communities are repressed by men but it's the men misrepresenting religion that are doing the oppression not the religion.

growstuff

All Muslims Annie1?You are writing about a stereotype.

Annie1 didn't say that at all.

You must have misread her post.

All Muslims Annie1?You are writing about a stereotype.

What an excellent post TerriBull.

When people perceive their lifestyle is under threat, and recent rhetoric is a drip drip about the causes being migration/ overcrowding, then the extremist views slowly become seen as less extreme somehow.
When governments seem to be letting it happen, then the extreme parties get listened to, and it becomes a slippery slope into Nazism.

We are also becoming more selfish, less community minded peoples.

There is a tipping point, and you cannot wipe out the racism in a culture in just one generation and it was deeply embedded in Germany, and Russian occupation of East Germany did nothing to dispel. But it is not absent here either, and we need to counter some of the rhetoric (of the 8m non-native born people in the UK, .3m are German)

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend . Martin Luther King jr.

TerriBull, that is a great post. I get very worked up about feminism and how some grans criticise the way the Michaela school is run. I know ALL
religious groups have discriminated against women but we hsve wonderful
communities of Hind, Sikh and other faiths who fit in in UK society. It seems it is always Muslims complaining about something that does not suit a noisy minority. If Christians emigrated to
a Muslim country do you think you would be able to ask them to change school hours or demand other customs? It just id not done. Those of you in Australia will recall the term “whinging poms” The Australians made it quite clear that if you did not likr Australian ways then you could leave!
It seemed reasonable to me. Fit in or go back to England. I developed an Aussie accent and learned to fit in. You can practice your faith without disrupting your work. No Muslim surgeon would halt a long operation in order to pray! All i ask is to treat all women as equals



To

Excellent post TerriBull 👍

Good post TerriBull

Reported in The Times yesterday, "Anti EU populists poised to dominate in European elections" Conclusion, a combination of "popular anger at net zero measures which many find unaffordable and uncontrolled migration are the main drivers of voter revolt"

Farmers in the Netherlands who have been forced to sell up have been protesting for a while. With all the talk of doomsday scenarios the people who we are really going to need will be farmers. German farmers of late have also, very peacefully joined the fray.

Always a worrying facet about the far right is their desire to look towards foreign/non Aryan scapegoats, it really occurred to me when watching the film, Oppenheimer, all those talented physicists and scientists, so many of them Jewish, and that idiot of a man and his followers would have had them exterminated if any had remained in Germany. Amongst the asylum seekers and immigrants will no doubt be similar talents and with that in mind it's an unhappy scenario to see the re-emergence of the far right, particularly in Germany given its history, but one wonders did it ever go away.

There is a dichotomy between those who espouse a blanket hatred for aliens/outsiders and the collective guilt that is no doubt felt amongst the majority of the decent German population, probably best exemplified by Angela Merkel's decision to give a safe haven to beleaguered Syrians and Afghans for example. However it has to be said, amongst the innocent people fleeing to place of safety there, are always bad apples, it isn't discriminatory to say so, every nation/ethnicity will encompass the very best and the very worst of humanity and everything in between. It doesn't help when governments seek to fudge very real problems in the interests of so called cohesion, for example all those women that were accosted in Cologne and other ongoing issues around the sexual misbehaviour of a minority of new arrivals. People on the ground aren't stupid they know what's going on, and possibly more than ever now. We are all aware of how grooming scandals took hold in our towns and a conspiracy of suppresion from people at the highest level, again in the spurious interests of social cohesion and not inflaming indigenous discontent. Lack of transparency in such affairs, denial about increasing gang warfare, criminal activities that have been exported from abroad are incendiaries for the far right and they are going to run with that. It's blatantly obvious that all of these issues need to be addressed, without demonising whole communities. Fudging wrong doings by authorities for whatever reason will increase simmering discontents especially when the people at the sharp end point it out to an elite who live in communities cushioned from the lived experience of others. Unfortunately turning to an unsavoury political force is a by product of being ignored.

I don't think you can separate a 'religion' from its adherents' interpretation of its sacred text, GG13. That is, after all, the only source of their beliefs and practices.

But all I intended was to point out to the christianity professing Islam detractors that their own religion has its flaws.

Maddy just a reply about your friends who won’t go to Germany. It’s their right of. course but many thousands of Jews live peacefully in Germany and thousands of Jews live in Berlin with 8 synagogues in that city alone.
Germany, unlike some of it’s allies, has and does still accept its guilt.
I don’t know if you have been to Berlin but right in the centre of Berlin by the Brandenburg gate is one massive monument in particular which must be the size of 4 or 5 football pitches with a huge museum attached. It was intensely moving.
There are many monuments and other Holocaust museums which tell the horror without trying to hide from their guilt. There are handmade stones on pavements outside houses which are engraved with the names of the families who had lived in the streets as a memorial.
Germans in general seem to like us very much which might surprise your friends and could perhaps bring a sort of ‘peace’ in a strange way but of course I understand if they don’t.
War is a terrible thing. It is trauma for millions who are mostly innocent but lose so much and what is going on in our world today risks the peace of us all.

MaizieD

Christianity subjugated women, too. Probably still does. We've only very recently escaped from much of the repression.

God created women and man in his own image and likeness, he made them equal

Jesus taught women and men alongside each other as equals.

I think you will find that it has been the patriarchy of the Church which has subjugated women, not the religion itself.

Christianity subjugated women, too. Probably still does. We've only very recently escaped from much of the repression.