In the wake of the wave of organised sexual assaults perpetrated against German women on New Year’s Eve, many commentators have been patiently waiting for the feminist reaction to this grotesque display of male violence. Well, it seems to have arrived, but not in the way you might imagine.
“No one is talking about the fact that this is happening to women every day,” claimed Tanja, an activist who organised a protest outside the ‘Multi Kulti’ centre in the Colonel neighbourhood of Mülheim, just a few kilometres from the station where the attacks occurred.
“People are insisting on making this a political story, trying to shift the focus on pro or anti refugees. But in fact, no one is listening to what we have to say – the women – who suffered from this violence in the streets on a daily basis long before refugees even came here,” the activist told DW yesterday.
Tanja said the “Multi Kulti” centre was a great place for people of all culture to get together: Turks, Syrians and other migrants and Germans. From her feminist perspective, the real problem causing German women to suffer is “German-born” men and the long standing western rape culture, which they uphold.
“Because refugees are now a burning topic, the media all of a sudden report about these events, but what nobody wants to admit is that these things happen all the time.
“I’m sorry to break this to you, but German-born men also harass and rape”, she exclaimed.
The activist explained that she had several close friends who were at the central station while the attacks took place. “Even they told me that they don’t want the debate to become a refugee topic again. This is yet again to talk over our heads, to ignore our reality”, she said.
“Sure, politicians are trying to hijack this attack for their own purposes. Some of them want to create refugees quotas, others want to increase the amount of asylum seekers – and these poles also exist among the German public”, she claimed.
Adding: “And it’s a positive thing at the end of the day that you get these opinions which balance each other. But you know who is forgotten at the end of the day. Women themselves. The ones who will experience this also after the media hype is over.”
The reaction of the Feminist establishment media here in the UK has been equally misconceived and mealy mouthed.
Publications which readily accuse universities and sport clubs of peddling “rape culture” have declined to describe a culture that rapes en mass as such.
The feminist mayor’s blatant “victim blaming” had to be pointed out to many feminists, and none batted an eye lid when Chancellor Merkel had to clarify that the rapists should be prosecuted “regardless of their background.”
Through it all, the number one topic addressed under the Guardian’s ‘Feminism’ tag for the year so far is a cricketer who asked a reporter out for a drink during an after match interview – not a single comment piece on the Cologne rape scandal yet.
Over at Prospect magazine, one “feminism and human rights” writer offered up these weasel words to explain the radio silence from the gender warriors:
“Feminists are necessarily concerned with the protection of minorities and marginalised groups. If some of them are finding it difficult to speak up about the event because of concerns it might be used to encourage aggression against refugees, I can’t say I blame them. The fault lies not with the feminists but with those making them nervous to speak–the very same people, often, who are expressing outrage that they aren’t.
“It is usually the task of feminists to make enough noise about incidents of sexual assault that they can no longer be ignored; the Cologne attack was big enough that it received a huge amount of attention across Europe and further afield. We can only hope now that the police are successful in bringing those responsible to the courtroom and preventing further attacks, and that the women involved are given enough support.”
In other words: Muslims are “marginalised”, so their crimes must be appeased – cultural relativism in its purist form. And then a startling admission, that feminists today only address petty issues that are otherwise likely to be ignored. Well, I guess we can agree that she is right on that.