So I’m already fourty and I clearly remember all the fuss in the 90s here in Germany about women not being safe. Now mind you, this was way before any major immigration wave. And the various talks I got from parents and teachers and what I heard in the media was mostly “Men are dangerous, women should never trust a strange man”. In hindsight it feels very panicky and over the top how I was told everywhere “Don’t trust a strange man. Don’t talk to a strange man.”
Everywhere was supposedly dangerous. Going to the big city for a day? Well, if you stay past a certain time, you’re just asking to be assaulted. If you go to a certain distric you can’t complain later when something happens to you. My brother was allowed more freedom because “we’re sorry but this is how it is and the world is less save for you as a girl”.
Now the funny thing is, back in the 90s when we hardly had any major immigration and certainly no big discourse about it as far as I was aware the narrative was “Well, women should know better than to go to certain places and be out past a certain time. That’s just how the world works. Suck it up, buttercup.”
Feminists who stood up and spread the message that - actually - women should be able to feel safe in the big city center, even in the evening, were ridiculed. You can’t change the world! Live with it. That’s just how it is. Men are dangerous and so many want to harm you, that’s just human nature. You won’t change that.
Well, anyway, the same people who’d tell me “The world is just more dangerous for women, stay at home, avoid certain places, don’t stay out late and don’t complain about it, you won’t change it” 30 years ago are now suddenly up in arms and “fighting for women’s safety in public places”.
Funny how that works. All it took for the ‘evil, delusional feminists’ to be taken seriously was a bit of immigration and a bunch of racism. Who knew.
Also, and I don’t think I have to mention it, but a lot of crime statistics are actually down and such. However, a lot more things are being criminalized such as sexual harrassment which in the 90s noone gave a fuck about. Got called a sexual slur and aggressively asked for sex? Well, what were you doing outside in that part of town at that hour anyway. What did you expect would happen if you, as a woman, go to certain places? Nowadays you actually can go to the police about this stuff.
Sorry for the rant, it just makes me so so angry having grown up with this narrative of “men will touch you and hurt you and rape you any chance they get and it’s on you to stay away from them” that NOW all of a sudden they change the narrative when it suits them to spread their racism.
That is true. Maybe I didn’t notice because I was a teenager and from a small town. I don’t remember immigration being a big point of discussion until some turkish migrants came to our town in the early 2000s. Men being dangerous was never tied to their nationality, it was just “all men”.
So I’m already fourty and I clearly remember all the fuss in the 90s here in Germany about women not being safe. Now mind you, this was way before any major immigration wave. And the various talks I got from parents and teachers and what I heard in the media was mostly “Men are dangerous, women should never trust a strange man”. In hindsight it feels very panicky and over the top how I was told everywhere “Don’t trust a strange man. Don’t talk to a strange man.”
Everywhere was supposedly dangerous. Going to the big city for a day? Well, if you stay past a certain time, you’re just asking to be assaulted. If you go to a certain distric you can’t complain later when something happens to you. My brother was allowed more freedom because “we’re sorry but this is how it is and the world is less save for you as a girl”.
Now the funny thing is, back in the 90s when we hardly had any major immigration and certainly no big discourse about it as far as I was aware the narrative was “Well, women should know better than to go to certain places and be out past a certain time. That’s just how the world works. Suck it up, buttercup.” Feminists who stood up and spread the message that - actually - women should be able to feel safe in the big city center, even in the evening, were ridiculed. You can’t change the world! Live with it. That’s just how it is. Men are dangerous and so many want to harm you, that’s just human nature. You won’t change that.
Well, anyway, the same people who’d tell me “The world is just more dangerous for women, stay at home, avoid certain places, don’t stay out late and don’t complain about it, you won’t change it” 30 years ago are now suddenly up in arms and “fighting for women’s safety in public places”. Funny how that works. All it took for the ‘evil, delusional feminists’ to be taken seriously was a bit of immigration and a bunch of racism. Who knew.
Also, and I don’t think I have to mention it, but a lot of crime statistics are actually down and such. However, a lot more things are being criminalized such as sexual harrassment which in the 90s noone gave a fuck about. Got called a sexual slur and aggressively asked for sex? Well, what were you doing outside in that part of town at that hour anyway. What did you expect would happen if you, as a woman, go to certain places? Nowadays you actually can go to the police about this stuff.
Sorry for the rant, it just makes me so so angry having grown up with this narrative of “men will touch you and hurt you and rape you any chance they get and it’s on you to stay away from them” that NOW all of a sudden they change the narrative when it suits them to spread their racism.
Actually, this was right after a major immigration wave following the fall of the iron curtain.
That is true. Maybe I didn’t notice because I was a teenager and from a small town. I don’t remember immigration being a big point of discussion until some turkish migrants came to our town in the early 2000s. Men being dangerous was never tied to their nationality, it was just “all men”.