A third of German men find violence against women ‘acceptable’: Survey
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
More than 115,000 women were victims of partner violence in 2021, according to German federal police data.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS
Follow topic:
FRANKFURT – One third of men in Germany find violence against women “acceptable”, according to survey results that campaigners described as “shocking” on Sunday.
A total of 33 per cent of men aged 18 to 35 years old said they found it “acceptable” if “their hand slipped” occasionally during an argument with their female partner, according to the survey set to be published by the Funke newspaper group on Monday.
Thirty-four per cent of respondents admitted that they had been violent towards women in the past.
The results are “shocking”, said Mr Karsten Kassner from the Federal Forum Men, which is an umbrella group that advocates for gender equality.
“It’s problematic that a third of the surveyed men trivialise physical violence against women. This urgently needs to change,” he told the Funke newspapers.
The nationwide survey, which polled 1,000 men and 1,000 women aged 18 to 35, was commissioned by children’s aid organisation Plan International Germany and carried out online from March 9 to 21. It further found that 52 per cent of men said they believed their role was to be the main provider in a relationship, and that their partner should mostly run the household.
Just under half of respondents (48 per cent) also expressed a dislike for seeing public displays of homosexuality, saying they felt “disturbed” by it.
“Traditional gender roles are still deeply ingrained in people’s minds,” Ms Alexandra Tschacher, a spokesman for Plan International Germany, told the Funke newspaper group.
More than 115,000 women – or 13 women each hour – were victims of partner violence in 2021, according to federal police data.
A total of 301 women were killed by their current or former partner in 2021.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann in 2022 said that he would push for legal changes to punish violence against women more severely, saying such acts should not be downplayed as “private tragedies”.
“Gender-based violence must be named as such and punished with the necessary severity,” he said at the time. AFP
