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Martina Salomon went on the offensive and posted the email on Facebook to publicize the incredible attacks faced by exposed women. However, Facebook removed the post after a few hours and even threatened Salomon to delete his entire account because he had made the sender’s (fake) email address public. (This is not allowed, such data must be crossed out)
As a result, there was a wave of solidarity: several users posted screenshots of their posts on Twitter and Facebook. Even before that, those affected had contacted Salomon, who had received sexist emails from this account, including ÖVP club vice president Gabriele Schwarz. Salomon doesn’t want him or other women to be pushed into the victim role, but points out that this news is just the tip of the iceberg. According to her, several other editors-in-chief often express opinions similar to her in public or editorial appearances.
But especially on Twitter, she is controversially vilified, often even by professional colleagues. It’s easier to hit a woman because she’s supposedly a soft target, he says, which in turn encourages pathological personalities to do better. Salomon: “There is sexism everywhere, from the right as well as from the left. And even if some seriously believe that they are on the morally correct, more liberal side: He is always disgusting. “
The group effect
Psychologist Beate Wimmer-Puchinger, born in 1948, describes herself as a feminist from the start. “My generation used to be more hidden, we were not in managerial positions. When I did my habilitation, there were no teachers. We have not yet challenged men in that way. That was the beginning, we were not much of a threat. “Over the years, women became more and more successful and hatred of certain men increased. Especially because of the infinite and anonymous extension of the Internet, where you can always find other supportive men The group effect.
On the Internet, misogyny focuses on the so-called Manosphere, the scenario in which misogynistic men exchange, relate to and incite each other. “The misogyny has definitely gotten more brutal, more offensive, more aggressive, and more disrespectful,” says Wimmer-Puchinger. It is about the distribution of power and the male offense manifests itself in different facets.
Respecting women and treating them as equals should be a value recognized by everyone in society as a whole. “I miss political action here. I want a civil society in which it is evident that men and women should be considered equal. I also miss an alliance against violence throughout society. Get off the topic of women. That concerns us all, ”says Wimmer-Puchinger.
The first time
Anyone looking for figures on hate online will hardly find anything: the perpetrators often and happily believe they are in the safety of the World Wide Web. A request for complaints and convictions is answered at the Department of Justice with the fact that too many criminal groups are falling into the area. Police have only been collecting information on the victim’s gender, skin color or origin since November last year. In the summer of this year there will be statistics on hate crimes in Austria for the first time.
“The truth is that the phenomenon has been increasing for several years,” explains Tobias Körtner of White Ring’s Victims Aid. “We are tracking that both the number of inquiries to the victim’s emergency number and the number of advertisements are increasing.” But the only study on the topic of violence against women on the Internet is three years old, and it returned worrying figures even then: one in three respondents had already experienced violence on the Internet. Almost the same number withdrew from social media or had their online profile completely removed.
