TIROLER TAGESZEITUNG, leading article: "The hatred of women has deep roots", by Anita Heubacher

2023-09-07 20:00:36

Issue of Friday, September 8, 2023

Innsbruck (OTS) – The fourth women’s shelter was opened yesterday in Tyrol. It offers protection for women who are threatened by physical and psychological violence. Unfortunately, violence against women is more of a mass phenomenon than a marginal phenomenon.

As of yesterday we stopped at 17 femicides and 33 attempted murders of women in Austria. Executed by men. Very often in a home environment. Violence against women has tended to increase, not decrease. This is not an Austrian phenomenon, but a global one with very different characteristics.
The fourth women’s shelter was opened yesterday in Tyrol. It was a long way. The call for additional protective devices went unheeded in Tyrol for a long time. Now the state government has at least caught up and set itself another ambitious goal of wanting to increase the number of places. Unfortunately, the need is great. Depending on the statistics, every third to every fifth woman is confronted with violence in the course of her life. 80 percent experience physical, sexual and psychological violence, one fifth structural. This means that women are disadvantaged by being dependent on their husbands. This includes the unequal distribution of income, educational opportunities or resources.
Just two weeks ago, the Federal Court of Auditors presented a sobering finding on the protection of women against violence and victims. In Austria there is no long-term, comprehensive strategy to protect women from violence. This is due to the lack of political will and probably also to the responsibilities. The protection of women is a federal as well as a state matter. What both decision-making levels have in common is that the topic of violence against women has long been perceived as a marginal phenomenon that takes place in socially disadvantaged milieus. You didn’t want to look that closely.
The women’s shelter is the tip of the iceberg. Hatred of women is deeply rooted, misogynist resentments and prejudices are particularly pronounced in patriarchal structures. In order to combat violence against women, one would have to get to the bottom of the causes and that is where the magnitude of the task really becomes clear. The whole iceberg becomes visible. Socio-political changes that inevitably led to men losing privileges and patriarchal structures being weakened.
This in turn unites women politicians and experts. For a long time you have been calling for action to be taken at the causes and no longer concentrating on combating the symptoms. Prevention is a means of raising awareness, where violence against women actually begins, an even broader political field of activity.