Hate of Women

By Daniela Gross

“It is incredible how the attack in Cologne has gone understated, especially by the male population. It was a hostile action, less bloody but not less hateful than the assault to Charlie Hebdo, which we commemorate on these days. It is an act doomed to leave, in the European consciousness, a scar no less deep, because few people design or read irreverent cartoons, but everyone has a daughter or a dear one, who celebrates the New Year in a big city.”

So Aldo Cazzullo commented, in the daily Corriere della Sera, the violence recently exerted against dozens of women, held guilty only of their freedom in the West. On New Year’s Eve, they were assaulted by large groups of men. Male migrants, largely North African or Middle Eastern, were repeatedly named as the perpetrators.

No wonder that, in the following days, many protests were raised against the welcome policy towards refugees. But, as Cazzullo wrote, this is not the only point. “The freedom which was denied in one of the symbolic squares of Europe, where the most important German cathedral stands, is no less crucial than the freedom of expression struck a year ago in France.”

“It is the woman’s freedom to go out alone, to dress how she desires, to freely choose who to love. That’s why it is so extremely serious that many men don’t realize or try to deny what happened.”