Last Saturday night, I was taking the train back home from Utrecht. The journey was initially quiet and sleepy. However, at one point, I started hearing loud banging noises over my music, accompanied by one word: “moord” (murder).
The woman sitting across from me looked worryingly over my shoulder, the man next to me started turning around in his seat, and I pulled out my AirPods and followed suit.
Just in time to hear a young man shout (in Dutch), “There was a 17-year-old MURDERED last week. “Kanker” asylum seekers.” As I finished my pivot to see what was happening, he punched another young man in the face.
Some context
Two weeks ago, the Netherlands was shaken by the murder of 17-year-old Lisa while she was cycling home from a night out with friends. She deserved to arrive home safe, but she didn’t.
The suspect involved in Lisa’s murder case was staying at an asylum centre nearby, which means that two major discussions have now broken out across the Netherlands:
One is about asylum seekers. The other, about violence against women.
As a young woman who has been living in this country for eight years (and on this planet for 28), I have one thing to say to this: I’m not scared of asylum seekers, I’m scared of men, period.
If your outrage involves punching people, you’re part of the problem
Now, I can’t speak to what exactly led this man to punch another young man (who looked just as Dutch as him) in the face — although I imagine there was some alcohol involved.
But as I walked home from the station (thankful that he didn’t get out at my stop), I couldn’t help but think about his outrage. Specifically about the fact that his outrage towards violence against women manifested as more violence.
Ultimately, he will probably look back at his actions and say he was justified in responding this way towards a young girl’s murder. He might even see himself as the hero in this scenario.
However, for every woman on that carriage, he was precisely the problem. He couldn’t control his emotions, he turned violent, and our journey home suddenly didn’t feel safe anymore.
One every eight days
I think many men will look at cases like Lisa’s and use them to fuel their outrage towards asylum seekers, but they won’t think to look at their own behaviour.
In the Netherlands, a woman is killed every eight days. The perpetrator? Often their partner.
Need more stats? No less than 73% of women in the Netherlands have experienced sexual harassment. Meanwhile, 41% of women have suffered physical or sexual abuse.
And I’m going to hazard a guess and say that asylum seekers are not the sole perpetrators here.
Not an immigration issue, but a man’s issue
These figures point to a major issue in the Netherlands, and bickering about the country’s asylum policy is not going to solve the problem.
As Jens Van Tricht from Emancipator, an organisation dedicated to gender equality, tells the NOS, “This is a man’s problem, and men need to address it.”
Making this a discussion about asylum seekers takes away from the larger issue at hand here: men in this country are hurting women.
I, like many women, am not thinking about a man’s nationality if I come across him during a late-night commute home.
I’m thinking about whether or not he’s going to hurt me — and right now, the odds of that happening are not low enough.
Do you feel safe as a woman in the Netherlands? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
Nice try, but Dutch guy didn’t kill Lisa. Illegal did. If he wouldn’t be let in in to country, she would be alive today. It’s that simple
You missed the point! Her point was: even if all asylum seekers were removed from the Netherlands, women would still not be safe because the problem against women is men not assylum seekers.
He was not illegal, staying at an asylum centre. Also over 70% of women in NL who had been abused or violated or murdered were by their partners not refugees or immigrants. Stop being a racist but open your eyes! It is not refugees it is men!
As a woman who has been living in the Netherlands for six years, I generally feel much safer here than in my home country. However, I still sometimes feel unsafe, especially late at night when I’m on the train or cycling home.
I’m particularly afraid of drunk people who travel by train on the weekends. They often behave outrageously—shouting or moving between the carriages uncontrollably.
The last time I traveled with a friend was on a Saturday evening, on a Sprinter train. There were two men in our carriage, and one of them stared at me the entire time. He even asked a strange question and continued acting in a disturbing way.
I was really scared because my friend’s stop was before mine. Before she got off, I left my seat, moved to the back of the train, and tried to hide from him for the rest of the journey. I even asked a friend to pick me up at the station. I’m sure I wouldn’t experienced this If I were a man
and that’s why this country is turning so violent: people refuse to name names, and recognize the trouble makers for what they really are.
young Dutch may be obnoxious after drinking and as a woman I understand your concern. but mostly, crimes against women are NOT committed by dutch men. stop the idea of taking refugees in your lap as if they’re poor innocent children.
Not all men, but ALWAYS a man!!
my comment was not accepted because I said things as is. and you don’t want to hear it. that’s why this is will keep happening in this country. =)
Completely agree with you 👏👏
Let’s put it simple, people are scared of most asylum seekers or illegals ruining this country. Not only women dear!
Great article, I appreciate the reporting and the opinion, its important to have open discussions and be informed!
However, I also want to say and ask, where is/was the increased reporting and attention to the violence toward women, before this horrible thing happened, now everyone is talking about it, and everyone is loud, that’s great and maybe a bit too late.
I am a man and I always protect friends and women around me in any case. I am also constantly told I am toxic or overprotective and women can do it all themselves, that’s true, however, the same toxic traits that I have, to yell, to be agressieve , to fight….., are the same traits that will help me protect my friends and including women around me. But I stop myself and overcorrect myself so I don’t look like a weirdo toxic man , when its actually really needed. Why should I defend or protect someone who is criticizing me for being what I am – of course there are real assholes as mentioned in the article.
To finish , I believe this is not or approach, it’s and approach, asylum seekers / immigrants with open status, specially men, are risky, and other man are risky as well, both should be addressed by priority and impact!
Interesting.
I don’t agree. I live in the Netherlands longer than you and I felt safe to walk the streets at night before asylum seekers came in in never-ending bunches. Now I don’t even go to walk my dog in the forest alone at day time, as I was chased and almost grabbed several times by asylum seekers. Police didn’t help much, they were trying to downplay it. I was never aggressed or attacked by Dutch men so no, I am not scared by men in general, am I scared by certain asylum seekers. I am clear by now they do not hold same values as us in their countries and as such I don’t expect them to be in any way considerate of women. It’s not a racial thing, it’s a different values and education one.
Why is it ‘not okay’ to highlight concerns on uncontrolled mass migration, but it is ‘okay’ to generalize an asylum seeker’s sexual assault to all men? This highly offensive and sexist article ignores the fact that individuals from cultures that don’t respect women are on average 20x more likely to violate such crimes, but are comfortable citing statistics to paint a broad stroke against men. This is hypocritical and logically inconsistent.
Ladies, in Dutch we mostly use the quite: the knife cuts at two sides.
In general we have noticed that men are kind, yet there is a certain group that works differently.
After being warned not to mix my self into these kind of issues and even being enforced to say things are safe for men and young boys I think we have a more media issue than a men-only issue.
After spending a lot on observing society we also notice certain responses to men.
If on the street a guy just asks the way it is assumed he has a phone and ladies generally respond: leave me alone I have a boyfriend. Or “not interested”.
If this is your default response to any guy you also promote exactly what a certain group is doing, defund people who are actually helpful and cause the juristrictional system to focus on the wrong people.
We already moved all our people away from Europe this due to the lies people put online and in media just to gain money.
We know this is a way of working but it only results in more cameras, more rules, more restrictions and even worse, more defunding of the people who are actually helpful to others.
I also noticed that your looks are actually most important how ladies respond to you. And even worse, some (drunk) guys even intentionally report the elderly to authorities causing a destruction of all the things that are nice like the locations where you can go out and have fun.
So instead of only saying “a problem”, what could be a solution that would help both sides?
Cause if “hello” is even scaring people we can state it is not only men who are the problem.
We have seen this with the same psychiatric test with fireworks. If you come from a war zone such a sound more scares you than someone who has lived in a country where fireworks are a common thing.