I'm German, have mostly lived in Germany, but also spent a couple of years in London, Paris and Vancouver. The only time I was groped was in a night club in London. Cat calling and other intimidating behaviour seems to have happened in just about every country I've ever lived in or travelled to. In Southern Europe, North Africa and India a lot more than anywhere else.
It pains me to say that in my experience the great majority of men in Germany who didn't seem to understand "no" or have approached me or friends in a disrespectful way had Turkish, Arab or North African roots.
While (parts of) Germany may be culturally more conservative regarding women staying at home to raise the children, I feel it's a bit of leap to take this as a sign that German culture approves of women being sexually harassed.
I think Germany still has a very long way to go towards equal career opportunities for men and women, but so do all other European countries. Depicting Germany as a country where women are mostly SAHMs is rubbish though. As of 2012, 68 % of women in Germany worked (and 71% of women in supposedly oh so backwards Bavaria), compared to 65 % of women in the UK. Yes, there are a LOT of part-timers and wrap-around childcare is still very much insufficient in a lot of places, but the picture some posters have painted should really be taken with a grain of salt.
My own experience is a very different one as well. I grew up in a Bavarian village, but nobody I knew slagged off working mothers. Most of my friends are well-educated lawyers, doctors and bankers. Everyone is in their early thirties now and hardly anyone is married or has children.
Just like in the UK, many average families would struggle to survive on one wage anyways these days, so not working isn't even an option for many women, even if they wanted to stay at home.
I also find it quite insulting to assume that all the SAHMs are kept at home by chauvinistic husbands who by the way also condone the sexual harassment of women. I know a couple of educated, successful women who actively chose to not go back to work. Not because they were guilt tripped by society, but because they wanted to and could afford it. To draw conclusions from a higher percentage of SAHMs about a society's attitude towards sexual abuse is insulting to a lot of people, women and men, on so many levels and just not on.
I also think it's outrageous how some of the very politicians responsible for disastrous budget cuts now blame the very much understaffed and over-worked police. The federal police, who is responsible for controlling train stations in Germany, is catastrophically understaffed also because many of them are busy registering incoming refugees at the Bavarian borders at the moment.
State Police in North-Rhine-Westphalia have also experienced pretty drastic budget cuts and don't have the best reputation anyways. It's difficult to make any general statements about "German police" though, as each state is responsible for its own state police and budget / staffing situation differs quite a bit between states.
I live in Munich and can't see anything remotely as large scale as the events in Cologne happen here. You see a lot more police in the streets here, they generally seem quite capable, always willing to help and are actually (unlike their supposedly lax colleagues in some others states) notoriously heavy-handed in some situations (something that used to worry me but now bizarrely makes me feel safer).
Yes, Barbarian, my jaw did that and more when this was explained to me - by a German lawyer. If someone grabs your breasts and you slap him, you will be found guilty of assault, not him. If someone harasses and catcalls you and you flip him off, you will be found guilty of defamation, not (as long as he doesn't actually call you names that are commonly held to be insulting) him.
I disagree here. It's an absolute scandal that the law doesn't sufficiently protect women against sexual harassment, but in those scenarios the woman would usually be acting in self-defence and therefore not be found guilty of assault or defamation.
Interestingly before a reform of criminal law in 1973 women would have been protected against the types of sexual harassment discussed here. God knows what they were thinking when the new laws were made. I think it's high time Germans start campaigning for some badly necessary changes.
There were just as many German men getting off those trains as women. Where were they? Why did their presence not make it seem unsafe or at least impolitic to behave in ways that every adult, regardless of country of origin, knows perfectly well is illegal and indecent?
I have read quite a few eyewitness reports, some of which said that there were men who a. did manage to successfully protect their partners / other women, or b. were powerless faced with groups of 20-30 attackers. Why anyone would put the blame on the victims' male partners / friends / innocent bystanders rather than the perpetrators is quite beyond me.
My understanding of her argument is that it's the permissive culture in Germany which has permitted or encouraged these men to sexually assault women and children walking through a station on NYE?
While the legal situation is a scandal and we do have our fair share of men with outdated and horrible attitudes towards women (just like anywhere, sadly), I honestly don't think that the vast majority of Germans think groping and harassing women (children would be a whole different story legally anyways) is even remotely okay. I don't think there's more of a permissive culture than elsewhere in Europe. In my view the problem is women's rights always coming last as soon as the cultural sensibilities of particular groups may be hurt. Everyone including many women is so afraid of sounding even remotely right-wing that they would rather tell women to cover up than address the actual issues here.