‘Kankerhoer’, ‘you lure it out yourself’ and ‘you should not cycle on the street in the evening’. According to action group De Dolle Mina’s, dozens of women were sexually intimidated by men in the night from Saturday to Sunday during the protest action ‘We demand the night’. The women cycled through Stratumseind in Eindhoven, among others, to draw attention to the insecurity that many women experience on the street. According to the Dolle Mina’s things got out of hand during the trip. They call for participants who are difficult to report.
In the night from Saturday to Sunday, people cycled through various cities in the Netherlands, to draw attention to insecurity for women on the street.
The group of about two hundred women was accompanied by the police, boas, traffic controllers and security guards of cafés. Nevertheless, according to the group, it got out of hand on the last part of the route, near restaurant Thomas. “Women were touched, men who cycled along were scolded for ‘gay’ and offended,” says Nynke van Zwol of the national action group Dolle Mina’s.
According to the spokesperson, the first part of the group, about thirty women, was scolded, grabbed and tried to stop men. A woman was grabbed by her hips. The situation became so intense that the route on the spot was adapted for the rest of the women.
“Women welcomed us, while men held us off,” says Van Zwol. “They shouted that we provoked it ourselves and didn’t have to cycle on the street in the evening.” According to her, one of the scolding men tried to quickly slip into a pub, but he was stopped by a security guard.
Shocked
The action group is worried. “We are shocked that it is sexually exceeding behavior, even in a group of hundreds of people,” says Van Zwol.
The atmosphere was not grim everywhere: “At Wilhelminaplein and in other places we got loud applause.”
Odet Rosenkrantz van de Dolle Mina’s Eindhoven, who cycled as a companion, heard the scolding too. The women made noise to draw attention to street intimidation. Because of the crowds they had to get off their bikes. “It went super well in the beginning. A minute and a half later it went wrong,” says Rosenkrantz. “Although the police guided us very well, there was still so much tooth over us. It was not to keep up.”
‘White men’
“It was so double. There were women who encouraged us enormously, but in between there sounded and raging sounded.”
The action group reported it to the police. According to Rosenkrantz, it is ‘very shocked’ of what happened. “They will think if they can do something with it. Too bad that such an experience shows that it is necessary.” Pub owners would also have been shocked. According to Van Zwol, they are willing to discuss the safety of women in the nightlife. “It does show that it is necessary.”
Van Zwol has a clear message to the men who misunderstood: “You behave like a bastard. I think they don’t realize that. They think they are not part of the problem, but they are.”