The pity for Tom Egbers that is expressed here and there, including by Marcel van Roosmalen, causes annoyance. “There is talk of himpathy here,” says journalist Marieke Kuypers.
According to de Volkskrant, Tom Egbers has seriously misbehaved at the editorial office of NOS Sport, for example by bullying and intimidating a 26-year-younger trainee until she left. According to the newspaper, it was even so bad that he made hand gestures to her “as if he were cutting someone’s throat.”
Rusty knife
Another colleague, Aïcha Marghadi, asked the editor-in-chief if she could ask Tom as her mentor, but she was more or less forbidden to do so. The reason? “He has quite a problem with beautiful women.”
Because of all the fuss, Tom has decided to withdraw as a presenter for the time being. It generates pity here and there, for example from Johan Derksen and Marcel van Roosmalen. “The rusty knife goes very deep,” says Marcel, for example.
Himpathy
Pointer journalist Marieke Kuypers is annoyed by these kinds of comments. “Beautiful example of what philosopher Kate Manne calls ‘himpathy’ – minimizing and predominantly empathizing with the man rather than the woman who had to endure his sexism and harassment,” tweets she.
She then shares the definition of himpathy: “Himpathy means worrying about his bright future and not her suffering.”
Cult
What does she think of Marcel’s opinion? “I also find Marcel’s lively imagination and unabashed complaining ‘cult’ as he would say, but it is striking that he often presents himself as an outsider in the media world, but when it comes to this, it is completely the average media man’s opinion has.”
She also points to an item from RTL Boulevard entitled: ‘Is Tom Egbers’ ‘character assassination’ going too far?”
Marieke: “Is it character assassination or has he done things that people now like? ?”
ideal victim
One Remco thinks that Marieke sees it too black and white. “If what is written is correct, then that is not acceptable, period. No discussion, cross-border behavior, intimidation, you don’t bully. At the same time, I also have a hard time seeing someone who enters into a relationship with an older married man only as a victim.”
Marieke then: “It’s nice of you to say that honestly, but I do think that this is precisely an underlying problem. The idea of the ‘ideal victim’ is an image people have of whom there really is a so-called ‘innocent’ victim. While hardly any victim fully complies with that idea.”