More than a third of men in Germany find violence against women “acceptable”, according to survey results that campaigners described as “shocking” on Sunday.
A total of 33 per cent of men aged 18-35 said they found it “acceptable” if “their hand slipped” occasionally during an argument with their female partner, according to the survey set to be published by the Funke newspaper group on Monday.
Thirty-four per cent of respondents admitted that they had been violent towards women in the past.
The results are “shocking”, said Karsten Kassner from the Federal Forum Men, an umbrella group that advocates for gender equality.
“It’s problematic that a third of the surveyed men trivialise physical violence against women. This urgently needs to change,” he told the Funke news-papers.
The nationwide survey, which questioned 1,000 men and 1,000 women aged 18-35, was commis-sioned by children’s aid organisation Plan Interna-tional Germany and carried out online from March 9-21.
It further found that 52pc of men said they be-lieved their role was to be the main provider in a relationship, and that their partner should mostly run the household.
Just under half of respondents (48pc) also ex-pressed a dislike for seeing public displays of ho-mosexuality, saying they felt “disturbed” by it.
“Traditional gender roles are still deeply in-grained in people’s minds,” Alexandra Tschacher, a spokeswoman for Plan International Germany, told the Funke newspaper group.—APP
