Laughs at abuse story Johan Derksen, ‘the public should have intervened’

Diners started laughing when Johan Derksen joined in today It is said that when he was young he entered an unconscious woman with a candle. Table boss René van der Gijp said happily: ‘Have you put it on yet?’ said. “I wonder: how big was that candle?” jokes Steven Brunswijk. ‘It was a big candle’, Derksen replies, after which the laughter erupted again.

According to experts, these reactions and the lack of intervention by host Wilfred Genee make sexual violence problematically justified. “Laughter denies seriousness,” says Renée Römkens, emeritus professor of gender-based violence at the University of Amsterdam. “So that’s okay, it’s a ‘good joke’.”

“The people at the table create such an atmosphere that gives room to a story,” says Anniek de Ruijter, lawyer and director of Bureau Clara Wichmann, which is committed to improving the legal position of women in the Netherlands. “They facilitate it, and so they are perhaps more guilty of this justification than Derksen himself.”

Watch the clip from the show here:

Sexologist Yuri Ohlrichs of the Rutgers Information Center: “On the one hand, I thought it was very good that Johan Derksen initially said: I’m ashamed. Because it’s okay to be ashamed of something so extreme,” she says. †

But what shocked Ohlrichs was that Derksen’s story was ridiculed by the other men at the table. “I also think that when you talk about shame, they should be even more ashamed. Because they’re actually laughing at an extreme assault,” she says.

audience effect

De Ruijter says other eaters are more likely to set a standard than laugh. “This aspect is crucial. “Had one person said that wasn’t true, it could have made a difference to the rest of the group.”

The lawyer is referring here to the bystander effect, a term from social psychology. “The most important variable in sexism and harassment is the response of the environment,” she explains. “One person can intervene and make a difference for the rest of the group. Because he takes the rest.”

Römkens points out this and believes that men should confront each other about sexually extreme behaviour. “It’s time to break the culture of men who show up in these kinds of jokes,” she says. “Because not all men think such behavior is normal.”

Everyone who raises his voice against the state of affairs in the program is guest Roos Schlikker. “The co-op was canceled early this morning,” she tweeted in response to the call from presenter Margriet Vroomans to women to refuse to participate from now on. Today in.

traumatic

Derksen and presenter Genee only talk about the victim in legal terms, except for jokes. “Technically, a prosecutor could describe it as rape,” Derksen said on the show.

Experts say there is no room for the victim’s perspective. “It’s shocking that they think the size of a candle is more important than a woman’s health,” says sex therapist Ohlrichs. “Shameful.”

Lawyer De Ruijter thinks it could have had a major impact on the victim’s life. “Waking up like this must have been extremely traumatic,” she says.

Not only is this traumatic for the woman in question, but it can also traumatize viewers who have been sexually abused. “Many women and men were affected by this,” says Professor Römkens. “And worse, it has such an adverse effect on the people experiencing it, it can create a new experience.”

Derksen still has room tonight. in today To respond, Römkens therefore calls the world “upside down”. “Ask him to go to the woman in question and apologize,” she says. “It suits him.”