On February 1st, the nationwide “Registration Office for Antifeminism” launched its online portal on which sexist and antifeminist incidents can be reported. The project was initiated by the Heidelberg Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which was funded by the Ministry of Family Affairs with more than two million euros in 2022. That comes from one Federal printed matter out.
The portal’s reporting function was the subject of heated public debate. The deputy chairwoman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Dorothee Bär, described the activity of the registration office as “denouncing and defaming at state expense”.
The controversial site was also nicknamed the “Petz Portal” because of an announced “chronicle of anti-feminist incidents,” which raised fears that people reported to the site could be publicly denounced.
Death threats and men coming forward for fun because they “forgot about gender.”
FOCUS online asked the registration office what was behind the excitement and whether any incidents had been reported at all. According to Judith Rahner from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, 700 verified reports were received in the first month since the portal was launched. A third of them are “sexist, racist and anti-trans hate messages” against the registration office and the employees themselves.
The foundation’s press and public relations officer, Lorenz Blumenthaler, tells FOCUS online that for weeks they have been receiving death threats, letters with “bad news” and calls from angry people yelling at employees. In addition, they would get a lot of “fun messages” in which men in particular report themselves because they “forgot to gender”. The employees are surprised “by the hate that was met with the registration office,” says Blumenthaler.
The speaker of the controversial portal has a clear attitude towards the critics: “These are all people who don’t take the problem seriously and still see the one platform that doesn’t hurt them at all as an enemy and four pages of defamation and hate messages fill in.”
Five employees, 700 reports: “The registration office serves its purpose”
The “real” messages are said to relate primarily to “anti-feminism as an organized political movement” and “sexism and gender-based violence”. According to the speaker, the mere “non-gender” is not a message that is included in the statistics. Of the five employees in the reporting office, three people take care of new reports every day. You can hardly keep up with the work.
If a third of the cases are directed against the portal itself, it remains questionable to what extent the portal is worthwhile at all. The speaker replies to criticism of this kind that the registration office “definitely hit a nerve.” At the same time he says: “I would deny whether that was planned at the beginning. Nevertheless, one third to two thirds of relevant reports are available. Those affected can, if they wish, receive help and advice that they would otherwise not have received. The registration office thus fulfills its purpose.”
Ex-minister: “The woken discourse killers are financed by the German state, of all things”
The CDU politician and former family minister Kristina Schröder had also heavily criticized the portal in a guest article for “Welt”: “The woken discourse killers are financed by the German state, of all things”.
Ministry for Family Affairs approves 150,000 euros for 2023
Background: The portal is part of the joint project “Live democracy!” and is funded by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Family Affairs told FOCUS Online on request how much funding the registration office has received so far. Since the portal is part of the overarching project “Meet anti-feminism – strengthen democracy”, they received a transfer of funds of 133,000 euros for the registration office in 2022. A total of EUR 150,000 has been approved for the current year.
The current family minister has been Lisa Paus (Greens) since 2022. At the request of FOCUS online, the reporting office explained further that the portal had been designed and advertised long before the faction change in the Ministry of Family Affairs.
“No names will be published, no data will be saved”
The spokesman also justifies the raison d’être of the frequently criticized institution with the fact that there are many federally funded reporting offices in Germany, for example against anti-Semitism. The data collection is important in order to raise awareness of the problem in society and among the security authorities so that they can better protect the groups concerned in case of doubt.
However, Blumenthaler does not accept the accusation that the “Registration Office for Antifeminism” is a “Petz portal”. “There is no slander, but the dark field of anti-feminism is illuminated. Affected people simply get a contact point. No names will be published, no data will be stored and there will be no criminal prosecution.” The planned chronicle should therefore not contain the names of private individuals or public figures, the reports would be documented anonymously and processed in the form of key figures.
The employees would verify all reports that come in via the portal, it is said. This is to filter out spam messages and made-up stories.
It is unclear how it is ensured that only “real cases” are included in the statistics, since the reporting portal under www.antifeminismus-melden.deapart from the e-mail address, no personal information is required to send a report.
