Fighting field Science-“Slapp-Laws”: The Woodhammer Method

With horror and fascination, everyone who is not fans of a fascist agenda is currently looking at the processes in the USA. The renovation measures of the Trump administration extend to the entire state and thus to all areas of society that it has directly or indirectly under its control. The judiciary and science company are particularly affected by the MAGA cleaning; This is about the elimination of any trace of anti -discrimination work, in the case of universities, also about the elimination of any form of social criticism.

While the processes in the United States are actually extreme, it does not have to be seen to see a world power to strengthen the right and institutionally guided “cultural struggle” – also in the university area. The media scientist Rena Onat from the FG Gender reporting office explains: »Right attacks on science are increasing, especially in the area of ​​gender studies. There is no systematic recording, but the specialist society observes an increase in cases because more and more members are asking for support. This is related to social debates, in particular the AfD, which drives a targeted rejection of gender studies and its financing. «

An important scene for such attacks is the dishes-more precisely, the means of the slapping lawsuit: Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, abbreviated slapp (English slap: beat), which is less about enforcing a certain demand than about intimidating the defendant through the costs and the effort of a lengthy legal dispute. The unspoken purpose of these complaints is to suppress certain expressions of opinion – that is, content – and their distribution.

A case study for such a legal “hit on the fingers” from the FRG: The injunction of the sex worker Tabea Friday against anti -feminism researcher Ferdinand Backhoefer. Friday is the author of »Fit for Love. Prevention of pornography consumption and sexual violence «, a collection of materials for the” sexual education “work with young people. According to the foreword to the second edition, the publication of the following merit: here “a discourse” on the efforts of the mainstream society are initiated to “combat a” discriminatory heteronormativity perceived everywhere “through a ‘sex education of diversity”.

Patriarchate criticism: None

The world view, which is expressed in Friday publication and its ideological environment, cannot be presented here fully; If you like, you can go on a trip through the milieu on the Internet. At least that much: The concept of the patriarchy seems to be alien to Friday and many of their sexual pedagogical attempts. On websites and in materials, there is talk of young people who are clearly differentiated in their gender character in girls and boys, but still face eye level.

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Apparently you don’t want to draw any rapid conclusions about the phenomenon of sexual violence. For example, the sex educators Ina-Maria Philipps and Karlheinz Valtl write in their lecture »on both sides of the border. The aggressive in sexuality “, held in 2003 on the” specialist congress of the child protection centers “and available on the website of the Institute for Sex Pedagogy:” In the course of the uncoveration of sexual assault and acts of violence, an excited public and in part also an open-plan world, which was very quick with labeling of abuse and corresponding classification in victims and sometimes Unfortunately is still. Out of all concerns to do too little for protection, the border is often drawn very early and thus attested to border violation. ”In reality, it is in reality that border violations are often too late or not at all, and – above all female – affected by sexual violence are still hostile to the public. In a traffic that is common for right -wing discourses, Philipps and Valtl do not declare sexual violence into a problem, but their publications.

Another component of the discourses “initiated” by Ms. Freitag – this claim of taboo is nothing more than a right -wing talking point – are conspiracy ideological elements: in “Fit for Love” it speaks of a “gender ideology”, enforced by “undemocratic” lobby groups, but not only about an “opinion monopoly”, but even over a “Opinion cartel” had that “indoctrini” and “disturbing” intuitions under the pretext of anti -discrimination. However, the young people themselves are not the problem, but the adults who would deny their responsibility for the early and increasingly violent confrontation of the next generation with a “dehumanized sexuality”.

Right shadow games

It is probably the Greens who – despite the opposite evidence – still serve here as a clear enemy. But also real leftists are naturally a target, according to Ferdinand Backhoefer, who came to the audience as follows: “I criticized the fact that a certain method that Friday recommends in her› sex education ‹youth work works with a derogatory metaphor for people who often move here.« Without wanting to go further here: Around the so-called apple bite method, in which an apple, from which everyone is supposed to bite, is given around in a round of students. The method comes from the context of the Austrian Youth Education Association Teenstar, to whom the work in schools was forbidden after allegations of the spread of Christian-fundamentalist content and homophobic propaganda (Austria Press Agency 2018).

Slapp suits already develop a deterrent effect on scientists.

Rena onat

Specialist society gender studies

While the “apple bite method” triggered a spontaneous disgust for most people and it should be right in Backhoefer’s assessment, Friday, with its interpretation, was not agreed that it was anti-feminist content and complained of injunction. Backhoefer: »The opposite side considers this to be illegitimate, because Friday in her book explicitly wrote that the exercise is not meant. However, my lawyer and I believe that Friday cannot determine the importance of their methods, and that it is therefore a clear case of freedom of expression to come to a different assessment. «The judicial decision should be made on 4th April (after the editorial deadline; note. produced.

Since this is about the bourgeois fundamental right of freedom of expression, the parliaments of the problem of the slapping lawsuit have been taking on the parliaments of the problem for several years: in 2023, an EU directive to protect those affected was adopted. However, it is unclear whether these measures actually bring something to those affected. According to Backhoefer, young researchers are still an easy goal for such complaints because they often have little financial means and little protection. In the end, scientists are often alone because universities support research work, but argued that the conflict was not in nature. According to the media scientist Rena Onat, “precarious researchers who may no longer be employed at the university are particularly affected”, because they “often have no access to legal support from the Justizariat, which also makes the situation more difficult”.

Unsolidary universities

With the indication that the lack of institutional support is “a scandal in the whole history that actually has nothing to do with the anti -feminist”, Backhoefer refers to an important point: the right is not the completely different for bourgeois normal operation. In the Federal Republican Society and its institutions, unlike Friday and others, there is no left-plural hegemony; Those affected by discrimination do not have a benefit position in court – or otherwise somewhere.

Why Friday, given this fact, actually fends off against being placed in the area of ​​anti -feminism by Backhoefer is in need of explanation. After all, the concept of feminism in the German public is by no means most positive, rather authoritarian-patriarchal movements are gaining in importance-in social media as well as in society and politics. Or is the area of ​​political education (still) so far shaped by a democratic pluralism that the association with the label anti-feminism represents a reputation and thus vocational stigma? Are you dealing with strategic infiltration of youth education and related areas through evangelical networks that are located on a progressive guise of guise? Is Friday and the main thing about using the means of the lawsuit as a weapon against their political opponents? Probably something of everything.

In any case, the fact is: If scientists and authors have to expect to be sued in writing, which are stored in writing, all the statements based on the argument, everyone thinks about what they criticize in their texts. »You not only have to research well, but choose every wording extremely precisely so as not to offer attack surfaces unnecessarily, «explains Backhoefer. This leads to a kind of self -censorship. According to Rena Onat, Slapp suits are already developing “a deterrent effect on scientists by keeping them from being critically researching or publishing them for fear of legal and financial consequences”.

Affected scientists can find further information on the topic at: www.theresistproject.eu and www.fg-gender.de