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April 29, 2024

Director Petra Volpe: "You are shamed as a woman on every level"

Director Petra Volpe

Ms. Volpe, why did you do the movie 'The Divine Order'?

We started researching for the film five years ago. We wanted to tell a piece of history that was known but not very present. It is typical of women's history that it does not exist.

We only know the story from a male perspective

The problem starts at school. We learn: 'This one sex has done a lot of great things, and this other gender does not happen at all.' We only know the story from a male perspective. There should be more women's story in the classroom.

But do the dialogues in your movie really have to be so flat? I found the arguments of the opponent of the right to vote quite excessive ...

These are all original quotes! All the arguments that appear in the movie? 'Women in politics is against divine order' or 'Women should use the voice of the heart and not in politics'? this is originally taken over by the anti-suffrage movement of Switzerland.

Oops! But nobody would talk like that today.

Let's see what's happening in the world right now: Trump, Poland, Turkey. There are also arguments that people will think in 40 years' time that they are the words of a writer of rotation. When we started five years ago, we did not know how intensified the political atmosphere would be when the movie comes out and how current it is then.

Okay, democracy is not easy at the moment. But what about the women? We are better off today than in the past ?!

Better perhaps, but: The idea of 'the man is the state' is deeply rooted. How many female CEOs do we have? How many women are represented in parliaments? How many women run big theaters or film festivals?

Even today, women are often regarded as objects and are not taken seriously. Lady Gaga puts on an awesome performance, and afterwards the Internet is full of being too fat.

Young women are told to take care, you have something to lose. It is not said: Go out into the world, be adventurous, sleep with as many men as you like!

I think it has a great power to tell women at an early age that something is wrong with their body. Disadvantage starts with this focus on beauty. All the young women who are Bulimic or have anorexia? There has been a kind of war against the female body for a long time. That takes our strength, it keeps us small.

So much energy from women goes into her appearance, in diets and efforts to look even better. All of this energy could flow into something completely different.

The latest example: cosmetic surgery of the vulva. Now women are having their vulvas operated on. One is Geshamed as a woman on every level.

Speaking of shaming: Nora learns in the film that she has a 'tiger' between her legs. Was this necessary?

Yes, that was important to me. I believe that sexual liberation goes hand in hand with politics. Young women are told to take care, you have something to lose. It is not said: Go out into the world, be adventurous, sleep with as many men as you like! No, that is considered disreputable. The oppression of the woman is always about the body and its sexuality.

Why do you think that's the case?

It's about money and power. If women stopped thinking about their hairstyles, their skins, their buttocks and their clothes, a whole industry would collapse.

The patriarchy is also representative of capitalism, and it burns out all human beings. Feminism is based on a social idea and has many ideas that are directed against this competitive culture.

The patriarchy burns all people? So also men?

Yes, it's not that easy to sell that to men because they're in power. But this role allocation is just as bad for her. Such norms, in fact, hold them just as small and trapped.

And how do we get out of this dilemma?

We just have to keep making it a topic, we must not let it go and take it for granted. For women, liberation can actually start with learning how to be more affectionate with their bodies, not becoming so dependent on others' eyes.

Men do not fall in love because someone has the perfect butt.

The blatant thing is that girls think that if they do not look that way, they will not find anyone who loves them. But that's not the way the world is. So are not men in the end. They do not fall in love because someone has the perfect butt. That's not how it works.With my life experience and my observation of reality, the zero coincides. We must work to free ourselves from these images and ideas. It benefits everyone.