"Everyday sexism is like a mosquito plague"
Ingrid Kolb
Ingrid Kolb worked from 1977 to 1995 as an editor and head of department at "stern", before that at "Spiegel". In 1980, her book "The Cross with Love: The Myth of Sexual Liberation" on the emancipation of women appeared. She has headed the Henri Nannen School of Journalism for twelve years and has been working as a freelance journalist and author in Hamburg since 2006.
Actually, I do not want to bore the young generation with the fact that everything has happened before. But the debate on sexism then allowed me to dig deep into my archive. I have reread the article, which was published on December 8, 1977 in issue number 51 of the magazine stern. It was my first cover story for the sheet I started in November of '77. Theme: "Women feel sexually harassed in the workplace." That's 35 years ago. And I was amazed myself how dewy the text reads today.
Even then nobody had foreseen which vortex would trigger the publication. Enthusiasm, dismay and rejection collided. My department head was accused of having "left the solidarity of men". Bertelsmann-Patriarch Reinhard Mohn contacted Henri Nannen from Gütersloh to dismiss the article as "miserably primitive". Women wrote massively approving letters, but there were also female voices calling in the evenings, asking in a low-pitched voice, "Where are the men who are doing what we want to meet?"
And this at a time when the Spiegel editor Rudolf Augstein still happily acknowledged the change of a young editor to another correspondent's office with the remark: "Oh, the poorest girl, she has to sleep with the awful office manager X." I remember a very funny night in which we - journalists from different media - sat together and told us such stories.
The Brüderle incident is sticky
The star colleague Laura Himmelreich should not be persuaded, the article on the FDP top candidate Rainer Brüderle was journalistically wrong. Critics complain that he should not have started this scene in the bar, where she describes the stale accost of the politician. And anyway, the whole thing had been a year ago. I say: yes and? Is the incident therefore less sticky? Has Brüderle meanwhile gone to the monastery or become the "face" of the FDP?
Sure, she could have left that out, laughing and sweeping under the rug. How affected women do it a hundred thousand times a day. But it was just time to bring the topic to the table. Just as the mirror colleague Annett Meiritz had done shortly before, who had to defend herself against rumors, slander and insults that circulated about her with the pirates. "With everyday sexism it's like a mosquito plague," said a friend I discussed the topic with, "you can handle a sting, but if you're constantly being hummed by a flock, you have to do something."
What has changed since 1977? Unfortunately, very little. Young men who speak on the internet argue, as in the past, Uncle Karl and Grandpa Hans: "Would not it be interesting to know how she was dressed"; "Maybe women have a problem with themselves first"; "You would be surprised if we did not care about you anymore"; "Do not we have any other problems?" Gabor Steingart sounded particularly strong and yet so yesterday in the Handelsblatt Morning Briefing: "Maybe after all the bonsai affairs you should talk about politics again."
In the new mirror writes the colleague Christiane Hoffmann: "As long as the policy was a pure male dominated domain, women were more exposed to the importunities.At that time, one would have denounced attacks more open, but then was mostly silent.These times are over. Is that you? Who is talking about it today? public? Not only behind closed doors in the Berlin government district? If talking about it were so obvious, the article by Laura Himmelreich would not have caused such a scandal.
Men know the gray areas very well
Oh, the sovereign colleagues who are so quick with classifications at hand: Of course, there are border crossings, writes Hoffmann, stupid, unpleasant Anmache, but "in most cases, it is quite possible for women to draw boundaries"! Should not that also apply to men? Men talk about gray areas, but in truth they know the boundaries very well. They know when to allow themselves an attack under the guise of friendliness. But now they are offended.Politicians threaten that they would only speak with gray-haired, older journalists in the future, always make sure in interviews that there is still a third person, never drive alone with a journalist in the car, because you have to be so "hellish watch"? for free! That's how stubborn four-year-olds behave and say to the girls in the sandbox, "I'm not playing with you anymore!"
All the whining that now "any sexual interest", "this wonderful game between the sexes" (quotes from the Internet) to be eradicated is nonsense. For once I would like to agree with a CSU man, Member of the Bundestag Norbert Geis, who said in the debate on sexism: "We must always make sure that we uphold decency." As simple as that ? and so of course. Actually.
You want to get rid of your opinion on this topic? Discuss in our community or leave a comment.
