• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

A reluctant feminist: Germany’s Merkel still inspires many women

September 13, 2021 by David Barret Leave a Comment

September 13, 2021

By Susanne Neumayer-Remter Tanya Wood Petra Wischgoll

BERLIN/COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become a feminist icon after 16 years in power even though the world’s most powerful woman has only belatedly accepted that label as she prepares to step down, and conceded that gender equality is still a long way off.

“She is admired by women all over the world, this is her main legacy. That a woman showed what she is capable of and does this with dignity and resolve,” German feminist activist Alice Schwarzer told Reuters.

A rare woman in the upper echelons of her conservative, male-dominated Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel, 67, long avoided casting herself as a feminist and has only reluctantly supported some policies pushed by feminists such as quotas for women in boardrooms.

“She hasn’t spent the last 16 years carrying out great feminist deeds. To be fair she had quite a few other things on her plate,” Schwarzer said, noting Merkel had supported policies that helped women like expanding state-funded childcare.

“The very fact of her existence is a feminist statement.”

In 2017, Merkel avoided saying whether she considered herself a feminist when urged to do so at an event with then International Monetary Fund (IMF) director Christine Lagarde and Ivanka Trump, daughter of then-U.S. President Donald Trump.

“I don’t want to decorate myself with a title I don’t actually have,” Merkel said back then.

However, as her time in power draws to a close, Merkel – who grew up in the former Communist East Germany and has a doctorate in quantum chemistry – has reconsidered her position.

“I have thought my answer through more and so I can say yes: we should all be feminists,” Merkel said to cheers at an event with Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose TED talk entitled “We should all be feminists” went viral in 2013.

GERMAN BOYS NOW ASK: CAN A MAN BE CHANCELLOR?

At the premiere of a film that tells the story of prominent female politicians in post-war West Germany, Merkel said last month she was disappointed that women still account for only 31% of seats in parliament.

“We have not yet achieved equality between women and men in Germany. Much remains to be done,” she said.

Schwarzer recalled that Germany wasn’t really ready for its first female chancellor when Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) narrowly won the election in 2005, with her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder saying publicly she wasn’t up to the job.

But Merkel could even overtake former mentor Helmut Kohl to become Germany’s longest serving chancellor if it takes a long time to form a coalition government after the Sept. 26 election.

Schwarzer said she is impressed by how Merkel has held her own among powerful men: “There is a joke in Germany: a small boy asks, mum, can men also become chancellor? One person proved it and now it is out there and no one can take that away now.”

Despite the fact that Merkel wears unfussy trouser suits that play down her femininity, Schwarzer said the chancellor still has a certain feminine charm that she uses in dealings with world leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron.

“She has something girlish about her and is more than able to flirt. I mean you see it when she meets Macron, for whom she has an unmistakable liking,” she said.

Women and girls say the impact of Merkel – who is often known as “Mutti”, or mum, although she has no children herself, – has been profound in a country where traditional gender roles are only changing slowly.

“She has done a lot to pave the way for others, now it is completely normal to see female chancellor candidates. And this hasn’t always been the case,” said Maria Luisa Schill, a resident of the southwestern university town of Freiburg.

Lia, a 9-year-old girl in Berlin, said she would like to be chancellor one day. Asked what she would do, Lia said: “Work, I would just get on with it, and earn money!”

Her mother Nancy added: “(Merkel) has so much strength and influence on so many people and I do think especially woman.”

(Writing by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source Link A reluctant feminist: Germany’s Merkel still inspires many women

David Barret
David Barret

Related posts:

  1. US Health Officials Favor Covid Booster Shots To All Americans As Delta Variant Cases Rise
  2. Russian editor decries ‘destruction of media’ before election
  3. Daimler expects Mercedes Q3 sales significantly below Q2 – report
  4. Motor racing-Bottas rules out imminent announcement on his F1 future

Filed Under: News

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • Surveillance Of People Is More “Pervasive And Normalised” Than Previously Thought, Endangering Our Privacy
  • US Sees 90 Percent Drop In Heart Attack Deaths Over Last 50 Years
  • Is A Cat Poop Parasite Decapitating Human Sperm Contributing To Rising Infertility?
  • How Fast Were Dinosaurs? Guineafowl Races Reveal They Were Probably Slower Than We Thought
  • New Claim For World’s Oldest Rocks Dates Back A Whopping 4.16 Billion Years
  • Pre-Inca Temple Was A “Ritual Gateway” To Lost Civilization Of Tiwanaku
  • NASA Study Gave Illegal Drugs To Spiders And Watched What Happened To Their Webs
  • Space Selfies & DJing A Party From Orbit – How Astronaut Luca Parmitano Brought Space To Earth
  • Regardless Of Political Affiliation, Most US Adults Actually Support Vaccine Requirements For Kids
  • Now Is The Perfect Time To See The “Summer Triangle”
  • Can A Brain Be Preserved And Uploaded? Neuroscientist Survey Reveals “Surprising” 40 Percent Probability That Yes, It Could
  • You Could Be The First Ever Human To See A Specific Galaxy In This Incredible Space Video
  • First Pieces Of The Planet Mercury May Have Been Found On Earth After “Longstanding Mystery”
  • “Miracle” Bioplastic Reflects 99 Percent Of Sun’s Rays, Massively Reducing Building Energy Use
  • Are These 2 African Gray Parrots The Only Non-Human Animals To Ever Ask A Question?
  • How Forensic Scientists Are Reconstructing Faces Using DNA Found At Crime Scenes
  • New Non-Invasive Option For Treating Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer In A Single Session
  • Evolution Running Backwards? That’s What This Unlikely Organism Appears To Be Doing
  • How Did The Starfish Become A Star? 500-Million-Year-Old Fossil Solves Evolutionary Mystery
  • JWST Has Discovered Its First Exoplanet – And It’s A Baby Saturn-Sized One!
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version