"The problem isn't that I'm seeing sexism everywhere. It's that you don't."
This is a quote from a sticker produced by Pink Stinks Germany, an organization fighting against the "pinkification" and genderification of children's toys but also against general sexism in society, mostly German, of course (this is important, as there are a few problems endemic especially in Germany) and it pertains very well to what I experienced today.
To explain what happened, I'll have to paint the picture a little bigger. In November 2011, an explosion rocked through the small town of Jena in Thuringia, resulting in the death of two members of the three people right wing terrorist cell NSU (Nationalsocialist Underground), Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt. A third member, Beate Zschäpe, was arrested almost immediately. In the wake of this, investigators exposed a series of murders over ten years, almost all of them of people with a migration background (mostly men with a Turkish, Greek or Persian background and a female cop). Sound pretty bad, huh?
But wait, there's more.
The only reason that all those murders weren't exposed and the terrorists arrested a lot earlier was that investigators - cops, secret services, even the media - didn't even think to presume a racist Neo-nazi background to the murders and uniformly presumed that the murders were individual foreign mafia murders, not the result of a deep rooted network of Neo-nazi terrorists and their supporters. Now, almost two years after the initial discovery and arrest, Beate Zschäpe is going to be on trial and it will hopefully finally be determined whether she was "just" supporting the male terrorists or if she actually was the group's leader. So far, she has been silent.
The trial also had to be postponed once because the Landgericht München that is holding the trial restricted the access for the press to the trial (standard procedure in Germany). Especially Turkish, Greek and Persian newspapers and other media were (rightfully) pissed off at having been left out of the accreditation process. So they sued the Landgericht München in front of the Federal Constitutional Court and won. There has now been a lottery with slots for daily newspapers, weekly and bi-weekly magazines and foreign media each. And this is were it gets really shitty.
Because one of the magazine slots was awarded to the women's magazine Brigitte, established in 1954 and partially responsible for my socialization as a feminist (thank you for that, even though today sometimes you feel like a motherly maiden aunt who doesn't quite fit in anymore... but seriously, thank you, Brigitte!). And apparently, according to quite a lot of people in Germany, a women's magazine is fundamentably incapable of reporting seriously and well-written about a trial against an alleged Neo-nazi.
I am so, so pissed off.
It all started with a posting I found in my Facebook timeline, making a sexist joke ("Brigitte reporting from the NSU trial: Zschäpe's teint fits very well with her grey prison suit" and other gems) to express their opinion about Brigitte getting awarded the slot. I considered this but decided against saying something yet. I scrolled further. And came across a couple more postings (by the same person who I actually consider as someone with a brain and good head on their shoulders and important and smart things to say) going in the same direction. I started to get irritated. I started scrolling through my Twitter timeline. Same old, same old.
So I went back to Facebook and the initial posting, wondering in a comment why that person of all people (remember, important and smart things to say and I really do mean that. This is a person I actually like on a personal and usually also a political level) would join in the overall sexism overt in other discussions about the Brigitte thing (in the press conference where all the slots were announced, the entire room started to laugh when Brigitte was announced. I kind of wanted to throw up). I got multiple answers from multiple people telling me I was seeing things and there was nothing sexist in sarcastic fake "contents" from a possible Brigitte article on the trial. I started to get more than just a little irritated now.
I started to point out how exactly that comment was sexist and got answers that the issue was that oh my God we're all gonna die Brigitte is published only bi-weekly. I was like "Hunh, where's the problem?" and pointed out that other magazines such as DIE ZEIT, SPIEGEL and Der Freitag are published weekly, so would have people made the same comments about them? People told me no they wouldn't because "DIE ZEIT is a daily newspaper" (um, no) or "they have websites" (so... www.brigitte.de doesn't sound like a website to you?) and so on.
Basically, lots and lots of fake "arguments" always amounting to "There's a fashion section in that Brigitte magazine! They're writing about cooking and make-up. It's a magazine for women. They probably don't even have an expert for politics."
It's a miracle I didn't snap and start to use the kind of language I use on this journal to accurately describe where people can shove that kind of "argument". But thank God this is my personal journal so yay, time for some really strong language. Finally.
You know what you can do with your stupid "argument" ("They write about fashion and make-up, there's no way they know how to write about politics!")? You can shove it up the fucking ass you can go fuck yourself in and take all your fucking "Ew, girly stuff!" misogynie that the fucking patriarchy banged into your head with you to go to some place far away where you can think about all the fucking crap you just spouted, all of you that tried to make a point with "They write about fashion, ew!" (the person who started all of this is a bit of an exception but not much. Yes, this is about sexism, nothing else. And you'd do good if you actually listened to the feminist (yes, me) because she's a fucking expert in sexism because this is what happens to women every day every step of their way everywhere they go okay?).
You go and try to see behind all the smoke grenades you tried to throw at me, try to see my fucking point instead of yours because fuckit, I actually tried it. I tried to see your point and I detailed how I did it and I detailed exactly how I saw your point but how "I'm not sure if they are my chosen preference for reporting from this trial" and "sexist jokes about the content of a possible article" have nothing, nothing to do with each other and how we can discuss whether you think a bi-weekly magazine is the right choice (did I mention www.brigitte.de yet?) or not without you having to resort to sexist jokes (and the usual "I wasn't being sexist!" reflex by people that just happened to make a sexist joke to belittle the object of the sexist joke).
We can discuss everything, yes, we totally can.
We can't discuss it using sexist jokes and smoke grenades instead of real, actual arguments that do not end up in "It's a magazine for women! With women topics!"
Now, I get that most of you aren't being sexist and misogynist on purpose, that you don't actually want to be sexist assholes and that you really don't mean to be. I get that, seriously, I do. I've been a feminist for longer than I can remember and I've been reading and studying and researching on sexism for almost ten years. I get that most people, most men aren't sexist and misogynist because they actively, consciously hate women (some are but yes, I get that you - or at least those of you that I know which is Person Who Posted The Facebook Posting but you get what I mean - aren't. I get that.).
But guys. Seriously, guys. Guys, that doesn't make the fact that you are being sexist and that you are playing right into the hands of those that are sexist on purpose go away. You let yourself be made into the proxies of the same patriarchy that actually made it possible that no one ever suspected Zschäpe of being a right wing terrorist, maybe even the group's leader*. Sexism, misogynie, partriarchy and right wing terrorism are best friends. They belong together. So if we want to talk about right wing terrorism, discrimination, racism and hate we also have to talk about sexism and misogynie.
We have to talk, first and foremost, about the discrimination we practice ourselves. We have to talk about why you think that a women's magazines can't report from a political trial as well as any other magazine. We have to talk about stereotypes and prejudice. We have to talk about it. Because we can't fight one thing if we don't want to fight the others, too. We can't demand from other people to adhere to the standards of civilized behaviour and not discriminate against anyone and to question their privilege and not hate anyone with the burning passion that the NSU terrorists must have hated all people who were different from them if we don't do all that ourselves.
Yes, people, this is a sexist debate and it should also be a debate about sexism and damn it all to hell, most of all it should be a debate without the fucking sexism and misogynie. It's a great touchstone for all of us to question ourselves and wonder "Why did I just say that? Why did I make that sexist joke? Why do I think a women's magazine can't report as well as a magazine led by middle-aged straight white men?" Because if you have mastered that, you'll master questioning yourself and your reactions a lot more often.
So yes, it won't make your life easier (mine sure isn't). It'll make life a lot messier and more difficult and it'll make you do the hardest thing we can do: acknowledge that you might just be in the wrong, after all. Not sure what I'm talking about? That's okay. It's been a long post and probably a long day for you and I tend to run on and on and on, so... have a little example of how I question myself:
When I talked to my dad about this whole lotta mess, he made a very valid point. He said "Would you have been as outraged as you are now if they'd announced BILD der Frau** to be the winner?" and it made me think for a long moment. I wondered if I would have laughed like they did when Brigitte was announced winner of the spot. I wondered if I would have made jokes about it. I wondered if I would have joined other people making fun of BILD der Frau.
In the end, I told him in all honesty (and kind of surprising myself) yes, I would have just as outraged because if we're all being honest with each other and most of all ouselves, the issues arising in this debate aren't with Brigitte magazine, they're with a women's magazine, just any women's magazine with reporting from a trial and I would have found that even a load of crap if it had been about the women's issue of a tabloid magazine everyone I know hates. Because in the end it's not about mis-Brigitte-gynie, it's about sexism and plain old misogynie. It's about the general fact that a women's magazine dared to apply for the spot and that coincidence dared to give them the covetted spot. And that pisses me the hell off.
It also pisses me off that you (general you, not a specific you) try to make me feel as if I am the problem for pointing out that making sexist jokes is no way to discuss legitimate issues with the process how the spots for the trial were dealt out and for pointing out the fault in your "But it's only released every two weeks OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" logic (your so called "respectable" magazines ZEIT, SPIEGEL and Freitag are released weekly. Please detail how that is more "up-to-date" than Brigitte, especially in regard to each of them, including Brigitte, also having a website, thank you).
It pisses me off that you try to make me feel as if I am the problem when I ask you to tell me why exactly it's a problem that a magazine that incidentally also has a couple pages about fashion that has proven once and again that it has a firm grip on politics also reports from a trial about right wing terrorists. It pisses me off that you try to make me feel as if I am the problem for telling you how your so called "respectable" magazines report about women***. It pisses me off that you try to make me feel as if I am the problem for asking that we wait for the reports instead of directly going for Brigitte's jugular and saying that a girl magazine definitely cannot write about political issues because it's a girl magazine and girl magazines are ew because they write about girl things and girls are ew, too!
I am not the problem for pointing out your sexism to you. You are for not seeing it.
And boy, you'd all do a load of good to try and see my point in this. Because even now I'm still trying very hard to see yours.
~*~
*let me just reiterate that I know that we don't know yet if she really was the group's leader but it is safe to say that she probably was the easiest choice to make all the group's transactions and handle outside relations because she was a woman and this system still thinks it impossible for women to be terrorists and commit violence
**the tabloid BILD's "women's issue", mostly full of stereotypical "women's issues" such as cooking and celebrities
***Have a little sample: "About Zschäpe's lawyer: "Blond, chic, charming, impulsive and rational... with an infectuous smile in her face..." Brigitte? No, SPIEGEL." (SPIEGEL is like, the, weekly political magazine in Germany... that also has a lifestyle section, both in the dead tree issue and online) or "About Zschäpe's lawyer: "Sturm - dark jacket, bright blouse, red lip stick, short blond hair..." Brigitte? No, Süddeutsche Zeitung." (Süddeutsche Zeitung is a diffusely left leaning daily paper with a large politics section... that just sounded very political to you, no?), both courtesy of @astefanowitch
To explain what happened, I'll have to paint the picture a little bigger. In November 2011, an explosion rocked through the small town of Jena in Thuringia, resulting in the death of two members of the three people right wing terrorist cell NSU (Nationalsocialist Underground), Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt. A third member, Beate Zschäpe, was arrested almost immediately. In the wake of this, investigators exposed a series of murders over ten years, almost all of them of people with a migration background (mostly men with a Turkish, Greek or Persian background and a female cop). Sound pretty bad, huh?
But wait, there's more.
The only reason that all those murders weren't exposed and the terrorists arrested a lot earlier was that investigators - cops, secret services, even the media - didn't even think to presume a racist Neo-nazi background to the murders and uniformly presumed that the murders were individual foreign mafia murders, not the result of a deep rooted network of Neo-nazi terrorists and their supporters. Now, almost two years after the initial discovery and arrest, Beate Zschäpe is going to be on trial and it will hopefully finally be determined whether she was "just" supporting the male terrorists or if she actually was the group's leader. So far, she has been silent.
The trial also had to be postponed once because the Landgericht München that is holding the trial restricted the access for the press to the trial (standard procedure in Germany). Especially Turkish, Greek and Persian newspapers and other media were (rightfully) pissed off at having been left out of the accreditation process. So they sued the Landgericht München in front of the Federal Constitutional Court and won. There has now been a lottery with slots for daily newspapers, weekly and bi-weekly magazines and foreign media each. And this is were it gets really shitty.
Because one of the magazine slots was awarded to the women's magazine Brigitte, established in 1954 and partially responsible for my socialization as a feminist (thank you for that, even though today sometimes you feel like a motherly maiden aunt who doesn't quite fit in anymore... but seriously, thank you, Brigitte!). And apparently, according to quite a lot of people in Germany, a women's magazine is fundamentably incapable of reporting seriously and well-written about a trial against an alleged Neo-nazi.
I am so, so pissed off.
It all started with a posting I found in my Facebook timeline, making a sexist joke ("Brigitte reporting from the NSU trial: Zschäpe's teint fits very well with her grey prison suit" and other gems) to express their opinion about Brigitte getting awarded the slot. I considered this but decided against saying something yet. I scrolled further. And came across a couple more postings (by the same person who I actually consider as someone with a brain and good head on their shoulders and important and smart things to say) going in the same direction. I started to get irritated. I started scrolling through my Twitter timeline. Same old, same old.
So I went back to Facebook and the initial posting, wondering in a comment why that person of all people (remember, important and smart things to say and I really do mean that. This is a person I actually like on a personal and usually also a political level) would join in the overall sexism overt in other discussions about the Brigitte thing (in the press conference where all the slots were announced, the entire room started to laugh when Brigitte was announced. I kind of wanted to throw up). I got multiple answers from multiple people telling me I was seeing things and there was nothing sexist in sarcastic fake "contents" from a possible Brigitte article on the trial. I started to get more than just a little irritated now.
I started to point out how exactly that comment was sexist and got answers that the issue was that oh my God we're all gonna die Brigitte is published only bi-weekly. I was like "Hunh, where's the problem?" and pointed out that other magazines such as DIE ZEIT, SPIEGEL and Der Freitag are published weekly, so would have people made the same comments about them? People told me no they wouldn't because "DIE ZEIT is a daily newspaper" (um, no) or "they have websites" (so... www.brigitte.de doesn't sound like a website to you?) and so on.
Basically, lots and lots of fake "arguments" always amounting to "There's a fashion section in that Brigitte magazine! They're writing about cooking and make-up. It's a magazine for women. They probably don't even have an expert for politics."
It's a miracle I didn't snap and start to use the kind of language I use on this journal to accurately describe where people can shove that kind of "argument". But thank God this is my personal journal so yay, time for some really strong language. Finally.
You know what you can do with your stupid "argument" ("They write about fashion and make-up, there's no way they know how to write about politics!")? You can shove it up the fucking ass you can go fuck yourself in and take all your fucking "Ew, girly stuff!" misogynie that the fucking patriarchy banged into your head with you to go to some place far away where you can think about all the fucking crap you just spouted, all of you that tried to make a point with "They write about fashion, ew!" (the person who started all of this is a bit of an exception but not much. Yes, this is about sexism, nothing else. And you'd do good if you actually listened to the feminist (yes, me) because she's a fucking expert in sexism because this is what happens to women every day every step of their way everywhere they go okay?).
You go and try to see behind all the smoke grenades you tried to throw at me, try to see my fucking point instead of yours because fuckit, I actually tried it. I tried to see your point and I detailed how I did it and I detailed exactly how I saw your point but how "I'm not sure if they are my chosen preference for reporting from this trial" and "sexist jokes about the content of a possible article" have nothing, nothing to do with each other and how we can discuss whether you think a bi-weekly magazine is the right choice (did I mention www.brigitte.de yet?) or not without you having to resort to sexist jokes (and the usual "I wasn't being sexist!" reflex by people that just happened to make a sexist joke to belittle the object of the sexist joke).
We can discuss everything, yes, we totally can.
We can't discuss it using sexist jokes and smoke grenades instead of real, actual arguments that do not end up in "It's a magazine for women! With women topics!"
Now, I get that most of you aren't being sexist and misogynist on purpose, that you don't actually want to be sexist assholes and that you really don't mean to be. I get that, seriously, I do. I've been a feminist for longer than I can remember and I've been reading and studying and researching on sexism for almost ten years. I get that most people, most men aren't sexist and misogynist because they actively, consciously hate women (some are but yes, I get that you - or at least those of you that I know which is Person Who Posted The Facebook Posting but you get what I mean - aren't. I get that.).
But guys. Seriously, guys. Guys, that doesn't make the fact that you are being sexist and that you are playing right into the hands of those that are sexist on purpose go away. You let yourself be made into the proxies of the same patriarchy that actually made it possible that no one ever suspected Zschäpe of being a right wing terrorist, maybe even the group's leader*. Sexism, misogynie, partriarchy and right wing terrorism are best friends. They belong together. So if we want to talk about right wing terrorism, discrimination, racism and hate we also have to talk about sexism and misogynie.
We have to talk, first and foremost, about the discrimination we practice ourselves. We have to talk about why you think that a women's magazines can't report from a political trial as well as any other magazine. We have to talk about stereotypes and prejudice. We have to talk about it. Because we can't fight one thing if we don't want to fight the others, too. We can't demand from other people to adhere to the standards of civilized behaviour and not discriminate against anyone and to question their privilege and not hate anyone with the burning passion that the NSU terrorists must have hated all people who were different from them if we don't do all that ourselves.
Yes, people, this is a sexist debate and it should also be a debate about sexism and damn it all to hell, most of all it should be a debate without the fucking sexism and misogynie. It's a great touchstone for all of us to question ourselves and wonder "Why did I just say that? Why did I make that sexist joke? Why do I think a women's magazine can't report as well as a magazine led by middle-aged straight white men?" Because if you have mastered that, you'll master questioning yourself and your reactions a lot more often.
So yes, it won't make your life easier (mine sure isn't). It'll make life a lot messier and more difficult and it'll make you do the hardest thing we can do: acknowledge that you might just be in the wrong, after all. Not sure what I'm talking about? That's okay. It's been a long post and probably a long day for you and I tend to run on and on and on, so... have a little example of how I question myself:
When I talked to my dad about this whole lotta mess, he made a very valid point. He said "Would you have been as outraged as you are now if they'd announced BILD der Frau** to be the winner?" and it made me think for a long moment. I wondered if I would have laughed like they did when Brigitte was announced winner of the spot. I wondered if I would have made jokes about it. I wondered if I would have joined other people making fun of BILD der Frau.
In the end, I told him in all honesty (and kind of surprising myself) yes, I would have just as outraged because if we're all being honest with each other and most of all ouselves, the issues arising in this debate aren't with Brigitte magazine, they're with a women's magazine, just any women's magazine with reporting from a trial and I would have found that even a load of crap if it had been about the women's issue of a tabloid magazine everyone I know hates. Because in the end it's not about mis-Brigitte-gynie, it's about sexism and plain old misogynie. It's about the general fact that a women's magazine dared to apply for the spot and that coincidence dared to give them the covetted spot. And that pisses me the hell off.
It also pisses me off that you (general you, not a specific you) try to make me feel as if I am the problem for pointing out that making sexist jokes is no way to discuss legitimate issues with the process how the spots for the trial were dealt out and for pointing out the fault in your "But it's only released every two weeks OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" logic (your so called "respectable" magazines ZEIT, SPIEGEL and Freitag are released weekly. Please detail how that is more "up-to-date" than Brigitte, especially in regard to each of them, including Brigitte, also having a website, thank you).
It pisses me off that you try to make me feel as if I am the problem when I ask you to tell me why exactly it's a problem that a magazine that incidentally also has a couple pages about fashion that has proven once and again that it has a firm grip on politics also reports from a trial about right wing terrorists. It pisses me off that you try to make me feel as if I am the problem for telling you how your so called "respectable" magazines report about women***. It pisses me off that you try to make me feel as if I am the problem for asking that we wait for the reports instead of directly going for Brigitte's jugular and saying that a girl magazine definitely cannot write about political issues because it's a girl magazine and girl magazines are ew because they write about girl things and girls are ew, too!
I am not the problem for pointing out your sexism to you. You are for not seeing it.
And boy, you'd all do a load of good to try and see my point in this. Because even now I'm still trying very hard to see yours.
~*~
*let me just reiterate that I know that we don't know yet if she really was the group's leader but it is safe to say that she probably was the easiest choice to make all the group's transactions and handle outside relations because she was a woman and this system still thinks it impossible for women to be terrorists and commit violence
**the tabloid BILD's "women's issue", mostly full of stereotypical "women's issues" such as cooking and celebrities
***Have a little sample: "About Zschäpe's lawyer: "Blond, chic, charming, impulsive and rational... with an infectuous smile in her face..." Brigitte? No, SPIEGEL." (SPIEGEL is like, the, weekly political magazine in Germany... that also has a lifestyle section, both in the dead tree issue and online) or "About Zschäpe's lawyer: "Sturm - dark jacket, bright blouse, red lip stick, short blond hair..." Brigitte? No, Süddeutsche Zeitung." (Süddeutsche Zeitung is a diffusely left leaning daily paper with a large politics section... that just sounded very political to you, no?), both courtesy of @astefanowitch