Not My Representatives.

Kristina Schröder, germany’s federal minister for families, seniors, women and youth (…ridiculously hard to translate: BMFSFJ), is a bad person. She has been constantly mocked as incompetent, stupid, overchallenged; yet, I do not think she is any of these things. I think Kristina Schröder is a conservative ideologist and activist, an anti-feminist and a german nationalist with racist tendencies – hence, in my view, a bad person.

Schröder refuses to amend gender-discriminatory fiscal policies (such as the german “Ehegattensplitting”) and is one of the few European politicians in charge of gender equality politics to outright decline any gender quotas/affirmative action, even though her “flexible” and “voluntary” models have led to no essential changes in the make-up of germany’s companies’ executive boards and male dominance.

She rather writes a book (…co-authored by one of her employees…), named “Thanks – but we’re emancipated!” (“Danke – emanzipiert sind wir selber!” – and I’m not even gonna get into the fact that, if only linguistically, that title makes my head hurt…). I won’t spend a penny on this drivel, so I haven’t read it, but what I gather from her interviews, guest articles, excerpts from her book, and other people’s book reviews, her writing seems to be in line with her rambling: an oversimplifying, anti-feminist treatise about the magic awesomeness of individual freedoms; negating structural discrimination and evoking the very tiresome neoliberal construct of unlimited personal liberty and agency, and that if you face resistance or are discriminated against, it’s simply your fault and there’s no non-individual remedy, and that it’s certainly not a political issue.

Yet, she is the one who will implement “Betreuungsgeld”, a monetary reward for every family that decides (and can afford) to not put their kids in daycare and either take care of the toddlers themselves (or rather: herself…) or hire someone privately, while selectively eliminating the additional financial support parents get within the first year of a child’s life (“Elterngeld”) for parents who are on welfare (“Hartz 4″). And while it is certainly no one’s business why or why not families put kids in daycare, the mere fact that some of them have no other choice but this costly option and “Betreuungsgeld” merely deflects the very important criticism that, despite the minister’s promises, there aren’t nearly enough daycare spaces for kids in this country anyway, shows that Kristina Schröder is certainly not shy when it comes to executing certain policies that do affect people’s personal liberties – as long as it affects the ones she doesn’t really care about.

Moreover, Kristina Schröder is not only a (ultra?)conservative when it comes to women’s rights, she’s also an Enthusiastic German, who tells fairy tales of the alarming rates of reverse racism [sic] and animosity towards german people in this country (germany…), of course: committed by “immigrants”. She was the one to not only cut funding for anti-racist and anti-fascist grassroots organizations, but to enforce the new ordeal that all of them now have to officially declare their love of the constitution. She chose to shift the focus of “anti-extremist” work to the extremely outrageous german left-wing terrorism of sabotaging army vehicles and smashing paint bombs against buildings, while right-wing terrorists could travel the country and execute people they deemed “non-german” (…but that’s the same!). Moreover, taking up the right-wing slogan of “germany for germans”, Schröder was so generous to fund a project titled “Dortmund den Dortmundern” where neo-Nazis and “normal” teenagers were brought together in a nice circle to discuss the city’s “democratic” future.

And yes, there is so much more…

Kristina Schröder is a bad person, and her politics can’t help but show that. Her book seems to have been the final straw for some of germany’s feminist activists, and, in the wake of Schröder’s publicity tour, germany’s Green Party and independent activists have initiated an Open Letter, called: “Not my Minister” that has been signed by 3,000 7,000 people at this point, asking Schröder to resign.

Personally, I think it has been high-time for public figures to counter Schröder’s ideology. I also think the letter is well-written and addresses many important issues in regard to Schröder’s blatant anti-feminism and her classism. However, it seems that the letter’s authors seem to be partially stuck in feminism’s Second Wave – which is ironic because that’s Schröder’s biggest pet peeve…

The letter adequately addresses Schröder’s ideological fallacies, the persistence of structural discrimination and the ridiculousness of having a person like her represent this country’s women. I also understand that Open Letters are compromises, that Open Letters cannot address every single issue, and that Open Letters have to be as broadly written as possible to appeal to as many people as possible. But here’s where you lose me, dear initiators: You have written a letter from white german women for white german women, a letter about white german women’s problems and how to fix these for this group. Not with one word does the letter even mention Schröder’s nationalism and racist tendencies, not with one word do you take the specific discrimination of women of color in this country, that Schröder not only perpetuates but exacerbates with her anti-feminism and “reverse racism” talk and action, into account.

I understand that activist nitpicking can be annoying and that, sometimes, some form of protest is better than none. But to me, this is not a minor detail – this is unacceptable, and it showcases a lack of awareness and an abundance of white privilege in certain “professional”, german feminist circles. It also makes this letter really “safe” and ensures that some of the more prominent undersigned won’t face any repercussions and/or disadvantages in case they’re looking for a “gender mainstreaming”-labelled job offered by a political party or related organization at some point and want to use this in their portfolio…

Kristina Schröder is not merely anti-feminist, she is a conservative ideologist. Her anti-feminism, classism and german nationalism go hand in hand, and it is this cluster of discriminatory thinking and subsequent action that affects people. The Open Letter was a chance to not only speak for certain women, but to address the discriminatory structures that Kristina Schröder creates, perpetuates and simultaneously denies, and that especially affect people who face intersectional discrimination. In my view, you cannot address one without the other, because Schröder’s ideology is as interwoven as reality.

Keep Right, Except To Pass.

Skin color is a funny thing. Despite the fact that we talk about it so much (yes, that includes me), explicitly and, much worse, implicitly, it is inherently meaningless. It tells you absolutely nothing, except for a vague ratio of pigmentation an individual can call his/her own. It is completely arbitrary, unreliable and unstable what kind of fictional “race” and its fictional meaning people have linked and continue to link to someone’s skin tone, and despite such delightful historical artifacts like “The One Drop Rule”, the concomitant construct of “miscegenation” and the fact that people still think of “mixed” “race” children as the progeny of two people “mixing” their “black” and “white” blood, for example, there is no inherent genetic marker of “race” other than what people have assigned to certain phenotypes. And yet… As always, disclaimers like this one simply have to be followed by actual experiences that show time and again that people cannot be bothered with logic or actual importance or decency.

I am a light-skinned Afro-german person. Not that this should matter, but it actually does. Having been raised in a white, small town family with middle-class aspirations, this proved to be somewhat of a problem. And what’s the german way of dealing with those? Right: denial! Denial in the form of years and years of not addressing the simple fact that I don’t look like the rest of this side’s family, of dressing me in super-frilly white dresses, of never allowing to let this “unruly” hair be unbraided, of teaching me poems of every dead white literary person one can think of, and of making sure this foreign looking kid is extremely well-behaved, to not stick out more than she already does.

The thing is: I actually believed I was white, or like everybody else, and would emphatically deny that I am also Black when people would ask me why I have all that pigmentation going on (…to somewhat paraphrase). Friends of mine would emphatically defend my whiteness, saying that I was not Black, but “Brown” (which is so much better, apparently), and others would give me “compliments” about being so light, because, obviously, things could have gone a lot “worse”… All in all, I was extremely embarrassed when being called out for that apparent difference from the enforced norm.

“Fauxminists”, Season 3.

There is a whole internet clusterfuck going on about Hugo Schwyzer (yet again) – and if you’d like to read about it: see Feministe discussions here and here. From my point of view, this is what basically happened:

1. Clarisse Thorn, a blogger who has written, I think, very interestingly about subjects other than Hugo Schwyzer, has posted an interview with him on Feministe.

2. People got angry, because Schwyzer has a, well, interesting history and an interesting present behaviour. As you can read in the posts (because I certainly will not link to Hugo himself), Hugo is somewhat of a (self-declared) poster boy for male feminist allies, teaches gender studies at Pasadena Community College, has his own blog and writes for other blogs (such as the Good Men Project which has been linked here before – definitely need to re-think that, obviously… :/) and is an influential and prominent voice within publicized Feminism™.

Hugo also has a history of sleeping with his female students whilst being their professor (and, well, somewhat bragging about it, I’d say), of being condescending and discriminatory towards women of colour, of trying to intertwine Feminism™ with Christianity (after he’s made a 180° religious turn, apparently), of profiting from a WASP and monetarily carefree upbringing and, oh, last but not least, of once trying to kill his ex-girlfriend who had apparently been abused that same day by another man, and was lying drugged and unconscious on his kitchen floor. When he was stopped by the police, he lied that it was a mutual suicide plan (when, in reality, he had decided for her that both of them should die now…) and, subsequently, never had to face any legal consequences. I was unaware of many of these pieces of information (that he himself revealed, except for the reports of discrimination against WOC…), and so were many other people – consequently, that led to a bit of a shock and rage that this dude is such a central figure, according to some (white) feminists, when it comes to promoting feminist work and his own career (which goes very well, apparently – at least he has tenure and a large fan base).

Hugo suffers from NPD and is vocal about that. That invited speculation about the way he deals with his past. Hugo also is open about his past mistakes and has apologized for some of them. That invited speculation whether this subsequently requires (un?)conditional forgiveness (and if forgiving means forgetting).

If you read his post (linked in one of the Feministe threads I have linked above) about the “incident” of attempted murder, you (well, I ;)) might get the feeling that he doesn’t really understand what the problem is, though… That’s because: he doesn’t. He seems to see himself as the actual victim here, and is now whining about all the rage he encounters because of his past and present behaviour.

Boo Hoo. ‘Tis tragic, indeed.

People have gotten angry with him (and Clarisse for providing a forum for him, yet again) and I am sure he has, as he has said, gotten some ugly and horrific hate mail (and personally think that this is understandable, but not justifiable).

And here’s the But you were sensing: This is not the actual problem. Here’s the actual problem:

Cut The Crap.

This is going to be a short <rant> about the failure to recognise intersectionality when it punches you in the face, in academic circles as well as activist ones…

Kimberlé Crenshaw has coined this term [PDF] which has been in use for over twenty years now, and the critique about the irreducibility of axes of social divisions and discriminations has been brought forward by people of colour, people who identify as LGBT and/or queer, people with “*disabilities” and many others over and over again for the past 30 years. It has been pointed out by oh so many scholars and activists (bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldùa, Trinh T. Min-ha,…) that it is inadequate to divide, add and subtract different forms of discrimination with/to/from each other, but that the different types of oppression must be understood and analysed in their intersectional and interdependent multidimensionality which creates very specific constellations of discrimination. It is vitally important to take multiple intersections of discriminations into account, rather than equating and socially nullifying different experiences with discrimination, e.g. the delightful thing a friend of mine was told not too long ago, namely: “Oh, I’m lesbian, so I totally understand where you’re coming from as a Black person.” *facepalm*

FFS… How is it still possible, even common in Art & Humanities to center your entire talk or even project around class issues, for example, and not take into account race and gender specific aspects? I have been witness to many incidents where people who were criticized for this “oversight” (…) justified their decision by saying that gender and race issues are interesting of course (meaning: “Sure you would ask that as a woman/person of colour – but I am not one, so I focus on the actually scientific hard stuff”) but simply not what they were doing; they had a different focus and race/gender was not one of them. Actually, when people utter excuses like that, it is not only thoroughly infuriating, but also the most stupid-ass thing they can say and I call bullshit.

First: actually, everyone is talking about gender and race and class, even if they do not choose to mention it explicitly. If you do not include any aspect of the latter into your work, you are making a conscious decision and chose a very specific positioning in terms of race, gender and class, namely that of male white privilege. You are talking about race and gender: you are talking about white men. Surprise! They have a “race” and a gender too, despite being marketed as universal, and you chose to put the focus on them yet again.

Second: this does not foster your academic (or humanitarian, for that matter…) credibility. Whereas reducing the spectrum of your research question is vital, ignoring the most important factors makes it a shit project. Intersectionality encompasses an array of socially relevant divisions (e.g., stage at life cycle, physical and mental ‘ability’, regionalism, sexuality,…) and gender/race/class seem to be [the basic triad] some of the very basic elements that effect the vast majority of people on this planet. Thinking you can ignore these realities makes your project lose a lot (if not all…) of merit and credibility to me.

Third: at which point are people who define themselves as progressive or leftist activists going to understand that this also applies to practices? Anti-sexist and anti-racist work are not the inherent responsiblity of women and people of colour, and being a working-class man does not mean you have it just as good or bad as a female Black grad student. Organising events (such as a “revolutionary poetry reading” as it happened not too long ago, featuring a good amount of boringly sexist literature by dead white men) where you do not manage to include a single person of colour or woman in your line-up and, even better and all in the name of “art” and anarchist spirit, reproduce misogynistic crap for The Greater Good (Teh Revolution!1!) does not say “ally” to me. Why is this so complicated, after decades of criticism and work?

Cut the crap already. As Fannie Lou Hamer said: “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.” </rant>

Pulling all the Cards.

A great many people, myself included, think that Republicans are assholes (…and some of them even use that term as self-description). Whether it is implicitly (and explicitly) applauding the proposition that people without health insurance just have to die in case of an accident or illness rather than have some form of “big government” stepping in, plain fundamentalist anti-woman policies, heterosexist obsessions or the usual racist crap they pull every other day (and every now and then very subtly on Barack Obama) - Republicans seem determined to represent as many discriminatory structures as humanly possible.

Now that Sarah Palin is out of the running, Michele Bachmann is struggling, Rick Perry is risking his neck with careless talk, Ron Paul is as ineligible as ever and Newt Gingrich = uh, please… -, the frontrunners for the presidential nomination seem to be Mitt Romney (no surprises here) and, whoa!, Herman Cain, who, besides Michael Steele, is one of the very few African American Republicans who has made it into the spotlight in recent years, and who now ties with Romney in certain polls.

However, Cain’s compelling success story has many chapters – and one of them was recently uncovered: he has been accused of sexual harassment multiple times in the late 1990s whilst being chief executive of the National Restaurant Association. Moreover, one of his accusers actually received a year ‘s salary in severance pay in an out-of-court settlement. Three women have independently accused Cain of molesting them, and he seems to have a hard time to not conflate the charges [cf. last link]. In my opinion, the mere fact that he can’t tell the “alleged” incidents apart suggests that this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you can’t remember what happened in what “alleged” molestation situation, you’ve probably harassed more than three people more than once. And when Cain says that the harassment charges stem from joking around with a woman about her height, I presume he must be joking about women’s intelligence. As a friend of mine, Sarah, has put it:

it makes me sick to read the comments and see how many people assume that women would willingly go through the awful process of registering sexual harassment charges just for some perverse sense of ‘fun’ or financial gain.

A compliment about your hair or an offhanded joke about not being able to reach the top shelf might be annoying and condescending, but it is certainly far from being considered sexual harassment before the law. Telling someone you like their dress is not sexual harassment – telling them how great their ass looks in it – yeah, that would be it. So, Herman, think again – it might not only have been the woman’s height you were talking about.