Gender Politics Return: Germany's Rebellious New Feminists

[FarCenter]

Anna-Katharina Messmer likes to watch porn. That's a problem for a feminist. She is also in favor of Germany's childcare benefit, or Betreuungsgeld, which gives mothers who stay at home with their young children €150 ($190) a month, because, as she says, "reproductive work needs to be appropriately compensated." That's also not an easy position to defend. What's more, she is writing her Ph.D. dissertation on the current trend toward cosmetic vaginal surgery. She doesn't see anything wrong with it.

Messmer is the face of the new feminism -- or at least one of the faces popular these days on talk shows that attempt to draw the new frontlines in the battle of the sexes. Four months ago, Messmer and two other women she met via Twitter launched a campaign under the hashtag #aufschrei (meaning "outcry&quot , which overnight became synonymous with resistance to everyday sexism.

For a long time, Messmer thought that feminism wasn't for her. It seemed too uptight and conventional for her taste. When she thought of feminists, she saw women who were proud that they didn't shave their armpits.

Then she attended a panel discussion organized by Mädchenmannschaft (literally "Girl Team&quot , a popular feminist blog. At the front of the room stood a woman who said: "My name is Verena and I watch porn." "Cool," Messmer says she thought at the time. She had always been a staunch supporter of equal rights, so why not assertively state her position?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/rebellious-new-feminism-returns-to-german-social-discourse-a-904100.html

Useless without pictures, which are at the link.

[antigone382]

1. I think a lot of feminists support compensation for reproductive work.

And I don't think they are as across the board anti-porn as they are portrayed. The ones I know are *for* discussing misogynist, exploitative and degrading themes in porn, analyzing why those occur and what effects they have.

[Sheldon Cooper]

2. Do you really think it's useless without the pictures?

[HiPointDem]

3. yes, yes, 'feminism' is all about neoliberal 'freedom'.

[Luminous Animal]

4. When she thought of feminists, she saw women who were proud that they didn't shave their armpits.

What? From whom did she learn about feminism? Rush Limbaugh?

[DFW]

5. Not all German feminists are anything like that

I know. I've been married to one for the last 31 years. Happily, too, I might add.