Vulgar Feminist

I was able to attend the German Wikipedia discussion about the deletion and relevance discussion last week in Berlin (more on that in another blog entry). I made my point that most of the admins who are doing all the deletions are youngish men of German descent who live in cities, to make the point that they are quite biased in their view of "reality". Other bloggers have extended this to include childless. My point was rather drowned in lots of other points, although the blogs Spreeblick and Netzpolitik at least recorded it.

We stood around afterwards making small talk and I went over to join two other professors who are active and tend to attend such events. We began speaking and then two journalists joined us, a male reporter from a print newspaper and a female blogger. I repeated my point about the bias of the Admins, and a colleague began berating me as a "vulgar feminist". I was rather taken aback, especially at the vehemence of his words and his agitation.

This is something that I have been noticing recently. The gentlest of mention of the word "gender", or a reminder that professors are German Beamte and have a constitutional duty to work for equality of the sexes, brings out the fighting in many men, especially in colleagues.

Now, when I was going to university in the 70s the women's movement in Germany was much more radical. We wore purple bib overalls, cut our hair, smoked pipes, debated politics, and set up women's health centers. We fought for abortion rights, started discussions about rape and about violence against women and noted that we were not paid the same for doing the same work. There were radical groups that demanded the castration of men - I never saw that violence was useful for fighting violence, but there were people demanding this.

But why was I a vulgar feminist for pointing out a gender difference? It was impossible to get rational argument out of the colleague, and he could not listen to me even speak a complete sentence - as so many men can't - before he interrupted me. He began ranting about the nonsense of "feminist mathematics" - so I challenged him to name 5 female mathematicians. Before I could say "besides Emmy Noether" he interrupted me with "Emmy Noether, the first woman professor in mathematics". Sigh.

I waited. I goaded him. He couldn't come up with any names, then sputtered that it was the fault of the women if they didn't go into mathematics. Great job, it's always our fault, right? I remarked that Sonja Kovalevsky was the first woman professor in mathematics. She submitted 3 doctoral theses in Berlin to Karl Weierstraß, so they pretty much had to give her a doctorate. She was made professor in Stockholm (the first in Northern Europe) before her early death of pneumonia, caught while traveling to Paris to receive the Prix Bourdin.

He lashed out again, this time at the female German politicians in Hamburg who had voted against something that was near and dear to him (I didn't catch what). The female blogger pointed out that there was at least one man who also voted against the measure. He got called a green "Weichei" (a German derisive term for an unmanly man). And again he complained about vulgar feminists.

I asked for a definition of "vulgar feminists", as I tend to see the anti-feminists as the vulgar ones. Seems that he has a problem with the PorNo campaign. I see. And these feminists are prudes. It seems to be flashback time. The woman's strike at the taz newspaper where I was a free-lancer end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s was started over exactly such a reproach. A journalist had published a full page under a pseudonym about pornography that we complained about. When we were called prudes - which we were expecting - the leader of the group gave the code words "Sisters, are we prudes? Let's make ourselves free." Which we did. The author of the pornography page was so freaked out by all those women sitting calmly with bare breasts at the table that he ran screaming from the room and never returned. And we got a daily woman's page in the paper.

But what does that have to do with my point, that the admins find lemmata in the Wikipedia about women's topics "irrelevant"? The female blogger and I tried to get back to the point at hand. He now turned the blogger a cold shoulder and brushed her off. "Fräulein, I'm trying to talk with this journalist." And he turned to the male journalist.

I was speechless. I have seldom seen such bad behavior in recent years, and then to have a colleague, one who is interested in many current topics, act like that and call me a vulgar feminist - I was nonplussed. I nodded - oh, by all means, do speak with him. And went to another corner of the place to speak with the blogger in peace and quiet.

What on earth is going on? Some men seem to be of the opinion, we have had quite enough of this equality now, it is time to shut up and get back to more important things. I remarked that an oldish SPD sticker I have in my room is so true: you can judge the necessity of specific actions by how loud the men shout about them.

I am reminded of the book by Susan Faludi, Backlash, that I read many years ago. I dug it out at home - it was from the early 90s. It was published in 1993 in Germany as "Die Männer schlagen zurück". I surfed around a bit and then found a wonderful book review of this in the Emma from 1993, written by the Minister for Family of the time, the current German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. The book review is excellent - she notes how Faludi makes clear that men use irrelevant statistics to try and make us feel guilty about having power. She states that women must continue the march through the institutions.

Spot on, Angela. You made it, now we have to see to it that our sisters are not drowned in guilt and accusations because it is still making many men uncomfortable. And that they, someday, earn the same money for doing the same work. We aren't there yet.

My colleague left in a huff, I went out for pizza with the usual suspects from the Wikipedia. One young man of German descent who lives in Berlin and is an admin brought up the women's topic again. He just didn't see why, when two people are equally qualified for a job, it had to be the woman who got the job. I sighed and explained that this was only necessary in cases where women are underrepresented. As soon as 40% of the jobs go to women, this is no longer necessary. And in fields where men are underrepresented this rule holds equally. He shook his head - he just didn't get it. I wrote, calmly, to my colleague the next day. I wonder if I will get an answer.

Sisters, we got a lot of work cut out for us. I wonder where my purple bib overalls are.

Update: My colleague has replied within a day and apologized. And promised to read a paper if I send it to him. I immediately looked for Frances Grundy, "Computer Software - A Clue to De-Gendering Technology?" And guess what? Frances is now retired, and her department had nothing better to do than to remove her works from their server. I'm so mad, I wrote to them and asked for her private email. I want to publish a collection of her papers. Now!

FGOF

Man, I'm getting old. Looked in the mirror yesterday morning on my way to a conference and swore it was my aunt (35 years older than me, has been dead for 12 years) looking back at me.

I decided I needed lipstick, so I opened my bag.

Ethernet cable, USB stick, bluetooth dongle, lipstick. All in one pocket of my backpack. I decided I need to make a new name: FGOF, Female geeks over Fifty.

I went to the conference and was amazed at all the grad students there. I squinted to read their badges (my eyesight is not what it was) and discovered that many of them had a Prof. Dr. in front of their name. Then I got appointed senior member to the steering committee. Another FGOF at the conference is going to do early retirement to spite her dean.

I remember the first time I met a FGOS (over 60). She walked into the room at a conference where we were preparing a newsletter and freaking out because we couldn't get the pictures from the Photoshop computer to the printer machine. She wore cordury jeans, had her hair in a pony tail, and had her keys clipped to her belt. And had a USB stick (something no one had at that time) on the key chain. She pulled the stick out, sucked the pics, moved them, smiled and then left. I remember thinking: that's exactly what I want to be like when I'm 60!

International Women's Day – by bike

I had an invitation to the international women's day brunch at the Nordic Embassies this morning, but the normal way of getting there is by subway and then by bus.

But the local transport is on strike (or, as the boss insisted in the paper this morning, they are not on strike, they are being striked). The S-trains are still running (but threatening to strike from Monday), but there is no station even near the embassies. And since there are lots of companies in the area, I felt that there would not be a parking place anywhere near.

It's only about 5 km, and I do have a bike in the cellar. I went down last evening for an inspection. Don't know when I last rode it, but I had to blow off a good bit of dust and both wheels were flat as pancakes. Okay, we have pumps. The first one broke off the tip the moment I started pumping. Gently now, don't want to break everything. Well, theypumped up, and I found all the keys for the locks.

So it will be a nice and healthy day tomorrow, lots of exercise.

WiseMan offers to guide me through the maze of little streets, as Berlin drivers are not the most courteous drivers in the world. He normally needs 20 minutes for the trip, I wanted a bit more time because I am a tad slower than his normal almost-speed-of-light tempo and because I wanted to freshen up.

Got up early, had breakfast „just in case“ (and it was a very good idea, turned out), and wrestled my bike up the cellar stairs. It was, of course, drizzling. WiseMan bikes in any weather, so I wasn't to complain, I just threw my little bag with a fresh shirt, my EeePC in case I stop for coffee on the way back, and a shopping bag into the basket, and off we went!

The first bit is gradually downhill. Good. Lots of bikes out, and lots of drivers who are having trouble coping with all the bikes. after a bit we hit a so-called bike path. It is a different color than the pavement, but the roots of the trees next to the path have shoved their roots up under the stones, so it is more of a roller coaster ride than anything else. Other bits are just paint on the road, drivers of certain luxury cars mistake this paint (in conjunction with a „no stopping here anytime“ sign as a parking space red carpet, just for them. You have to watch them closely, they tend to open the car doors without looking back.

In front of us a man is walking his dog, properly on a leash. The dog decides to go inspect the calling cards left by other dogs near the tree on the other side of the bike path. WiseMan calls out – Watch out! These guys are extremely dangerous! Of course they don't see the bikers, so you have to use your bell to call attention to yourself. It is a good idea to always have your finger on the bell when biking in Berlin.

Made it to the embassy in good time - and of course, there was plenty of parking, it being just past 8 am. Ah well. I get inside and make a dash for the ladies room. I thought to bring a fresh shirt, but as I discover upon looking in the mirror, a comb, hairspray, a curling iron and maybe lipstick would help, but I have none of that along. So I make do and head on out looking for coffee.

You can tell the Scandinavian women - they show up dressed to the teeth. Did they all take taxis? Walk from Zoo in those high heels? Gorgeous clothes, nice jewelery, not a hair out of place. Oh well, the buffet looks good.

The Danish ambassador started speaking, but they had lots of problems with feedback in the mikes. Sigh. Then he introduced the former Finnish defense minister, Elizabeth Rehn. She worked after her term of office with the UN to help the Balkan region find peace. She spoke about finding peace in the world being the most important goal.

Then Kristín Hulda Sverrisdóttir was introduced, the director of administration at the Reykjavik University and a member of a group that is finding ways to get more women on the company boards in Iceland. She spoke of the women's strike in Iceland in 1975. Working women and mothers went on strike, demanding equal wages - and almost 25.000 women (10% of the populace!) gathered in the capital for a famous picture. It got attention, but over 30 years later, women still make less than men doing the same job.

She gave some numbers: 80% of the women are in the workforce now in Iceland, but only 10% of the positions on company boards are held by women. Her group began asking about 6 years ago: why? Oh, we don't know any women, they would answer. Hodge-podge, all Icelanders know each other, it seems. Well, we ask, but they are scared, they always say no.

So the group collected money and put big ads in all the papers with a screaming headline: Yes, we will! and signed by 100 women. That sure got them talked about! They aren't all in board positions now, but many companies have managed to increase the number of women they have on their boards, not like the Norwegian companies who are now risking having their AG status revoked because they still don't have any women, after years of coaxing, on their boards. We still have a long way to go.

So finally, the speeches were over, we could dash for the food. I got a nice plate load, then walked around and spoke to a few people. While talking to Kristín the ambassador for Afghanistan came up, the sociologist Prof. Dr. Maliha Zulfacar (from CalPoly in the USA). She is such a vibrant, intelligent woman. She was looking for help conducting a study on the plight of women in Afghanistan. I had suggested a colleague at the TU Berlin, she sniffed at that - oh, I know him, she said. He won't return my calls because I am a woman. Oh man, guys, we still have a loooooooong way to go.

The way home went much faster - must have been because it stopped raining. But I am wondering - do we just get roses tomorrow (okay, it is now after midnight, so today)? Or does that old song still have meaning: "Bread and Roses", just slightly twisted? "Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too." - Now we are still fighting for equal bread, although we get roses on International Women's Day.