Feminist Europe, Book Review: Schwarzer

Actually, there is no difference at all. Men and women originate from one gender with two shapes. This is the finding of Alice Schwarzer's new book. She goes on to say that the "big" difference lies only in the sig-nificance we attach to gender, and demands that traditional role assignments finally be abolished.
That position is scarcely different from the Slogans with which the famous feminist declared war on men in her notorious "Little Difference" in 1977. "It is not penis and Uterus that make us into men and women, but power and powerlessness," the editor of EMMA wrote at the time. But then, many theses seemed more dogmatic in those days. Women were basically victims, men were perpetrators; women were slaves, men their masters. Therefore she accorded heterosexuality no chance: "Two-thirds of all women [are] . . . acutely or occasionally 'frigid'," she wrote once. Today she would probably find few women who would defend her conviction that feminism is the theory, lesbianism the practice.
It would be an injustice to the "Big Difference" to dismiss it as a remake of the "Little Difference." Rather, Alice Schwarzer takes stock of feminism in the past 25 years, profoundly and with an agreeable touch of irony. Has women's Situation improved? The result is up and down. She reports successes, especially in the world of work. For example, in Germany today [2000], almost as many women (43%) as men are gainfully employed, leading to the conclusion "that the family, 30 years ago still the stronghold of fulfillment for every 'real' woman, is no longer a calling, but only a part of life." Things have changed, especially in branches "which were long closed to women." Nowadays there is no lack of possibilities and role models, from the president of the court to the party chairperson.
Far be it from Alice Schwarzer to claim that it is now the norm for women to hold prominent positions, although it's exactly this type of token woman that men point out when it's time to put the brakes on women's emancipation, under the motto: Why do we need a quota when the women are already involved everywhere? She does not fall for such games. She is perhaps the last woman warrior, even when presenting her more moderate side. Without making it black and white, she points to the price that many women still have to pay for their professional career, such as mobbing and sexual harassment.
But women get their just due also. "A feminist will rarely doubt men, but often women," the author sighs. Why? Because when things get serious, many women would rather complain than act. She is especially critical of the fact that her sisters still do not have solidarity among themselves and that many women expect advantages from currying favor with men, then toss their own ideals overboard and stab other women in the back. Alice Schwarzer teils about the many letters she received from female politicians or journalists who claim to share her views and priorities completely—but express the opposite within the circle of their male party colleagues or Supervisors.
A central theme of the "Big Difference" is sexuality. Alice Schwarzer can docunient that, according to the 2000 UN report, one of two women is a victim of sexual violence. She acknowledges progress—a greater degree of public sensitivity, at least with regard to the sexual abuse of children—but finds that there is still too little attention to violence against women, as if such assaults left no physical or psychic injuries as a result. It appears that feminism has so far been ineffective against sexual violence. Of course Alice Schwarzer cannot eliminate all evils from the world. But she creates an awareness that much remains to be done by feminists of the 21st Century.
By Kirsten Liese; Trans. Jeanette Clausen, Feminist Europe 2008. - Review of Schwarzer, Alice: "Der große Unterschied. Gegen die Spaltung von Menschen in Männer und Frauen." [The Big Difference. Against the Splitting of Human Beings into Men and Women]. Köln, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2000. - Review originally appeared in Die Welt, 23.12. 2000.