I must be missing something very central to German politics. In this country there is this awful tendency in the press to focus on a woman’s fashion sense as a direct correlate of her political sense. However in Germany the underlying misogyny is right out in the open:
A German politician who helped to topple Bavarian premier Edmund Stoiber has been attacked by her colleagues for posing in latex gloves for a magazine.
…
Pauli, who also wears a wig in the pictures, lashed out at the magazine for placing the photographs under a headline reading “Sankt (saint) Pauli.” The term is well known in Germany as the name of a Hamburg red light district.
Amanda has an old post of interest on the subject:
But as soon as I thought of that, I thought to myself, “But sluts are held in contempt by the patriachy because they are bold and unapologetic about having sexual urges.”
Even if Pauli did dress in a boldly sexual manner, how is that wrong? Why should politicians lock parts of themselves away from the public? Or are the Germans just as afraid of Sex as Americans are? From the article (emphasis mine):
“Politics needs to have a certain degree of respectability and Ms. Pauli has damaged this,” Norbert Geis, a national member of parliament in the CSU, told the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung paper.
“Her behavior is beyond the pale. She has brought this on herself,” said party colleague Peter Uhl.
Politics is, after all, such a proud and serious business. But note the frame here. A women wearing gloves, specifically a woman who dresses in a way that men find sexual, is outside the realm of respect. Also note the use of blame: “She has brought this on herself”. She is to blame for the way male politicians perceive her, and by extension for the way they act towards her (publicly criticism).
The criticism of Gabriele Pauli is such thinly veiled misogyny, you would think the politicians going on the attack would have opened themselves up to a severe verbal counter.
