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Christian Lindner: What is so clumsy about that?
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance / dpa
Sometimes, as an individual, you have the feeling that you can't do so much in the world.
You always use cotton bags, and there is still plastic in the sea;
you donate here and there, and it's still capitalism.
But there are also things we can and must do to make the world a better place, and it doesn't take a lot of effort other than a little persistence: stop embarrassing men who want to go forward in reverse.
Unfortunately there are so many and they keep starting new podcasts.
For example the two comedians Florian Schroeder and Serdar Somuncu with their new Radio-Eins podcast, which dealt with the effects of statements in the media.
Somuncu stated in it that he would use racist terms "as long as it is not punishable" and then also uses these terms. In addition, there are "women, badly fucked, lousy, ugly saddlecloths" who get upset about it, specifically: columnists who "can't suck cocks" and who "haven't even seen a dick in their life" and who "wouldn't even touch them with tweezers".
Well.
It has been known for many years that there are people who declare feminists to be unsucked and ugly.
Florian Schroeder apparently does not know that, because he laughs himself limply at Somuncu's punch lines.
He just laughed "about the performance," said Schroeder later when the station was working on it.
So: It was all satire.
"With what gain in knowledge?", Lea Streisand asks about the case in her "taz" column, rightly.
Not surprisingly: there is none.
Somuncu said in retrospect that he intended "to bring about justice through the widespread insult" and praised his broadcaster "to take an unconventional path".
Unfortunately, this unconventional way has never worked, because if insults would bring justice, everything would look very different here, and Somuncu's hint does not help much, a look at the complete works of the two would clarify a lot here.
After hearing the complete works, one would probably be too reluctant to say anything at all.
If in doubt, explain your joke again
We all know these men.
They like to say in discussions "I'm going to play the advocatus diaboli ..." and then they say exactly what they would say anyway, but feel they are representatives of a higher power.
Very uncomfortable.
It is usually recommended to just endure something like this, but firstly: who can stand it?
And second: it doesn't go away.
The only solution is to stop these guys because they will breed and stick to their posts and they won't figure out where the problem is on their own.
If in doubt, just explain your joke again.
Margarete Stokowski, arrow to the right
Photo:
Rosanna Graf
Born in 1986, was born in Poland and grew up in Berlin.
She studied philosophy and social sciences and has been working as a freelance writer since 2009.
Her feminist bestseller "Unterrum frei" was published in 2016 by Rowohlt Verlag.
"The last days of the patriarchy" followed in 2018, a collection of columns from SPIEGEL ONLINE and "taz".
Just like Christian Lindner.
A few days ago, the FDP leader had the task of saying goodbye to his party colleague Linda Teuteberg at the federal party conference, who was general secretary and had to stop at Lindner's request.
It is not an easy task to do this in a face-saving manner for everyone involved.
Lindner decided on the sexualizing variant.
He had "started the day together" with Teuteberg around 300 times, but "not what you are thinking now!", But on the phone.
It doesn't help that Lindner then said that he only came up with this gag because he was irritated by laughter from the audience.
Unfortunately, resourceful Internet users were quick to upload a scene in which Lindner made exactly the same joke in 2017 with another politician: "I woke up this morning with Claudia Roth ... excuse me, I said with, not next to! She had namely this morning an interview on Deutschlandfunk. "
What is it that breaks out so clumsily?
First of all, these kinds of jokes don't even come to your mind until you think it's a valid initial association: Haha, women, these are the ones you have sex with.
Second, however, one must also expect that uttering this association will bring a few laughs, otherwise one would simply choke the thought down and be quietly ashamed.
Bad gag?
No, people are hard of hearing
These types of punchlines aren't nice to deal with, but they won't go away if you ignore them.
This phenomenon is often called "old man's jokes", but none of the three components of the term work.
"Old" doesn't work because young or middle-aged men do it too. "Gentlemen" don't work because it is basically the humor of uptight pubescent students.
And "jokes" - well.
You can argue about it.
"Old man's jokes" are not the humor of a semisenile generation of men that is already dying out, but a problem of men who have not learned enough about boundaries and get away with it.
"Adult boys punchline attempt" would be more appropriate.
The bitter thing is that these "jokes" are often acknowledged with a tortured smile by bystanders who do not agree.
It's like giving something to a begging dog at the table: he'll come back.
Men who make these kinds of punchlines will take every insecure laugh as evidence of their
edgy
courage and believe that the others just don't dare to laugh properly.
They believe, against all odds, that everyone around them is somewhat hard of hearing or stupid than that their gag was simply bad.
The only solution is to see it as a democratic task to consistently stop laughing at this embarrassing humor from men.
If you laugh at them, they'll think you're laughing with them.
Feminism is no different from dog training: it needs clear signals.
This kind of aggrieved male egos is not to be trifled with, but whenever you have the chance, you should break it a bit.
Think of all the slots that would become vacant and the political posts.
Another form of care work
It's not just a question of humor, of course, but everyone can join in when it comes to humor.
On a larger scale, the problem of men who want to get to the top with absolutely regressive ideas can no longer be solved by not laughing at their gross jokes.
Friedrich Merz is such a case.
When asked whether he could imagine a gay chancellor, he replied that he had no reservations, "as long as this is within the framework of the law and as long as it does not affect children", "the question of sexual orientation is not an issue for the public discussion ".
That said, his first association with being gay is pedophilia, and in all these years no one has told him that was wrong?
Merz has often made embarrassing sayings about homosexuals ("as long as he doesn't approach me" and "as long as I don't have to go along with it") and one has to assume that no one has successfully explained to him what is not only wrong but also - the man wants to become chancellor - not compatible with current society.
There are, of course, women who have regressive views, but the problem with these types of men is that they enjoy a leap of faith that women don't have and that needs to be actively destroyed.
Men who do not accidentally use a sexist, racist or homophobic term or make a stupid saying from time to time, but whose whole
claim to fame
is to bravely pack all the old manure from the past on the table, must no longer be smiled at .
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Title: Free below
Publisher: Rowohlt Taschenbuch
Pages: 256
Author: Stokowski, Margarete
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It may be that they feel unsafe in some form of empty space, that would be the benevolent interpretation.
Schroeder and Somuncu might want to test out what one can still laugh about, Christian Lindner might want to test whether liberals can come across as cool, Friedrich Merz might want to test whether one could not just pretend that it was still the Federal Republic of the 1970s.
They all try old, offensive junk.
Showing them limits is of course also a form of care work that has to be done on men, but it can - and must - be done by everyone, because otherwise this type of reversing driver keeps coming back like an undead who just doesn't notice that times have changed
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