As of: March 8, 2024, 6:00 a.m
By: Verena Möckl
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Musician, teacher and feminist: Margreth Ausserlechner wants to encourage girls to lead a free, self-determined life.
© vm
On the occasion of International Women's Day today, school principal and singer Margreth Ausserlechner explains why she only covers certain songs, how she supports women at school and what role spaghetti tops play in this.
Dachau – Margreth Ausserlechner sits at her piano in her living room in Dachau.
Before she starts her self-composed waltz, she grins and says: “Women in my audience, whether they are 15 or 50, always know what I mean.”
Then she starts.
“G'stattn's young woman, you can't know that.
Look, it takes a bit of flair.
"It's not so stubborn," she sings a verse of her song.
Her voice is light and gentle.
Margreth Ausserlechner has been making music for 25 years.
The piano is her favorite instrument.
© Verena Möckl
Margreth Ausserlechner has been making music for 25 years.
Especially jazz, country, swing.
For a long time she just covered.
“That’s when I realized I couldn’t sing a lot of lyrics unironically.” Songs that, for example, are about one woman outdoing another.
Jolene.
But she also came across many good old songs “by women who used profound lyrics for their own benefit, at a time when they certainly did not lead an emancipated life.
That inspired me.”
Dachau resident writes song lyrics about her life as a woman in a man's world
In the meantime, Ausserlechner also writes texts like the one she is currently playing in her living room.
For a long time she didn't know what to sing about.
Love was too trivial for her, she says.
But the 44-year-old now has a topic: her topic.
Because the majority of her texts are about how she feels as a woman in a man's world.
She doesn't run out of material.
Men want to explain the world to me.
But I'm in a leadership position now and I still get fatherly advice.
Margreth Ausserlechner
Margreth Ausserlechner processes what she experiences in her everyday life in her songs.
“Men want to explain the world to me.
“But I’m in a leadership position now and I still get fatherly tips,” she says, shaking her head of black curls.
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Margreth Ausserlechner is the headmistress at the middle school in Reichertshausen in the Pfaffenhofen/Ilm district.
She has the feeling that competence is assumed for men, but that is not a given for women.
Before she moved to Reichertshausen last fall, she was deputy principal at the middle school in Karlsfeld.
Dachau resident stands up for schoolgirls
But your home is somewhere else.
In Austria.
This is revealed by her Tyrolean accent, which colors her voice all the more the more she talks herself into a rage.
This is currently the case.
She talks about how, as headmistress in Reichertshausen, she adjusted the school rules after two months - girls are now allowed to wear tops with spaghetti straps.
The responsibility is taken away from them again.
There are still plenty of women who are raped and then asked: What were you wearing?
Margreth Ausserlechner
“Why shouldn’t girls dress like that?” She can’t do anything with the argument that otherwise it would take away the boys’ concentration.
This would lead to the assumption that boys cannot control themselves, she says indignantly.
“You take responsibility away from them again.
There are still enough women who are raped and then asked: What were you wearing?” The change in school regulations was not well received by all colleagues.
But Ausserlechner is above that.
More appreciation for women
The woman from Dachau would also like to see more appreciation for women in the cabaret industry - especially singers.
Her impression: “It is assumed that the man is familiar with the technology and that the woman stands up, looks beautiful and sings beautifully.” When she goes on stage as a singer and not as an instrumentalist, it always takes a while for her to get it She believes that sound engineers would take it seriously.
I don't want to lecture anyone on stage, I already do that at school.
Singer and headmistress Margreth Ausserlechner
Even though Ausserlechner mainly deals with feminist topics in her own songs, she does not want to be seen as an advisor.
“I don’t want to lecture anyone on stage, I already do that at school,” she said and laughed.
She emphasizes that she is not interested in pointing fingers at feminist issues.
“I’m certainly not a bold feminist who actively advocates for women’s rights.”
Showing attitude on stage for women worldwide
But on stage she wouldn't be able to avoid showing attitude.
Not just on stage and at school, but also in everyday life.
For example when choosing a dentist.
“If I have the opportunity, I choose a woman, not because she is better, but because I believe that equality is only achieved when women can also be bad.”
International Women's Day has meaning for the singer - in contrast to Mother's Day.
“It's not about me having one day where I can do whatever I want as a woman and the rest of the year I'm a cricket at the stove again,” says Ausserlechner.
Rather, it's about refreshing an idea.
“Everything that happens on Women’s Day is to make women visible.”
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