Competition in your job? What women feel above all about other women, says Carolin Kebekus. Because they were talked into it from an early age. Stop it!
BRIGITTE: Ms. Kebekus, you have written a book about women and their place in work and society.
Carolin Kebekus: Yes, exactly. That is the central issue.
But now it bears the title: “There can only be one”. How should we please understand?
Traditionally, we have the impression that there is limited space for women. As a result, there is always only one woman in some areas. Apparently that’s enough.
We would now like to have an example.
Then let’s take my own. So: my entry into the job of a comedy woman on a stage.
How was the?
When I started applying to stand-up shows, in pubs, in small theaters over 20 years ago, I quickly came across the one-woman barrier.
The what?
When I called the organizers of mixed shows back then, they always said that we still have three out of six slots to fill, but unfortunately we already have a wife. There is then room for the funny fat man, the loud cheek, the music clown … And for the quota, a woman.
And whose role was?
To depict the entire spectrum of female attributes – from handbag shopping addiction to relationship problems and motherhood.
Did you fight it?
No, because: it was just like that. Back then, I dutifully accepted this professional world in its structures and carried it a little further down the street.
That means when an organizer has said: Sorry, Caro, we already have a wife …
… I said: Man, what a shame, there is nothing you can do. I didn’t say: Uh, guys, you still have three places left. I didn’t say: this woman is very different from me. It all dawned on me later.
Especially since you made a good living from this system for a while.
Absolutely. I quickly got into various television formats, because somehow you needed a woman. Because there was always room for only one, of course no other woman was invited to the shows, because I was there.
Suddenly you were “the one”.
Exactly. Strangely enough, that fit into my image of myself at the time. Back then I was often the only one among men, often found women difficult and was more oriented towards men. In doing so, I helped to support the one-woman barrier myself.
Consciously?
No, it was shaped by patriarchy and I became a beneficiary of the system, so to speak. And the organizers and later the TV makers were able to refer to me very well and say: What do you want, people, we have the kebekus, it’s funny! Win-win for me and the current situation.
Would you have endured other people at all?
There was actually a time when I always became very prudish when someone said: Hey, I saw this super funny woman at the casting yesterday. Immediately there was an idea of competition.
But you were good at business.
This fear is totally unfounded and has never been fulfilled. Talented women have always only enriched my life. But first of all you are afraid of being replaced.
What does that tell you?
That the social eye has no place for diversity when it comes to women. That we cultivate the wrong enemy images. We women shy away from competing with men because we usually anticipate an inferiority on our part towards them. Instead, we fight each other, but then with a “male look” that we have adopted. For example the appearance. So stupid: Why do I care if this funny new woman looks good?
But at some point you decided not to support the system anymore.
This feeling, this rivalry with these others, got on my nerves incredibly. It also clashed with my self-image. I then start researching, I wanted to explain to myself where this feeling of threat actually comes from.
Did you find something?
Little that would offer a differentiated explanation. But a lot of literature and films and music that create exactly this threatening scenario: There is this woman and she wants to take something away from you, girlfriend, job, husband, it doesn’t matter. That’s a pattern. And that starts at home. I’ve heard from so many women whose mothers inoculated them: Just take care of other women. It’s crazy and it’s bullshit.
Why?
Because we can only benefit from women by our side.
Also from the pretty, funny one?
From the special. I’ve been working with her very well and with pleasure for years, and with others now too, because of course the truth is that there can be more than just one. But this knowledge is mostly still buried in women.
Why do you think that?
When I talk about this topic in my program, I notice in the female part of my audience: They feel caught out. We can be best friends privately, but when it comes to work, our claws are pulled out. Mind you, only with each other, not with the men. And then in the shows there is almost something liberating when the women realize: That’s right, that’s how it is with me too. And it’s actually completely stupid.
And how do we change that now?
By rethinking. And change things that are set as general wisdom.
For example?
Market research once believed that it found out that show stars on television are most credible when it comes to men over 50. Only they are trusted to have the competence and sovereignty that they have grown to become world stars on the red sofa. Sounds crazy, but that’s really the current state of research. One speaks of the “male gauze”, the male view of the world. Regardless of whether it is about male competence or female appearance: the woman’s view of the world is also male, with all the pending evaluation standards.
What do we do with it now?
At best, we learn from the people who grow back. There are 16-year-old feminists who already have a completely different view of the world. These differences between men and women, these role models, no longer exist for them. And that’s how it should be, isn’t it?
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