“Feminist foreign policy” was just the beginning. Next, the Greens in Germany also want to shape the working world in their image. That doesn’t help women.
According to the will of the co-governing Greens, not only Germany’s foreign policy, but also economic policy should be shaped “feminist” in the future.
Beatrice Achterberg, editor of the NZZ in Germany
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Anyone who thinks that Germany’s Greens would be satisfied with a “feminist foreign policy” has now been taught a lesson. in one Key issues paper Family Minister Lisa Paus and the parliamentary group leader of the party, Katharina Dröge, explain why a “feminist economic policy” is also indispensable for the country. Not all of the suggestions in the text are bad, but overall the politicians fail to achieve their aim of promoting women.
The “integrative economic framework” that Paus and Dröge are calling for on the basis of “feminist values” includes, among other things, fair pay for women, better compatibility of family and work, promotion of women in management positions and a “gender-equitable” reform of the tax system .
The proposal to extend the entitlement to parental allowance to the self-employed is entirely reasonable (in Germany, each parent is entitled to state support for up to twelve months, longer than in Switzerland). More flexible working time models for mothers and fathers are also fundamentally desirable. The only question is why the state should dictate rules that companies can organize themselves. Younger employees in particular are now demanding such models – and companies that want to retain their talent cannot ignore this. The market rules. It has nothing to do with feminism.
Feminism as a feel-good seal
Even the old dream of many leftists to reform the “marital splitting” is sold as a feminist project, for whatever reason. German married couples benefit from the current tax regime, which allows them to add up their income and then split it as if each earned half. In their paper, the two Green politicians call for the abolition of splitting for newly married couples. The result is a tax increase for both women and men.
Finally, the authors claim that “we need quotas in many areas”. For example, they demand government funding for projects by “diverse” people. If feminist economic policy was previously just a label fraud, the politicians are now showing what they are really about: not about the economy, but about the expansion of identity politics to all areas of life. Germany’s companies should catch up on what state institutions are doing. The following applies there today: It is not the individual that is decisive, but the group membership.
Is that feminism? Unfortunately, the authors do not explain what the term means to them. Do you mean the traditional critical view of society’s gender orders, which liberals can also get used to? Or is it about so-called intersectional feminism? The latter postulates that women with a migration background or experience of poverty can demand additional consideration, the same applies to trans people.
If Paus and Dröge mean the latter, their feminist economic policy would ultimately amount not only to quotas for women, but for women of a certain origin or for trans people. This would not only further undermine the performance principle. The concerns of traditional feminism would also not be served.
To see where the journey is headed, you have to look to the Lower Saxony state capital, Hanover. The Greens rule there in the town hall, and there is now also a migrant quota for the city administration. A third of all new positions here are to be filled by people with a migration background in the future – which can lead to a woman being preferred to another woman in the application process only because she has a migration background or because a trans person is applying. The less «diverse», the worse the chances.
It gets even more absurd
The quota, which is supposed to make working life easier for women, becomes an anti-feminist farce in the plural. And it gets even more absurd. Family Minister Paus is a declared supporter of queer ideology, which claims that biological men can also be women. “Trans women are women,” she said when asked about the planned self-determination law, with the help of which Germans should be able to change their gender by speaking at the office in the future, similar to Switzerland.
Quotas for women and a so-called equal representation, which the Green politicians are demanding, are reduced to absurdity by the same self-determination law – as soon as men make use of it. You can’t have both: promotion of women by quota and de facto abolition of women by law.
What is really needed are rules that make working life more family-friendly and allow mothers to pursue a career even part-time. These rules must be developed in accordance with the needs of companies and not imposed against their will. Would that be feminist? In any case, it would be more women-friendly than what Ms. Paus and her party friends are propagating.