Saturday, March 15, 2014
Private Dining Room (Omni Shoreham)
In 2012/2013, Germany has seen more than one passionate debate evolving around gender and politics: In January 2013, the sexist performance of a prominent member of the German liberal party (FDP) towards a female journalist led to a massive articulation of protest on twitter (#aufschrei, ‘#outcry’). This sparked an intensive debate on the meaning of harassment, and gender issues in Germany. While many professional journalists, scholars, and politicians supported critical stances on sexism in German politics, there were also articulations against what German President Köhler called ‘Tugendfuror’ (‘furor of virtue’), i.e. a backlash against ‘political correctness’. In contrast, the new Pirate Party enables its members to perform alternative masculinities (and femininities). Prominent male members of the Pirate Party e.g. display highly emotional performances or relate to nerd culture by claiming to be fans of „My Little Pony“. All this, while mainstream and feminist media coverage portrays the Pirates mainly as sexist ‘nerds’.
We argue that the intensity and heterogeneity of these debates reflect the overall dynamic regarding the image of male political leadership, and express the anxiety of publica in times of crisis. Related to the fact that more and more Germans become aware of the precariousness of economic and social security, we observe a dialectics of both the delegitimization and ressurection of patriarchal politics and patriarchal performances. Using discourse analysis, gender and social theory, our talk will situate our empirical analysis of the afore mentioned examples within a sociological analysis of the precarity of masculinity in times of crisis.
