Women - men - gender. - Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

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REPLY OF THE ALPHA-GIRLS
Reply of the “Alpha-Girls”
Susanne Klingner and Barbara Streidl
Dear Mrs. Hark,
We read your article in the Tagesspiegel of 15 October 2008 with a great deal of interest.
You had already presented some of what you have written about in the article at a panel
discussion organized by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in Berlin to which both you and I, Barbara
Streidl, had been invited. The new portion is the section where you are passing judgment
on the ideological orientation of those you describe as the representatives of a generation
of “new feminist”, a group to which we, as authors of the book “We Alpha-Girls”, also
belong.
We believe that there is some misunderstanding. You write that the young feminists perceive
their success as proof of their personal ability and their individual superiority in the
daily struggle for survival and not as the outcome of social conditions. Also you describe the
substance of our writing and demands as providing a link to neo-liberalism and patriarchal
discourses. Reading this, we must assume that you know of our book only from hearsay. We
are amazed that you are openly critiquing us, the young feminists, although our cause is the
same.
We are demanding freedom for all women to lead the life of their choice – the same freedom
that you swear by. We are also calling for a structural change, because we have clearly
understood that as women the be-all and end-all is not “personal ability and individual
superiority”. In our works, we explicitly criticize precisely this logic that is so wide-spread in
our neo-liberal society. We are not fi ghting for the improvement of the lives of the elite, but
rather for equitable structures and opportunities for all. In order to realize this, we believe
that issues such as the new regulations on child care as also the introduction of quotas in
the private sector or the right to self-determination in case termination of pregnancy need
to be taken up.
We, the younger feminists, are certainly not seeking to establish a new narrative and high
ground, casting aside the older activists. We, who belong to the new generation, are aware
that there are some issues that our predecessors pursued, but which have still not been resolved,
yet they are no longer publicly debated either. Consequently, these issues remain on our
agenda, as well as new ones, which, at the time of feminists conquering societal institutions,
had not been included.
We hope that this has served to make clear that the issue at hand is not old or new feminism
but rather: do we work together or against each other?
With best wishes
Barbara Streidl, Susanne Klingner