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A MEMBER OF German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has received support after she spoke out about vulgar and belittling comments she had been subjected to from another party member.
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Jenna Behrends made national headlines last week when she spoke out against gender discrimination within the party, saying that a member of the Berlin city-state’s government had called her a “big sweet mouse” in front of a group of people.
She said the same official asked another member of the party, using offensive language, whether he was having a sexual relationship with Behrends.
She told Bild that she had received “a lot of positive feedback” for coming forward.
The BBC reports that she said she had received ”party-wide solidarity” since she published an open letter in the Edition F website on Friday.
Peter Tauber, general secretary of the CDU, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday that remarks made public by Berlin Jenn Behrends were not an isolated incident.
“I hear about stories like these again and again, but without names. That makes it hard to do anything about it,” Tauber said.
We need a new sensitivity in all areas of society because sexism is not just a problem in politics.
Behrends hit out at the CDU’s Women’s Union for “shutting itself off” and addressing her complaint “internally”.
Behrends said that some of the CDU women members had painted as ”hungry for promotion” and “ambitious to get elected to chair the Women’s Union herself”.
The Women’s Union leader was quoted as saying Behrends was intimate with Bauer.
German news website Der Spiegel quoted Tauber as saying they had flirted before but decided to stay friends.
Shattering conventions
Merkel shattered party conventions when she, as a childless, Protestant woman from the former communist East, became CDU leader in 2000 following a long line of Roman Catholic family men from the west.
The chancellor, who has led Germany since 2005, on Sunday criticised German industry for failing to root out gender inequality on its own, in an interview with business magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
Citing the example of a quota introduced this year requiring Germany’s biggest companies to fill at least 30 percent of their supervisory board seats with women, Merkel lamented that executives in Europe’s top economy had to be forced into fair treatment.
“It is pathetic that in more than 65 years of the federal republic of Germany, it was not possible for the Dax-30 companies to get a few more women on supervisory boards on a voluntary basis,” she said, noting she had long opposed statutory quotas.
“But at some point there had been so many hollow promises that it was clear — this isn’t working.”
Merkel is expected decide by the end of the year whether she will run for a fourth term as chancellor in the 2017 general election.
- © AFP, 2016 with reporting from Cormac Fitzgerald
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We really should, as a nation, stop worrying about what Joan Burton thinks about everything.
You mean iPhone Joan.
‘iPhone Joan’ has a certain ring to it.
I don’t think anyone really cares about what that witch thinks.
She’s on borrowed time atm
Never normally agree with Joanie but she has a point here. Putting pressure on women to delay having children is not empowered them at all. In fact it’s really having the opposite effect . Women are basically being pressured to choose their career over child bearing and family in their twenties and thirties. It’s much harder to have atrain a viable pregnancy from frozen eggs so there is no guarantee that you would be able to get pregnant later on if you wanted to. I imagine better child care and flexible working hours to slow women to return to the work force after giving birth would probably be more useful . Help in finding the balance most women want and need is better than putting pressure on woman to delay starting family for several years.
Something Joan herself could do too while she’s in Government – allow couples to decide how to split up their parental leave. Quite often now, the mother earns more than the father, so it could be very beneficial for the dad to be at home instead.
Allowing the mother to go back to work at the time of her choosing, while still having one parent at home with the child, means that it has minimal impact on her career and its progression (though in theory there should not be any impact to begin with), and it also means that the dad can have time to bond with his child.
Dont care what JoanThe Butcher Bruton makes of anything, she is a waste of space in my opinion
Thought the Labour party were pro abortion … Baby’s do not concern them … When one their TDs spoke about the welfare of ms Y recently she never mentioned the baby … Nutters
I don’t understand why people are getting so pissed off over this. It’s just an additional perk that they provide to their employees, if a woman wishes to use this service, they can. Apple/Facebook aren’t actively encouraging their female employees to use this, I imagine it’s a much more common practice to do in places like Silicon Valley compared to here.
It’s the idea that employees may feel pressured to focus on work rather than family.
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/apple-facebook-pay-female-employees-freeze-eggs/
“But the thing to remember is that companies like Apple and Facebook are simply opening up egg freezing as a possibility. While we wait for the incremental changes to happen that makes it easier for women to make choices in the world freely, it provides more choice. It’s not for everyone. But it’s for some.”
““There’s been an explosion,” in the number of women freezing their eggs for potential insemination later, says Dr Alan Copperman, director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology at Mount Sinai hospital. The number of women opting for egg-freezing has risen fourfold in the last four years, he says. ”
http://time.com/3509930/company-paid-egg-freezing-will-be-the-great-equalizer/
“a 37-year-old marketing executive who worked at both Facebook and Google tells me. “I’m looking to control my career and choices around motherhood on my terms, and a company that would allow me to do so — and provide financial support for those choices — is one I’d willingly return to.””
By offering this service, it is implied that the company would prefer you wait as long as possible-late 30′s on before having children. It’s not a perk, it’s a threat.
First you would have to go through lots of meds and invasive procedures. Then an op to retrieve eggs to be frozen. Later on (when company says it’s ok?) you go for IVF. More meds and an op to implant embryo if you even get that far.
Freezing eggs is most common among women about to undergo intensive cancer treatment that might leave them unable to produce eggs in the future. Not because their boss thought it was a grand idea.
Having IVF is not fun and no guarantee you would even have a child at a later stage.
This is such a backward step for women in the workplace.
I completely agree Carly. IVF is no walk in the park…a very physically invasive procedure that, personally, we had to use as a last resort to have a child. What is rarely mentioned when talking about IVF is that the increased oestrogen injected into a woman’s body can fast forward breast cancer, if a woman is predisposed to the condition. IVF is an amazing medical development but not something to be taken lightly. Facebook etc should be looking at developing facilities & supports to working mothers, rather than ‘encouraging’/ pressuring to delay child rearing.
I can’t imagine it’s for all female employees either. I imagine most would be coporate full time staff with sufficient benefits and not just based on all female employees getting this treatment free.
Are they allowed smartphones?
I agree with Joan on something…I feel so dirty.
Hard boiled..
Yes Tim, or maybe even scrambled like her brain !!!
I hope to God they don’t freeze her eggs… They’d be manky at this stage anyway!!!
The Ultimate Postman, whatever you think of this woman or any woman that is a truly disgusting remark. Can you not express your views without indulging in overt misogynism or comments which criticise woman without reference to looks or fertility?
Sexism and ageism in one post. Wow.
Ahh dry your eyes!!!
Here’s a compromise. Could we get Apple or Facebook to freeze Joan Burton???
It’s really none of her business what I keep in my fridge.
Anyone got a Joanie phone ?
Maybe Joan could dream up a new tax for this. A frozen egg tax.
I don’t care what Joan thinks, I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Isn’t it supposed to be ‘my body, my choice’? #prochoice #noneofyourdamnbusiness
Her and her party are big fans of abortion and see where that got them in the elections
Every time Joan Burton opens her mouth the rest of us get a little stupider. Is there anyone that ISN’T sick of the woman at this point?
Why does everyone have to jump in with responses based on a very binary interpretation of that is on offer.
Nobody is saying “women must” do this if they work for these companies, nobody is saying it removes choice, it is a form of bullying etc.
Some women may decide they want to postpone having children and focus on establishing their career and for theses women this is something they may want to consider – it is a huge cost burden removed.
have your say