Author: Daniele Vecchiato, Dipartimento di Studi Linguistici e Letterari, Università di Padova (University of Padua) – Academia.edu

Summary: »"Hysteria," "totalitarian feminism," "witch hunt": the-in fact rather timid—response to the #MeToo movement in Germany was met with hostility by the mainstream public discourse, as these dismissively gendered retorts indicate. An unjustified and disproportionate reaction, one might argue, as Germany never witnessed a genuine wave of activism along the lines of the protests triggered by the launch of the famous hashtag in October 2017 in the United States. While in other European countries, such as France, Sweden, and Norway, national variants of #MeToo initiated an intense public debate over laissez-faire attitudes toward sexual misconduct that raised awareness about the scale of rape culture and structural sexism in our societies, Germany has remained noticeably quiet. With the exception of only a few major accusations (e.g., against film director Dieter Wedel and the former president of the Munich Academy of Music, Siegfried Mauser), the German campaign against sexual harassment and sexual violence was quickly redirected into a broader—though certainly urgent—debate on inequities between the sexes and the gender pay gap.
Historian Jessica Gienow-Hecht has argued that two key factors may be responsible for the lukewarm reception of #MeToo in Germany: first, an increasing skepticism toward social and cultural trends coming from the United States, especially since Donald Trump's election in 2016; and second, the somewhat indolent character of some expressions of German feminism, which seem to have been “lagging behind for the last 40 or 50 years.” This stagnation is reflected in Germany's not always flattering position in European statistics when it comes to women's rights: it was not until 1997 that rape within marriage was recognized as a crime by the German Parliament; the number of Frauenmorde (femicides) continues to be worryingly high; and polls indicate that an alarming “40% of women in Germany report having experienced sexual or physical abuse.” Furthermore, the number of German women in positions of power is still relatively low, despite the country having been led for sixteen years by a female chancellor. Like other Western democracies, Germany seems to have failed to identify and foster positive models of female leadership, as evidenced by the disturbingly stereotyped—if not downright antifeminist— portrayals of career women and female political leaders not only in German public discourse but also across a variety of cultural artefacts.« (Source: Cambridge Core)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of Germany / History of Germany (1990–present) | Feminist movement: MeToo movement | Theatre: Theatre in Germany | | Sex and the law: Sexual violence