Margarete Stokowski

With her outspoken language, her intransigent opinions and the controversial topics she deals with, Stokowski quickly became a well known feminist. Her books hold the top spots in the bestseller lists for weeks at a time and she is in demand as a guest for interviews and as a commentator on current social debates, although she doesn’t just limit herself to her feminist ideals. Phenomena, such as racism and right-wing populism as well as climate change are just as important to her. Some critics compare Stokowski with Alice Schwarzer, the pioneer of German feminism. But in fact the relationship between the two women is quite cool: Stokowski openly accuses Schwarzer of racism and Islamophobia by commenting in this sense on the statements made by the doyenne of the women’s movement on the politicised Islam and its influence on Germany and Europe. In turn, Alice Schwarzer, piqued by the exaggerated portrayal of herself as a frail old person, like the ones in television programmes that do nothing but sit in armchairs, which Stokowski meant as a satire, accuses the young feminist of misogyny.[6]

In her articles, Stokowski does not just devote herself to blatantly feminist topics, she also tackles issues relating social inequalities in other areas of life. For example, in one of her texts she deals with the myth of desired bilingualism and establishes that there are “good” and “bad” languages in Germany. In this article, the author’s own painful experience is expressed: “As a child, I thought for a long time that growing up bilingual meant that, other than German, you speak French or English at home and not what the ‘Polacks’ and ‘Dagos’ do. ‘Bilingual’ sounded like something worth having whilst as a child I had the feeling that my mother tongue was something that I had better get rid of.“[7]

The second book by Margarete Stokowski, “Die letzten Tage des Patriarchats” [“The final days of the patriarchy”] , was published in October 2018 and contains 75 columns and essays from 2011 to 2018, which were predominantly written for the “taz” and “Spiegel Online”. This selection clearly reflects how Stokowski the feminist has developed. The texts cover the whole bandwidth from the first sexual experience to participation in social debates, such as “Regretting Motherhood” and the #MeToo movement. In the latter case, Stokowski polemicises with the proposition that some commentators are wrong when they claimed that the discourse triggered in the film industry about the sexual abuse of women is just a luxury problem among the privileged classes. She states: “Even an educated white woman is allowed to complain.”[8]

In the foreword to this book, Margarete Stokowski refers to another issue of our time: Hate speech. The author is confronted with this poison both on the Internet and in her everyday life. “There are readers who blame their writings on psychiatric diagnoses or send insults or threats, sometimes from their professional email addresses, as an engineer, a lawyer or a university lecturer. (…) Cynically, most threats of violence come after texts about violence (closely followed by topics about migration).”[9]

Margarete Stokowski is already well recognised and she has already enjoyed enormous success, but in spite of this she seems to keep on developing herself. In her texts, the feminist has succeeded in consciously provoking and posing difficult questions in a very direct way. By peppering her observations with a large dose of irony, the author proves that humour, anger and socially relevant topics are not mutually exclusive.

Monika Stefanek, april 2019