We Are Chancelloress! One Angie does not collapse the male bastion - but she has opened the gate — Page 2:
6 Many a female voter realised too late that the fuss wasn't about political issues but about the sex of the candidate. The good old feeling of "women-are-strong-together" has vanished a long time ago. Similar to all emancipation movements, women - after their first series of success and backlashes - also had to face drastic differences in their own rank and file, aggravated by the traditional female (self-) contempt and rivalry.
7 Still another issue are the daughters of emancipation. Those who wonderfully have grown up with and take for granted the claim to equality - even if, they are at the same time split over existing inequality and the threat to be loved less. Those who are too naïve or too proud to realise that sex remains a factor - even if all of us wished it was otherwise. Those who seemingly have to begin from scratch - once again.
8 Merkel was not elected by women, women profess in a triumphant voice. And if this were the case - would that be a reason to rejoice? In any case, it is wrong. What is correct is that Merkel got only one percent fewer votes by women in comparison to Stoiber in the 2002 election. According to the polls, she gave away the possible gender bonus of up to ten percent for a female candidate because of her straightforwardly genderless election campaign. This is another reason why she could not compensate for the expected loss of male votes: In 2005, five percent fewer men voted for Merkel than for Stoiber in 2002!
9 Nonetheless: Merkel lost fewer women voters than Schröder. In comparison to 2002, the SPD lost three percent male, but six percent female votes. Thus, Schröder lost six times as many women's votes as Merkel! Consequently, German women voted against a macho in 2005 - but not for a woman.
10 For modern women voters do not want to be reduced to their sex. This is understandable. Non-conservative female voters did not want to elect a CDU-candidate "just" because she is a woman. This is supposed to be old-fashioned. This shoe didn't fit the generation of high heelers. In an article in the Spiegel, a gender critic, born in 1957, even declared the fact that I had dared to broach the issue of gender in the election campaign to be "the classic position of the 1970s." In 1971, at the beginning of women's emancipation, this gender critic was 14 years old. Hence, I would like to remind us all: