Preface

As we write this introduction to Volume 24, feminism in Germany is once again at the center of public attention. In March of 2008, Charlotte Roche's controversial novel Feuchtgebiete (Wet Lands), about a young woman's obsession with bodily fluids, topped Amazon's international sales list and sparked considerable controversy in Germany. After initiating the magazine Emma in 1971 and serving as its editor-in-chief for thirty-seven years, Alice Schwarzer stepped down this past spring. What followed in the aftermath of both events was a heated debate in the pages of German newspapers about the current shape of feminism. Instead of expressing animus towards men, many young women reject Alice Schwarzer and her campaigns against pornography, prostitution, and the oppression of women under Islam. In their book Neue deutsche Mädchen (New German Girls) Jana Hensel and Elisabeth Raether, for instance, accuse Schwarzer of "Buchhalter-Feminismus" ("accountants' feminism"), a term that expresses their disdain for Schwarzer's politics, Meredith Haaf, Susanne Klingner and Barbara Streidl, authors of Wir Alphamädchen: Warum Feminismus das Leben schöner macht (We Alpha-Girls: Why Feminism Makes Life Better) want an easy-going, authentic feminism that aims for equal rights without a complicated theoretical framework. Less inhibited in their consumer pleasures and more open to sexual practices that an earlier generation would have found misogynist, this generation of feminists represents what Roche calls "den Menschen in der Frau" ("the human being within the woman"). The clash between Schwarzer and women she critiques as "Girlies" who promote "Wellness-Feminismus" reveals a basic split between the desire to address personal needs, like sexuality and career, and more global inequities. It also suggests that the fault-lines between feminism and post-feminism are anything but clear-cut since both generations share an investment in equality, however differently defined.

Shifting the terms to a humanist framework, as Roche does, brings feminism onto tricky terrain. On the one hand it could signal a desire for common ground across differences that do, in fact, reveal continued inequalities between men and women, despite the impulse to proclaim that "we're all human." It could also underscore a very human need for success in the terms that culture dictates, even if they include the ill-fated Intimrasur (pubic shave) that Roche describes in her novel. If one assumes that deeper structures have been corrected and equality between the sexes achieved, then it becomes easier to focus on the surface of the body and the cultural mandates that shape it. What results, however, is not a Gender Studies-based critique of such mandates, but rather deeply personal accounts of individual choices and experiences. Schwarzer critiques young feminists' disinterest in her own more global agenda with this observation: "The world is not comprised of my own personal concerns but rather the world is my own personal concern."

Attention to Schönheitsideale (beauty ideals) and sexual pleasures no longer divvied up according to political correctness deflects discussion from more incendiary topics that do, in fact, affect many German women. Alexandra Merley Hill's essay in this volume on Julia Franck examines her award-winning novel Die Mittagsfrau (Lady Midday, 2007) about a woman who rejects motherhood by abandoning her young child. She includes in her analysis reflections on current debates around motherhood in Germany that explicitly examine the impact of feminism on the family. Basic concerns about women's right to work-a core issue for feminism during the 1970s-are far from being resolved in Germany, which still tends to place child-rearing responsibilities largely on mothers. Old issues persist as new feminisms arise, making for an interesting and at times explosive mixture.

While generational affiliations and/or political opinions determine attitudes towards feminism, the essays in this volume demonstrate not only the continued importance of feminist inquiry but also the growing range of topics that benefit from Gender Studies analysis and a fine-tuning of the analytical tools currently available. While we editors have observed a decline in the number of submissions with a predominately theoretical focus, we also note an ongoing interest in expanding the canon to include...