Women of DU---SLUR Could Cost Merkel Winning Margin (wife of Chancellor)

[Gloria]

From the newly posted World Media Watch at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

Guess who did it?????? A man??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I don't support anybody in this race...but this crap is beyond the pale!!!

PS--Hillary mention later in the article


4//The Independent, UK Published: 15 September 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article312721.ece

CHILDLESS SLUR COULD COST MERKEL WINNING MARGIN
By Mary Dejevsky in Berlin

Six weeks ago, it seemed not to matter. So great was the lead her centre-right alliance enjoyed over all other parties that Angela Merkel seemed set to become German chancellor with that rare luxury in German politics, an overall majority.

But with the final polls before Sunday's election showing a mere hair's breadth between her likely coalition and one that the centre-left Social Democrats might cobble together, it suddenly could matter. Sex, that is.

SNIP

That was then. Now, chivalry, equal opportunities or political maturity - take your pick - have all been cast to the winds. The doubts many Germans secretly harboured about having a woman chancellor are surfacing in a nasty way.

The lowest "below-the-belt" blow was struck by her chief opponent's wife, Doris Schröder-Köpf, who told Die Zeit weekly that Ms Merkel "does not embody with her biography the experiences of most women".

She went on to mention childbirth, bringing up children, and schools. Ms Merkel has no children.

MORE

[Taxloss]

1. Um ...

If sexist slurs damage Merkel, that's a terrible thing. But Merkel is a right-winger, and a bare-knuckle globalist of the most virulent kind. She should and must lose. But she should lose on the issues. Do not elevate her as some sort of feminist martyr.

[billbuckhead]

2. A vote for Merkel is a vote for Bush

Warning to our German brothers and sisters, vote for Merkel and you to may die because of government malfeasence. Your corpse will lie on the street being eaten by dogs.

[msongs]

3. tell us how you REALLY feel :-) nt

Msongs
www.msongs.com/clark2008.htm

[Kellanved]

4. I don't think so

It flew under the radar of the German public, few noticed it. The Zeit is a very highbrow weekly.


Doris Schröder herself was attacked by conservative campaigners.
I don't see why it is a slur to state a simple fact. Why is a woman not allowed to state her opinion?
It may be my male point of view, but I think the "elect her just because she's a woman" pov is utterly incompatible with emancipation.

It should be noted that, aside from being a women, she has very little to offer in the way of pro-women politics.
Be it women's rights, equal payment, support for working mothers: Merkel is opposed to it.
Also, let's not forget that her cabinet picks include catholic extremists from the "women should be mothers and work at home" school.

That's the point Doris Schröder tried to make.

[myrmenki]

5. Holy shit! Third part of voters still undecided!

Although, according to some analysts, only a quarter. (German article in Der Spiegel)

The thing about Merkel being a woman: Her party is, how should I put it, the least feminist party of all parties in parliament. They have a very old-fashioned perception of women, to put it mildly.

If I decided whom to vote for based solely on the fact that I am a woman, that is to say, if I was a single-issue voter (women's rights, feminism, whatever), Merkel's party is the one party I couldn't even consider voting for. No way.

But I am convinced that the male among traditional CDU-voters (anti-abortion, anti-feminist, anti-equal-rights) certainly don't want a woman as their chancellor. So it might be true after all: The fact that she's a woman might lose her the elections.

What might damage Merkel most, are the undecided voters. Most of them, according to analysts, are alienated Social Democrats, who might want to vote for Schröder, whom they dislike, in order to avoid an even worse government.