"ALICE vs. ESTHER" "A disputation between Esther Vilar and Alice Schwarzer" "Ev:" "Now it's getting serious." "Host:" "Alice!" "AS:" "I am sorry." "I played by the rules." "EV:" "Yeah?" "AS:" "I'm being growled at." "AS:" "I know you already, Miss Kring." "Host:" "Yes." "AS:" "You, I don't know you, Miss Vilar." "EV:" "Good day!" "AS:" "That's how you look like." "Ok." "Host:" "Go ahead and argue pretty." "Host:" "Leave something for others." "AS:" "May I sit there?" "EV:" "I don't know." "Something is supposed to be white wine, right?" "AS:" "Yes." "This will hopefully be it." "EV:" "Not that I get drunk while it's you who wants to get drunk." "Photographer wants to take a photo." "AS:" "Did you come from Munich now?" "EV:" "Yeah." "Where do you live?" "I thought in France." "AS:" "That used to be." "EV:" "Not anymore?" "AS:" "Meanwhile I am living in Berlin." "EV:" "Yes. ...because you did an interview with Sartre" "EV: recently that's why I thought you live in France." "AS:" "Yeah, well ...half." "Still a little bit." "I still have a residence." "EV:" "When should we start?" "AS:" "We can start now, Miss Vilar." "That's fine with me." "EV:" "Yes?" "For heaven's sake!" "AS:" "May I attack you with a question which I have contemplated." "EV:" "Yes." "Go ahead." "AS:" "Well, it caught my eye that friends are saying that there are some people who believe that what you have written isn't pure stupidity or something but instead a satire and in truth you are a secret feminist who wishes nothing more dearly then that women react with a lot of revolt towards your books and emancipate themselves now." "I myself don't believe that, mind you." "I am leaning toward the first interpretation." "I want to ask you that question now:" "Is it a satire or are you serious about it?" "EV:" "I am serious and I am not a secret feminist but an open feminist and in fact I represent a feminine feminism while I think that you and the opposite side generally, the feminists, the orthodox feminists represent a masculine feminism" "because what you call feminism now is a male idea." "It is made by men." "Men who believed what their mothers told them about women." "So for example by:" "Freud, Marx, Engels, Bebel and so on." "AS:" "I have read that in your books." "Yes." "EV:" "But I think you shouldn't take those things seriously as a woman." "You shouldn't imitate those ideas." "It's the same with saying that the world is ruled by men." "That's as paradox as saying that seafaring is ruled by sailors because in reality..." "AS:" "What do you mean by feminine feminism?" "Could you tell in a few sentences...?" "EV:" "That you look at women as women and in fact from a female perspective, that you recognise that system from the inside and not from the outside like men see ...or do because men only know about women what their mothers have told them from an early age on about women and I think that is just the wrong basis to think like that about women." "AS:" "By the way there aren't only the mothers I think." "There is also a public, an environment and a school and education which forms you." "There aren't only the mothers." "EV:" "Yes, but it's usually ...it's mostly ruled by women because the first..." "AS:" "Really?" "Do you think so?" "EV:" "First of all the attachment figures for little children, who set the norms for the future life are women and so it goes on later. 70% of the pedagogy students are already women the teachers in elementary schools are women and in the nursery schools" "and in the whole education in general you only meet women." "AS:" "But therefore most of the headmasters are men and also the writers of the frame guidelines, the writers of the schoolbooks are men, the responsible editors for children- and schoolprograms are men." "I think that men, I don't want to go into too much detail what you have already written, what can already be read, I actually wanted to discuss on another level but I think that men set the frame in which women are allowed to maneuver" "there you are right but it is a somewhat short sight to mistake the performer for the person in charge, am I right?" "EV:" "Yeah, there you're talking like a man again when you say that." "AS:" "Yeah, what is that "talking like a man"?" "..." "Yeah?" "EV:" "Excuse me please but it is a male idea!" "Men believe that they set the frame in reality they do all the annoying work for us and we amuse ourselves at their expense." "Women are, so to say, bon vivants ("art of living") at men's expenses." "I have nothing against bon vivants but I don't like that you use another gender for that." "AS:" "We amuse ourselves at our ...at their expense?" "At the expense of men?" "We are standing in the kitchen and we amuse ourselves while men drudge. ..." "Yeah." "EV:" "We are living at the expense of men." "We are living at the expense of men because you must not forget that men are imprisoned most of the time from their 16th year on till their 63rd." "They are thrown in prison." "If they have to go for a walk for an hour, they have to lie." "They have to say they need to go to the dentist or they need a medical certificate." "That's not us." "AS:" "Miss Vilar, so I have looked at your books very carefully yesterday and I have seen therein, among other things, that I am, according to your definition a so called public child..." "EV:" "Yes, you are." "AS:" "Right. ...of which, I am going to explain what it is to the viewers soon if you haven't read the book, the most important job-legimitation is the vagina." "A public child is, according to your definition, one of those women who parrots those men, who have invented that all, who say women are not well off and they need to emancipate themselves..." "EV:" "Yes." "AS: ...and what we are saying and writing there is the biggest nonsense ever and if we wouldn't be women, we could not write that all." "I must say, to put it mildly, I feel myself just defamed by you." "I could imagine by the way, that according to the code of law, that it would be possible to prosecute this or something like that..." "EV:" "Well, you can try!" "Please. ..." "Yeah." "AS:" "I might imagine." "Maybe I don't want that really." "What are you actually thinking when you're writing about this?" "When you write about me and my colleagues that we are parrots and our most important tool is our vagina, what are you imagining there?" "EV:" "Well, I say that for those ideas that you stand for, you don't need neither courage nor originality nor initiative." "It is very, very simple." "You have to give men what they love to read the most, which is that they are the strongest, that they rule the world and they are happy and I think the mass media is dominated by women." "AS:" "But Miss Vilar, that is so funny that I hardly can go into it." "I mean, you should know, and everybody here knows and all viewers and all those who read newspapers know, that it is the opposite." "EV:" "Yeah, I am always happy when someone is amused when I say something..." "AS:" "But I just want to answer to something because I just hadn't the time to respond to it because I actually don't like it that we're just repeating what we both have in store but we should try to look ("scratch") behind some things in order to see what's hiding there." "Like you have describe us now, which means the women who give those things some thoughts, about the situation of women in society and who talk and write about it, that description actually fits exactly you." "I can say to you bindingly I am a journalist since 9 years, I have taken my time to establish myself, ok, that aside I don't have too many troubles at my job, and I can really say to you that nothing is more difficult to write and to publish than the so called women topics." "I can write about everything... ...but they have..." "EV:" "Yes, because it's so wrong." "Of course." "Nobody wants to read that." "AS:" "Yes, but you just said men want me so dearly to write about it and they're making it so easy for me." "EV:" "Yes..." "AS:" "There is not one newspaper, I can tell you for me, and now explain to me how this comes, am I the big exception here, and I belong now to the most exposed journalists regarding that topic, there is not one newspaper where it would be easy for me, if it's not accidently the year of the woman or a special day or someone now grants one the luxury of writing an article, to say something at all." "I for example was forced to write books to be able to write about abortion, to write about occupation from my perspective and my books have the circulation which is in relation to the PR that a male publishing company makes." "Your books on the other hand have come at a moment where the women's liberation wave has already started, which by the way has been initiated by women," "EV:" "No, by men." "That is a very old story." "AS:" "Well you can sit there and say to me ten times "the moon is blue" and I say to you "Dear, good Miss Vilar, the moon is yellow." "Just look at it!"" "then you will respond again "the moon is blue"." "What should I tell you then?" "EV:" "I am not concerned with your moon." "I am only interested in my moon." "AS:" "Yeah, listen, something about your moon, you should actually know, if you're already talking about history it's cringeworthy nonsense that you have written there, historical and amongst other things, on the other levels, that for example Engels has been strongly influenced by Flora Tristan, a woman." "The same with Marx." "In no way did men invented that, that Freud was a man who rationalized that in a moment where it was obvious to women that the malaise and the contradictions have broken up, that today the second women's liberation movement has been initiated solely by women, that" "is grotesque!" "EV:" "It's supported by men." "AS:" "It's not a Mister Sartre who invented that but it was Beauvoir who analyzed that." "EV:" "Ah Beauvoir has only copied!" "She's the biggest imitator who ever lived!" "0:08:14.500,0:08:16.750 AS:" "Who did she copy then?" "EV:" "She wrote a male book and signed it with a female name." "That's not an original idea." "AS:" "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" "Miss Vilar, you should know that there's the rumor circulating about you that your husband has written the book." "It's being said about every woman." "It's even being said about you." "I really find it to be smeary." "I believe that it's from you." "I absolutely, Wholeheartedly, believe that you have written that what's standing there." "And to repeat such a grotesque defamation Beauvoir didn't write her book herself, you couldn't actually aim that low, could you?" "Don't you have any better ideas there?" "EV:" "I had a very intelligent man with whom I was married and I would be very proud of him had he written that book." "All of my books." "But he isn't interested in that topic at all." "AS:" "No, I do think that you have written it yourself." "Right?" "EV:" "Is that so?" "I am pleased to hear." "AS:" "Yes, I can't imagine that such a confusion, such a disorder and such contradictions, where you are obviously affected yourself, that a man could write that down." "Not because he is smarter but because he is not that affected, because he can't be so full of contradictions." "EV:" "I think we should get a little more concrete." "Could you tell me maybe why you think that women are being oppressed and I will answer you totally concrete why I think that women are not oppressed?" "AS:" "I will answer that in a second." "I do wanna talk about that gladly." "But before that I want to ask you something:" "What drives you personally to write these books?" "I mean, you are completely on your own with them." "You are a caller in the desert." "You suddenly say, everything is inverted and you say exactly the opposite of what others are saying or the others aren't saying anything and don't have a real opinion." "How come..." "What actually motivated you to say women are dumb, women can only keep their legs spread at best, don't have any ambition?" "How did you acquire that disrespect for women and that glorification of men?" "How did you get there?" "EV:" "Because I can no longer listen to the nonsense that you and your comrades are spreading in public." "AS:" "The nonsense?" "EV:" "Yes." "The rubbish." "AS:" "What nonsense am I talking about?" "Go ahead and tell me!" "For example...?" "EV:" "That women are oppressed." "There is no sign that women are oppressed." "AS:" "There isn't?" "EV:" "No." "AS:" "Good." "Ev:" "Not a single one." "Please!" "AS:" "You had..." "EV:" "Give me an example!" "AS: ..., as so often, the opportunity to spread yourself over many pages in the STERN magazine with your UNO proclamation..." "EV: ...and the STERN magazine had to go to the German Press Council because of that article." "Did you hear that as well?" "AS:" "Thank God!" "Yes." "I have also signed that." "EV:" "Yes." "I thought so." "AS:" "Thank God!" "And there it says amongst other things, let's get to the facts now, that women let themselves be kept by men." "EV:" "Yes, that is correct." "AS: ...that men are working for women." "Now let's be totally concrete!" "Let's leave the metaphysical plane, let's talk facts and figures!" "In the Federal Republic there are, I am repeating arguments of mine which are known and I am giving you a chance to rebut or disagree with it, in the Federal Republic there are 52 Billion wagelaborhours per year." "According to the calculation of the domestic economy society (registered society) in Frankfurt, which by the way goes conform with the calculation of other institutions in this and in other countries, there are 45 to 47 Billion hours of free work in this country." "That means, work that is invested into the household which is necessary in order for us to be able to live at all and into the education of the children which is necessary for the society so that it can reproduce itself." "A socially important task." "Good." "That means, that the domestic work, the hours of the domestic work are nearly the same as those of the wagelabor." "EV:" "Then why are women so crazy about it?" "AS:" "May I just finish this?" "EV:" "Please." "Go ahead." "AS:" "This domestic work, as is known, it has been recently confirmed by Miss Pross(?" ") again, is being done overwhelmingly almost completely alone by women." "Even if you look at employed women only every third husband is helping, employed women mind you, for three or more chores and he only helps because it still stays her job in the household." "Yes?" "Good." "That's one point." "The second point:" "One third of wagelabor is being done by women in this country." "Underpaid by the way, as we know." "Every second woman earns less than 600 Mark a month (average 1975 is 1817,33 Mark)." "EV:" "Yeah, yeah." "AS: ...and that's not because it's fun for her." "At the assembly line or as assistant." "EV:" "I refer to the same statistics as you." "AS:" "Good." "Ev:" "You ain't telling me nothing new here." "AS:" "Then let me make my conclusion." "That means, one third of the wagelabor is being done by women, they do the whole free work, right?" "If you put those two stacks together now, you have here 3/6 and there 3/6. 3/6 free work completely done by women and 1/6 wagelabor done by women equals two thirds." "That means, in this society, in the Federal Republic 1975 in the year of the woman two thirds of the work in society as a whole is being done by women and one third by men." "For that they get either nothing or 600 Mark and in exceptional cases, sometimes if they almost escaped - a male salary." "EV:" "Yeah that calculation would bring tears to my eyes if it was true." "But it's not." "AS:" "You refer to same facts, don't you?" "EV:" "I refer to same facts but first of all the work of a housewife isn't free work because she gets the salary of her husband and she manages the payment of her husband..." "AS:" "She is being fed and given clothes if she is lucky." "EV:" "Yes, of course." "AS:" "Right." "EV:" "And not only if she is lucky but most of the time." "If she is working..." "AS:" "She has to or she can't exist." "EV: ...there are, and that is important for me, there are almost no women in the Federal Republic who feed their family a whole live long - a man and her children." "They don't exist." "And that's what you have to refer to if you're talking about occupation." "AS:" "What do you actually mean by feeding?" "Do you think that a woman, I can read the numbers to you, we can throw numbers here at each other, but there is a common ground on which we can agree on, right?" "The labor hours of the housewife with children, 96% of all housewives in Germany have kids, ...it isn't like that that those few creatures, which also don't exist like you describe them, which also do their work, as if those few luxurious creatures, there aren't so many luxurious men," "they have become rare in this society, the upper class isn't that big and also the woman of the rich and priviliged man..." "EV:" "I am not talking about the upper class." "AS: even she has to represent, has to be chic, has to be sexually availabe for her husband, has a household to lead, has to be present, has to recharge him emotionally if he comes home exhausted, if he's drained, if his career isn't going anywhere she has to talk to him and give him courage again and has to" "say:" "Oh Darling!" "But you are so brave!" "You are the greatest!" "Believe me and if no one believes in you, I will believe in you, that means, women are constantly giving to men and get completely drained in the process ...don't they?" "EV:" "Aww." "Those poor women." "And they live so much longer." "Six and a half year longer but they collapse from it." "AS:" "But dear, good Miss Vilar, you just were at the UNO." "You should have learned there that the newest statistics for the industrial countries say that all women with double pressures, ...well, the tendency is that women only take a break for a few years if they have kids and basically all women are employed and housewives. 90% of all housewives who live in the Federal Republic were employed and want to be employed again." "...So, that women in industrial countries with double pressures are dying five years earlier than men." "Those are the newest figures." "EV:" "Yes but most, and that is the average value, the average woman lives sixyears longer." "AS:" "No." "EV:" "You cannot deny this." "Those are also the newest figures in this country." "AS:" "I am not denying it." "There are new statistics from the UNESCO, your old ones are dated, we have heard it long enough now." "In the industrial countries women, employed women with that kind of double pressure are dying five years earlier than men." "That used to be." "EV:" "I am not at all for that double pressure." "The most grotesque thing about this feminism, about your..." "AS:" "So what do you say on that matter that the women are always dying earlier?" "You keep on saying the lay fat and lazy on their backs and eat their chocolates." "EV:" "It shows that work makes you sick and that's why men keep on dying earlier." "AS:" "I just told you women are dying earlier." "EV:" "Some of the women who are employed die earlier." "Of course." "That's a physological process." "AS:" "No. 90% of all housewives are not only housewives." "EV:" "But women live six and a half years longer." "That's just a fact." "You can't lie that away." "AS:" "I just told you that the newest fact is exactly the opposite." "EV:" "That women die five years earlier in industrial countries that doesn't exist." "It is completely untrue." "There are women who work more and who are under more pressure and those die earlier but the average is a six and a half year higher life expectancy." "AS:" "Good." "Miss Vilar, let's not bore each other here." "What I just quoted here can be looked up in all archives." "Those are the newest UNO statistics." "But I wanna get to sexuality now." "EV:" "I am talking about the statistical yearbook from the last year in Germany." "Within one year the life expectancy doesn't change about eleven and a half years..." "AS:" "We will later enjoy that pleasure and the viewers can do the same." "EV: ..." "That's impossible." "You cannot make me believe that as a medic." "AS: ..." "Yes, you "as a medic"." "It's getting old." "Now I want to ask you something else." "What about your sexuality?" "You started your last book with a nice sketch." "I wanna tell it." "It is about two lovers, right?" "He says to her:" "The moon shines beautiful and so on ...well, back and forth and then she says:" "Listen I have to confess something." "I have a new boyfriend." "Right?" "And then he says: ..." "This is how you start your latest book... and then he says:" "That's nice." "I am happy for you." "And then you interrupt that fictional dialogue and say at the latest at this point, it is a treatment for a movie, the producer calls the author and says:" "Have you gone completely insane?" "What have you written there?" "That's not a love story!" "No man would do that!" "A decent man beats his woman up at this point." "EV:" "Uhum." "AS:" "There you are right." "Very well observed!" "And now you still want to tell me this conception of sexuality and "love"" "...like I do actually agree sometimes partially with what you percieve as actual state ...partially I agree ...that's probably your secret, right?" "That mixture of half-truths and complete untruths and then such a weird metaphysical philosophy." "EV:" "You can voice any opinion about my books you want." "That's why we are here." "As:" "Yes." "That's why we're here for." "EV:" "You just shouldn't think that I will share it with you." "AS:" "Yes, but now my question:" "Do you still want to claim that this conception of sexuality, which you describe yourself in that manner, which is namely dominated by violence among other things ...not always, you cannot generalize, that those are invented by women and that women are in charge and they are the third party who benefits from a division between two others?" "EV:" "I say that love contains jealousy." "That's something completely different and I don't think that if you are in love that you wanna share your lover with somebody else." "I don't believe that." "I have a very old-fashioned conception of love." "AS:" "We share that." "We both have that." "EV:" "My last book hasn't been read at all and indeed I was so careless to attack the journalists and they have reacted as if stung by an adder (tarantula)." "I sometimes have the feeling that if a journalist is writing about me he is in a state of reduced sanity with very few exceptions." "AS:" "But Miss Vilar!" "I am seeing you on all screens and on all front pages since years and I am thinking to myself:" "Does it never end?" "You are so well sponsored!" "All the other female journalist can't even get a toe on the table." "You could write such blackbooks about what's happening also with journalists but also way more with female journalists at the public institutions, in the newspapers." "I mean, you are a lucky fellow but even now you still complain..." "EV:" "It's always the same old story." "Ask how male journalists are doing!" "AS:" "Yes." "Yes." "No." "But what do you want?" "You are one of the most famous writer in this country?" "EV:" "Journalism is one the most difficult jobs of all and actually writing and it is nearly impossible to earn money with that." "AS:" "I know that but I am going back to violence now." "EV: ...and I know that I have been very fortunate." "AS:" "I want to go back." "I want to be very penetrant." "After this dialogue couldn't you have written at the latest the producer stops at that point and says: "Are you nuts!" "?" "That's not a love story." If it had been reversed, if the man said to the woman: "I have to confess something" " I am seeing someone else." Right?" "Then the producer wouldn't be able to say at the latest at this point she kicks his ass." "EV:" "Yes that is my starting basis for the whole book in order to show that there are two kinds of love between man and woman and that one kind is being abused by the woman in order to get sponsored." "That means that the woman..." "AS:" "She who ..." "The part that gets beaten up abuses the other part who..." "EV: ...that the woman acts like an object that needs protection.That the woman tries that the men treats her like a child." "That means like someone who has to be protected, someone for whom one likes to work and she has very often and very much success with that and that is the state which I wanted to clarify so that men are able to defend themselves because men usually don't know what's happening to them." "AS:" "Yes." "But Miss Vilar, you can ...to me..." "EV:" "And they don't want to know!" "As:" "You can of course recite the content of your books without pause now but now I want to know who is behind that?" "How did you reach the decision to write something like that?" "Tell me something about your life!" "I will gladly tell you something about mine too." "EV:" "I just said to you that I couldn't bear that nonsense anymore..." "AS:" "How do you live?" "Why?" "EV: ...which you and your clique are writing and that's why I wrote books." "AS:" "Well so strong..." "Me and my clique we have a small book in a random series ...ah well" "EV:" "Your clique spans around the whole world." "AS:" "Well, we didn't get our act together that well yet." "That will happen soon though but tell me now:" "What actually motivates you?" "What actually motivates you?" "How do you live actually?" "Are you...?" "Have you behaved in the same way the women did that you described?" "Are you one of them?" "EV:" "I am no exception." "AS:" "Have you exploited men?" "EV:" "I have always said that I am no exception." "AS:" "Well, did you exploit your husband?" "EV:" "I never answer personal questions in public." "AS:" "Ah, so you think there is a private life and a public." "EV:" "I am not asking you about your husband or about your children if you have any..." "AS:" "You can ask me." "You have a child." "You have the advantage." "EV: ...and I myself don't want..." "AS:" "You are a mother." "I am not." "EV: ..." "I don't want to be asked about that because in my opinion I could indeed talk about my private life but I would have to get the permission of a partner who used to live with me or who lives with me now or from my child and I don't have the right to do that without their permission." "AS:" "Yes." "I didn't actually want to go into intimate details with you." "I just want to address that if you're writing about women today ...right?" "...then you know that this so-called private life is that terrain where everything is happening." "The most important thing, the thing which concerns us in the most fundamental way are the questions about love, partnership, motherhood and all those things." "Most of the time we are laboring in the kitchen, we experience the most degradation in the bedroom..." "EV:" "Really?" "AS:" "We do, don't we?" "EV:" "And in the bedroom we probably are abused, right?" "That's what you wanted to say next." "AS:" "Amongst other things." "EV:" "Oh god!" "AS:" "By the way men aren't always happy too." "We both know that." "I agree with you on that." "Those are the few pages on which you describe men ... very nicely observed how damaged they are, how grotesque they can be sometimes with their whole career play, with the suits ..." "I completely agree with you on that." "I also don't think that the man is a free and emancipated creature." "I think that he has to bethink himself but let's get back to the woman." "What about you?" "I want to allow myself to insist in this manner anyway because I think there is no private life:" "If you write all that, if you defame women in such manner, degrade them in such manner, insult them in such manner, ..." "You have, amongst other things, written in you last book:" "Women shouldn't make such a fuss." "According to Kinsey the coitus frequency would be two times a week and they just should spread their legs those times." "EV:" "No." "That's not what I said." "AS:" "I think..." "EV:" "I said, yes I have this ...this quote is right but I have said it in another context." "AS:" "I can tell you the context, too, Miss Vilar." "EV:" "Yes, please." "AS:" "I have looked at it very carefully." "EV:" "Please read it out loud." "AS:" "Can you see what's written here? "Sexual exploitation is out of the question" ...of men by women... err...of women by men... right?" "...well, "The average coitus frequency after ten years of marriage lies for example in the USA at, according to Kinsey, ...at two times a week." "Even for a frigid woman, and with any other it wouldn't be exploitation, this isn't a pretty big deal." "EV:" "Yeah I am talking about the frigid woman." "I am not talking about the woman who likes sex and for her two times a week is way too less." "All in all." "Right?" "I'd say that." "AS:" "I don't know." "I mean, we could gladly ...you did not want to go into a private discussion ...if we want to do that now..." "EV:" "No, it's not private." "I am talking in general." "AS:" "I don't know." "EV:" "Because I think sex is something very beautiful." "AS:" "But let's stick to your quote." "I think it is so cynical." "You are assuming that a woman is a housewife, that she is economically dependant, that she doesn't have autonomy, that she depends on her familiy, that she is a housewife because she wants to raise her children well because she believes in that myth of motherhood, not in that way that she has children - a woman can have children, that's not the point to judge that or to" "condemn that but she believes in a myth because she was willing to be there first and foremost and this woman who is now so drained and who maybe doesn't have the right relationship to her husband, maybe because of this dependancies, maybe because she is so insecure and has such complexes and" "maybe just because they aren't able to talk with one another." "Right?" "And those who cannot talk with each other, I think, cannot sleep with each other." "Otherwise it's really perverted." "Right?" "EV:" "Yes." "It would be possible." "Theoretical it would be possible." "AS:" "Yes it is possible." "I know." "In this perverted society." "This woman, who is frigid now, you are telling her:" "My dear, don't make such a fuss." "You can do it two times a week." "Don't make a scene." "I think that someone who is as cynical and as mean as you, who writes such things, I am surprised actually that women haven't attacked you..." "EV:" "They already have." "AS:" "Right." "Right. ...should ask you about your private life." "And now I am asking you, Miss Vilar:" "How did you get there?" "What have you done until now?" "How are you living?" "Why do you write things like that?" "EV:" "I am a writer and I describe what I see as exactly as possible and as honest as possible." "That's my maxim." "AS:" "Yes." "But I think you are first and foremost looking at yourself because here you have described yourself very well." "You are an (female) author about whom couldn't be said anything, an author let's stick to the neutral ...to the neutral, masculine form, if it weren't for the fact that you have a female gender." "If a man namely had written those things then nobody would care." "EV:" "He would be laughed at." "People would say he had no success with women and he has to take revenge now." "AS:" "Right. ..." "Right. ..." "Very confused." "EV:" "That's why only a woman could write those books." "AS:" "Yes." "The charm of your books exists namely in self-denial and in betrayal." "You are renouncing your own gender, you are renouncing yourself and you are betraying your gender and that's why you get used by men and that I think, and that's why I actually don't like to really attack you, and that's why I actually haven't really done that so far because somehow I think you are a" "tragic figure." "Don't you know that men who use you in the media, in the STERN magazine, on TV, everywhere, that they use you as an excuse, that they insult women, that they are mean and that they laugh about you, that they think you are stupid, that they think you are treacherous." "I am dead serious about that." "EV:" "Yeah." "AS:" "It's not polemic." "Ev:" "You see it that way." "AS:" "Don't you know that?" "Don't you see that?" "EV:" "I don't know." "If you are saying that I believe it but it doesn't touch me at all." "Listen, I don't believe that it is a betrayal of my own gender." "Quite the opposite." "I think it is a rehabilitation of my gender what I am doing and I think if somebody is betraying my gender then it's you and your clique because..." "AS:" "Who is my clique then?" "EV:" "The feminists with whom you are together." "I am under the impression..." "AS:" "The public children?" "EV:" "Yes, the public children." "I am under the impression..." "AS:" "I felt like a grown-up." "EV:" "I am under the impression that you are something like the head of the German feminists or am I wrong here?" "AS:" "You are too flattering." "We actually don't have any leaders..." "EV:" "Yes." "AS: ...and no female leaders." "EV:" "For example I don't get it how women can accept something like the year of the woman." "It's unbelievable!" "Even if ...even if women would be oppressed then one shouldn't accept that because it goes against any honor." "It's not like that, that women are oppressed but even if that was the case it makes women so small and even more it makes them ridiculous." "I don't know." "A man who takes that year of the woman seriously to me is a ridiculous figure." "AS:" "But Miss Vilar..." "EV:" "It's like he would write ...err celebrate the year of the woman in the century of the dope." "AS:" "But Miss Vilar ...but Miss Vilar" "EV:" "We are in the century of the fool and not in the year of the woman." "AS:" "Whether Miss Müller from Gelsenkirchen accepts that the UNO in New York declares this is the year of the woman, you know, nobody really cares about that." "That is the power of men." "Do you understand?" "It's proclaimed..." "EV:" "Have you read the newspapers and magazines the last few days?" "AS:" "First of all." "Second." "A second point." "The only one who has used it so far completely for her PR that has been you." "You flew (by jet) to New York and dramatically read out a proclamation in which you called for the declaration of this year to be the year of man, which is kinda amusing, so..." "EV:" "No, that's not what I have said." "I said..." "AS:" "I mean, beside you no other woman in this country did take that serious on this level." "EV:" "I said that men should defend themselves against this year of the woman and that they finally should start thinking about themselves during this year" "AS:" "They haven't done that so far, the poor things!" "Yeah." "EV:" "And of course, and I am saying that very clearly, my trip to New York has been a PR - gag..." "AS:" "Of course." "EV: ...because for this idea that I am representing, which" "I am representing as the only one in public, I need as much PR as I can get." "AS:" "You are getting those with those books." "They did came out at the right moment." "EV:" "I am one and you are a whole battallion." "AS:" "Yeah, I can't afford that." "I would like to do some nice PR too." "Well, I can't afford that but let's not grief about that." "It's just, you earn your money and you deserve it then, right?" "EV:" "Do you know...?" "Do you know...?" "May I..." "May I say something on earning money?" "AS:" "Yeah." "EV:" "I do earn money with my books." "I earn a lot of money with my books." "AS:" "No." "No." "It's granted." "EV:" "Yes." "But..." "AS:" "That's ok." "I think that's right." "EV: ...you can't judge my books on that basis..." "AS:" "One can never earn too much." "EV: ...you have to look at the idea, if the idea is correct or not." "Whether I have a mother- or a father complex, whether I want to be a millionaire or something else that's not important at all for my ideas." "Important is what is written in my books and important is whether that is right for you or not." "I know that it isn't right for you, for me it is and other people on the other hand have a different opinion on that." "As:" "It's not right in itself." "It isn't just not right for me, if we ...that here ...we don't have the time for that within this time frame." "This book is from page to page, by the way, no one needs to buy it, it's all written on those two pages in the STERN magazine, I want to say that directly, I don't want to do any PR for this book, right?" "It sums up in twelve theses but ...here are..." "EV:" "Yeah, I think this way you're helping me the most if you say that." "AS:" "Well, I don't know." "I don't know." "Maybe one should have said that earlier." "It has been said too late." "EV:" "Yes." "Sure." "AS:" "Because so far we have... yeah..." "EV:" "But you didn't have any opportunity to write so far." "AS:" "I did." "There isn't any lack..." "EV:" "You just said that." "AS:" "No that..." "No, it's not exactly like that." "I just said it's not that easy." "Wait a minute!" "EV:" "Your colleagues, the other oppressed (female) journalists have given their best to hush up the book or to roast it..." "AS:" "Right." "Right." "EV: ...so you can be satisfied." "AS:" "We were wrong because I honestly must say when this started three years ago I thought to myself, well for heaven's sake, what's up with this confused stuff, you don't need to respond to that, you would just be advertising it but it now seems like you came just in time for a society, that thinks some ideas that came from our corner stink and that you are" "propagandized to such an extent so that indeed you don't have to deal with your so-called ideas, that's not what I'm here for, but I think one has to deal with the fact that you are given such space with those stories in all" "the media and in the public in general." "First of all." "And secondly one finally needs to stop jesting, I mean I prefer laughing instead of being dramatic too, that fits my temper better..." "EV:" "Are you sure?" "AS:" "Yes, I am very sure about that." "About that I am very sure." "But this isn't the moment." "I really think that your books, I have been through them again systematically yesterday, because I wanted to know with whom I'm dealing," "I think that your books are so outrageous, such an insult, so infamous, that today I am really contemplating if women shouldn't inform themselves, should check if there can be filed a lawsuit against you because, and that's what I" "want to ask you now, if you would replace the word 'woman' in your books by the word 'jew' or 'negroe' then your writings would be fitting (ripe) for the "Stürmer" (right extremist newspaper in Nazi-Germany)." "You are not only..." "EV:" "You are talking such a mad nonsense." "You above all knows that best." "AS:" "That's not a mad...!" "You are..." "You aren't just a sexist, you are also a facist." "EV:" "Yes, is that so?" "AS:" "I want to say that and that is a very serious accusation and looking at your personal situation it weighs even more heavy but I want to say that, yes." "EV:" "I think your argument is a typical facist argument." "That's how the facists argued at that time." "With such words." "I think we're not getting anywhere this way..." "AS:" "With what word?" "With the word sexist?" "EV:" "No." "By using the most extreme formulation to add a label to someone." "AS:" "That's not extreme." "I am also not the first person to say this." "It's not extreme at all." "EV:" "Yeah, shall we..." "AS:" "One can prove that with your book ...if you say for example all women are stupid, all women let men work for them, all women do this and that, as well has been said all jews are cheap, all jews just make business with money," "you know very well, I probably don't need to tell you, that those were, amongst other things, cultural results, that for example jews or blacks have been rejected in certain areas." "EV:" "Ah stop it already with those ridiculous comparisons!" "Let's talk concrete here!" "AS:" "What do you mean by ridiculous?" "It's the same with women." "EV:" "Let's talk really concrete." "I want to tell you some disadvantages for men now and you should tell me what you think about them:" "Why do men get to retire three years later than women with the exception of public servants?" "AS:" "Five, right?" "EV:" "Three years." "According to the new law three years." "AS:" "I'll happily accept a correction." "EV:" "There's the flexible age limit now." "AS:" "Well, I suppose that you add motherhood to the equation, right?" "EV:" "Is that so?" "AS:" "You embarass me." "I really don't know." "EV:" "At that age you really believe that with 62 years of age you still have to take care of children?" "AS:" "That in the end everything is being added together." "I don't know what law makers thought at that moment." "EV:" "Well, that's one disadvantage so far which I am talking about." "AS:" "And you want to cancel that?" "What do you mean that everybody should retire at 65 or 60?" "EV:" "I really don't care." "I want equality for man and woman." "AS:" "I would care." "I'd like that too but I'd say I want retirement at 60 then." "I wouldn't advocate the negative adjustment, and now you will talk about the military service, but instead the positve adjustment." "EV:" "I said, I wouldn't care." "I said, I wouldn't care." "I am not in the position to decide that." "AS:" "You don't care." "Alright." "EV:" "I just think that it is very unfair that men get to retire three years later than women and that's why..." "AS:" "I mean, they only work one third of the time." "I mean, actually women should retire one third of the time earlier." "EV:" "You really won't get away with this naive fallacy when dealing with me." "Another disadvantage:" "For example that men have to do military service or alternative service while women don't need to." "That you just, so to say, erase 15 months of their lives while women can follow their career plans." "What do you think about that?" "AS: 15?" " Isn't it one year?" "EV: 15 month." "AS:" "Alright." "I thought 15 years for a moment." "I almost said:" "For heaven's sake!" "Another reform!" "Yeah, I can tell you what I think about that." "First of all women get the children on their own and pause for years." "First of all." "So I think that this is compensated by the motherhoodthing." "Not nullified but women accomplish quite a lot for society because the society can't ...itself, ...can't exist any further if someone isn't taking care of reproduction." "The woman is, in biological terms, solely capable of pregnancy, nine month, the woman has been sentenced to social motherhood on her own, which means she raises ...she above all raises the children so those 15 month don't weigh that heavy." "EV:" "Really?" "AS:" "And also, at this point, second part of the answer, I want to respond to you with what I said to the reform of the pension ...of...of the retirement pensions, to the age limit" "EV: ...also because of the kids." "AS:" "There I'd say as well ..." "There I'd say as well I prefer the positive adjustment instead of the negative adjustment." "I actually don't like the military that much and I think it's very sad that the..." "EV:" "Me neither." "What do you think?" "AS: ...young men have to go there." "So I am not going to be grotesque and say women should go into the barracks too but I can say at this point I hope that the young men don't need to go into the barracks either." "There I am, just like you, for equality." "There we fully, fully agree with each other." "EV:" "Yes but it's just that society, especially the voters want ...do want this social basic order..." "AS: ...the voters, yes..." "EV: ...in which we are living here in West Germany and I think one has to respect that." "AS:" "I don't have ..." "I don't mind the social basic order." "We are on the same ground there." "0:33:57.500,0:34:01.000 EV:" "Yes and I think that the children aren't an argument because if someone" "has to suffer because children are being born then it is the man and not the woman because if a man becomes a father it means that he already got, so to speak, the ticket in his pocket for live-long jailtime because it means that" "he can never stop, if he has at least some sort of conscience, until he finally retires." "So men have to sacrifice much more when children are born as women." "AS:" "Yeah." "With what..." "With what doesn't he stop?" "With what doesn't he stop?" "Ev:" "With work." "AS:" "Well, for example there's an estimate of a federal German court, since we like to talk so much about our federal German ground on which we are moving, that housework should actually be paid, a fictional salary" "of 1800 Mark." "Women never stop with that kind of work." "Twenty years for a child." "It takes twenty years to raise a child." "Ok, I am not saying that men don't do anything..." "EV:" "Thank God!" "I wouldn't be surprised anymore though." "As: ...and the phenomenon, which you ...which you are describing, you are somewhat right about that." "It is true that women and men alike are being made unhappy with this conception of parenthood, of family, so that ...this fixation on each other, that women want to have children maybe even if they don't want them that much or something, that they think they need to" "do achieve that and that men need to make a career then and this whole pressure, you are somewhat right about that, it's just so that I now take the liberty..." "This all is conceded." "It exists." "There is machismo, there is a suffering from the male role, I know a lot of men who look into that subject subtly, right?" "But I just believe that in this society, as I have said, man and woman are victims, but that women are the victims' victims, that women are another step lower..." "EV:" "I know that you believe that." "AS: ...that the housewife, that the wife of a worker, when he comes home after laboring the whole day and got insulted by his foreman, that he goes home and then says: "What?" "!" "Here!" "Why isn't my food on the table?" "!" and then there will be hell to pay, that she is even more dependant, that she is even worse off." "That's what it's all about." "It's not about saying men are doing fine." "It's about saying that women are additionally a victim of a very specific discrimination and not only does society profit from that in a very abstract way, it does too because it's getting the children delivered for free and many things more, right?" "...and underpaid work..." "EV:" "The society consists of men and women." "You shouldn't forget that." "AS:" "Right." "The society in an abstract manner." "Also every single man does profit from that." "Every man that sits and reads his newspaper while his wife is washing the dishes." "It's so trivial." "So ordinary." "EV:" "Now I am going to tell you about a newer research in Germany..." "AS:" "Yes." "With source please!" "EV: ...published one year ago in the news magazine DER SPIEGEL and according to it the thing with the double pressure of the employed women is just a myth and indeed up to a big percentage rate because it emerged that men who have a" "employed woman ...first of all, nobody has double pressure because the children are not under the care of the woman who goes to work during the day, double pressure is already the wrong word, but that men who have an" "employed wife have to do 85% extra work just like the woman." "They may indeed not always wash the dishes and so on..." "AS:" "But Miss Vilar!" "EV: ...but they do the gardening, they wash the car, they also do extra work which is important for the duration of the family." "AS:" "But Miss Vilar the garden is being dug over once a year in spring and the dishes are washed every day." "Please stop with that monkey business!" "And maybe they also change a tire twice a year!" "EV:" "I am sorry." "That is an inquiry which hasn't been made by me but somebody else." "AS:" "Yes." "The two largest inquiries were made by Helge Pross (?" "), right?" "EV:" "Yeah." "Right." "AS:" "One, a year ago on housewives" "EV:" "Yeah, that is one..." "AS: ... and another one, three years ago, on employed women." "EV: ...that is one of those inquiries." "AS:" "I know the numbers." "We can both check them again." "EV:" "Yeah." "Me too." "AS:" "As I have said, one third of the husbands doesn't help their employed women at all, right?" "EV:" "They do something else instead." "AS:" "No." "EV:" "As I have said, they take care of their car..." "AS:" "So what are they doing?" "EV: ...you need that too." "AS:" "Maybe they go out for a walk or lift dumbbells or something." "That may be possible." "EV:" "They take care of the children..." "AS:" "No." "No." "EV: ...they take care of the tax return, they go to authorities, that is..." "AS:" "Miss Vilar..." "EV:" "I am sorry." "That is statistically proven." "That's not something I am making up here now." "AS:" "You are making that up!" "One moment!" "I can even see it in front of my eyes that research, ok?" "Doesn't help at all ...one third of the husbands doesn't help at all neither in the household nor with the education of the children." "One third helps with one or two tasks like going down into the basement to fetch some beer or to dry up the dishes." "One third helps with three or more tasks." "I want to ask you to pay attention to the word 'helps', right?" "Best case, if men are nice, and nice men do exist, then they will help their wife." "They never learned it differently." "That's correct now." "So they help their wife." "They are gracious and help." "By the way if they're not gracious and they don't feel like doing it, they won't do it, right?" "The woman depends on their mercy." "But it always says men are helping women." "This all remains women's work." "A woman can work eight hours a day in the office or somewhere else, she still is responsible." "She hears the ambulance sirens outside, if she has a child at home, and thinks:" "Hopefully that's not my child!" "She is conditioned this way, and you have described that also, you don't argue in a biologistic manner, right?" "You are not saying, if I understood you correctly, "That is so by nature" but you're saying: "This is our education." Right?" "EV:" "Yeah." "Of course." "AS:" "We have been drilled to be man and woman." "The difference is, where we differ, I say the man profits from this drill and you say the woman profits from that drill, right?" "Correct?" "EV:" "I'm not only saying it, I am also proving it." "AS:" "But how, dear good woman?" "!" "You are not proving it!" "You swim against the tide on your own and the macabre thing is that you can proclaim this light-heartedly and you even seem to believe it yourself." "EV:" "Yeah, there are obviously still a few other people who believe that beside me." "AS:" "Yes, but who?" "I am convinced to the core that your book is read by ...let's say about three quarters by men ...deeply ...is bought ...to the core." "I don't know if there have been any studies." "EV:" "You..." "AS:" "I can't imagine that women are reading this!" "EV:" "You can't?" "AS:" "Nah." "EV:" "I know a few who have read it." "AS: "A few"?" "Ok." "EV:" "Who even liked it..." "AS:" "That's interesting." "EV: ...you know those are not women who are in the public view, no journalist, but women who are at home..." "AS:" "Yeah, I know those as well." "EV: ...and who know that they have the better part in life..." "AS:" "Yeah." "EV: ...and what I accuse women of is not only that they aren't doing anything or that they abuse a certain situation..." "As:" "But I am telling you:" "They work!" "EV:" "That is easy because they are women." "What I accuse women of is that above all they always whine and I think that is unworthy." "This..." "This..." "AS:" "Who is whining?" "EV: ..." "This can't be." "AS:" "Whom did you hear complaining so far?" "Where has one actually hear a woman whine?" "EV:" "So there are no women who whine?" "No women who are complaining?" "According to you?" "AS:" "No, women so far have only complained individually." "Women could cry to their mother or to their friend..." "EV:" "That's what I mean, that individual complaining to the man." "AS: ...but it has been said to each woman that this would be her very own private problem, right?" "That she is a bimbo who isn't satisfied with that." "Until now, until a few years ago, it never has been said in public that this is a social problem, that there is a system behind it, that all women, if they just sit at home looking at their four walls around them and wash the same" "dishes everyday are not satisfied, are frustrated, have complexes, have minority complexes..." "EV:" "No, two thirds of all women claim to be happy, of all housewives." "You probably know this inquiry as well." "AS:" "The same study." "Yeah." "Right." "Even though, you have to look closely here as well, Miss Vilar, this is relative." "If you go and ask someone: "Are you happy?" First of all it is a question that implies a certain expectation, you surely are unlikely to say, if you can't escape the situation, "I am unhappy!" First of all." "EV:" "That is a theory of yours." "AS:" "Secondly." "Secondly, that is a theory but now comes something ...now comes a hard fact:" "If you say "I am happy!" then you have to let the people define what they think happiness means and women are used to be being humble." "Women already say..." "EV:" "Women have the right to their own definition of happiness and if they think of themselves as happy then I respect that and then I say 'In God's name!" "They think of themselves as happy, so they are happy." "I can't dictate to anybody how he has to define happiness." "AS:" "Yes, but Miss Vilar who is dictating something to whom?" "I, for example, never have dictated women anything and I think nothing is more cynical than some random standards that have to be established again or some frames you put around people whether they fit in them or not and I just can tell you I" "have spoken very, very much with women in my life, and especially in the last years, and I never had any interest in suggesting them something and if you let those women, who answer you spontaneously "Yes, I am happy!", talk for" "half an hour then you will hear things." "Then you will notice that that what those poor women, and I'm not saying "poor women" in a pitiful way, that is our situation, call "happiness" isn't all that much." "EV:" "Let the men talk too, then you'll see what comes out of that." "AS:" "That is your privilege." "You are talking with men." "I take the liberty of talking with the other half of humanity now." "It has been heard far too less so far and they are also 51%, too." "We can talk about that too." "EV:" "I talk to women sometimes too." "You might be surprised."