(Video) 25 Most Powerful Women of the 20th Century

Source:Time

Royal Weddings and American Marriage

Source: Time

Who Needs Marriage? A Changing Institution

Nov 18, 2010

The wedding of the 20th century, in 1981, celebrated a marriage that turned out to be a huge bust. It ended as badly as a relationship can: scandal, divorce and, ultimately, death and worldwide weeping.
So when the firstborn son of that union, Britain's Prince William, set in motion the wedding of this century by getting engaged to Catherine Middleton, he did things a little differently. He picked someone older than he is (by six months), who went to the same university he did and whom he'd dated for a long time. Although she is not of royal blood, she stands to become the first English Queen with a university degree, so in one fundamental way, theirs is a union of equals. In that regard, the new couple reflect the changes in the shape and nature of marriage that have been rippling throughout the Western world for the past few decades. 

In fact, statistically speaking, a young man of William's age — if not his royal English heritage — might be just as likely not to get married, yet. In 1960, the year before Princess Diana, William's mother, was born, nearly 70% of American adults were married; now only about half are. Eight times as many children are born out of wedlock. Back then, two-thirds of 20-somethings were married; in 2008 just 26% were. And college graduates are now far more likely to marry (64%) than those with no higher education (48%). 

When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it's worth trying to figure out why. This fall the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME, conducted a nationwide poll exploring the contours of modern marriage and the new American family, posing questions about what people want and expect out of marriage and family life, why they enter into committed relationships and what they gain from them. What we found is that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be. Neither men nor women need to be married to have sex or companionship or professional success or respect or even children — yet marriage remains revered and desired. 

And of all the transformations our family structures have undergone in the past 50 years, perhaps the most profound is the marriage differential that has opened between the rich and the poor. In 1960 the median household income of married adults was 12% higher than that of single adults, after adjusting for household size. By 2008 this gap had grown to 41%. In other words, the richer and more educated you are, the more likely you are to marry, or to be married — or, conversely, if you're married, you're more likely to be well off. 

The question of why the wealth disparity between the married and the unmarried has grown so much is related to other, broader issues about marriage: whom it best serves, how it relates to parenting and family life and how its voluntary nature changes social structures.


The Marrying Kind

In 1978, when the divorce rate was much higher than it is today, a TIME poll asked Americans if they thought marriage was becoming obsolete. Twenty-eight percent did.


Since then, we've watched that famous royal marriage and the arrival of Divorce Court. We've tuned in to Family Ties (nuclear family with three kids) and Modern Family (nuclear family with three kids, plus gay uncles with an adopted Vietnamese baby and a grandfather with a Colombian second wife and dorky stepchild). We've spent time with Will and Grace, who bickered like spouses but weren't, and with the stars of Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica, who were spouses, bickered and then weren't anymore. We've seen some political marriages survive unexpectedly (Bill and Hillary Clinton) and others unpredictably falter (Al and Tipper Gore).

We've seen the rise of a $40 billion-plus wedding industry, flames fanned by dating sites, and reality shows playing the soul-mate game — alongside the rise of the prenup, the postnup and, most recently, divorce insurance. We care about marriage so much that one of the fiercest political and legal fights in years is being waged over whom the state permits to get married. We've seen a former head of state's child (Chelsea Clinton) marry after living with her boyfriend and a potential head of state's child (Bristol Palin) have a child before leaving home. 

So, as we circle back around to witness another royal engagement, where are we on the marriage question? Less wedded to it. The Pew survey reveals that nearly 40% of us think marriage is obsolete. This doesn't mean, though, that we're pessimistic about the future of the American family; we have more faith in the family than we do in the nation's education system or its economy. We're just more flexible about how family gets defined.

Even more surprising: overwhelmingly, Americans still venerate marriage enough to want to try it. About 70% of us have been married at least once, according to the 2010 Census. The Pew poll found that although 44% of Americans under 30 believe marriage is heading for extinction, only 5% of those in that age group do not want to get married. Sociologists note that Americans have a rate of marriage — and of remarriage — among the highest in the Western world. (In between is a divorce rate higher than that of most countries in the European Union.) We spill copious amounts of ink and spend copious amounts of money being anxious about marriage, both collectively and individually. We view the state of our families as a symbol of the state of our nation, and we treat marriage as a personal project, something we work at and try to perfect. "Getting married is a way to show family and friends that you have a successful personal life," says Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today. "It's like the ultimate merit badge."
But if marriage is no longer obligatory or even — in certain cases — helpful, then what is it for? It's impossible to address that question without first answering another: Who is marriage for?

The New Marriage Gap

To begin to answer that question, it might be useful to take a look at the brief but illustrative marriage of golfer Greg Norman and tennis star Chris Evert, who married in June 2008 and divorced 15 months later. From all reports, their union had many of the classic hallmarks of modern partnerships. The bride and groom had roughly equal success in their careers. Being wealthy, sporty and blond, they had similar interests. She was older than he, and they'd had other relationships before. (She'd had two previous spouses and he one.) Plus, they'd known each other a while, since Evert's newly minted ex-husband, Andy Mill, was Norman's best friend.


Apart from the interest the union generated in the tabloids, this is typical of the way many marriages start. Modern brides and grooms tend to be older and more similar. In particular, Americans are increasingly marrying people who are on the same socioeconomic and educational level. Fifty years ago, doctors commonly proposed to nurses and businessmen to their secretaries. Even 25 years ago, a professional golfer might marry, say, a flight attendant. Now doctors tend to cleave unto other doctors, and executives hope to be part of a power couple. 

The change is mostly a numbers game. Since more women than men have graduated from college for several decades, it's more likely than it used to be that a male college graduate will meet, fall in love with, wed and share the salary of a woman with a degree. Women's advances in education have roughly paralleled the growth of the knowledge economy, so the slice of the family bacon she brings home will be substantial.

Women's rising earning power doesn't affect simply who cooks that bacon, although the reapportioning of household labor is a significant issue and means married people need deft negotiation skills. Well-off women don't need to stay in a marriage that doesn't make them happy; two-thirds of all divorces, it's estimated, are initiated by wives. And not just the Sandra Bullock types who have been treated shabbily and have many other fish on their line but also Tipper Gore types whose kids have left home and who don't necessarily expect to remarry but are putting on their walking boots anyway.

The changes can be seen in more subtle ways too. New York University sociologist Dalton Conley notes that between 1986 and 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available, the proportion of marriages in which the woman was taller than the man increased by more than 10%. "In absolute terms, it's still a small minority of marriages," he says. "But I think the trend signals an incredible shift in marital and gender norms." There has also been a sharp uptick in the percentage of marriages in which the wife is older, signifying, Conley believes, a whole different understanding of the roles of men and women in the union.

Despite the complications that have ensued from this marital restructuring, it's not likely to be undone. In the 1978 poll, fewer than half of all respondents thought that the best kind of marriage was one in which both the husband and the wife worked outside the home. In the new Pew poll, 62% do. Perhaps that's not surprising given these parallel data: in 1970, 40% of wives worked outside the home. Now 61% do. 

So fundamental is the shift that it's beginning to have an impact on what people look for in spouses. While two-thirds of all people think a man should be a good provider, more men than women do. Meanwhile, almost a third of people think it's important for a wife to be a good provider too.
On the face of it, this might explain why fewer people are married. They want to finish college first. In 2010 the median age of men getting hitched for the first time is 28.2, and for women it's 26.1. It's gone up about a year every decade since the '60s.

But here's the rub. In the past two decades, people with only a high school education started to get married even later than college graduates. In 1990 more high-school-educated couples than college graduates had made it to the altar by age 30. By 2007 it was the other way around.

What has brought about the switch? It's not any disparity in desire. According to the Pew survey, 46% of college graduates want to get married, and 44% of the less educated do. "Fifty years ago, if you were a high school dropout [or] if you were a college graduate or a doctor, marriage probably meant more or less the same thing," says Conley. "Now it's very different depending where you are in society." Getting married is an important part of college graduates' plans for their future. For the less well educated, he says, it's often the only plan.

Promising publicly to be someone's partner for life used to be something people did to lay the foundation of their independent life. It was the demarcation of adulthood. Now it's more of a finishing touch, the last brick in the edifice, sociologists believe. "Marriage is the capstone for both the college-educated and the less well educated," says Johns Hopkins' Cherlin. "The college-educated wait until they're finished with their education and their careers are launched. The less educated wait until they feel comfortable financially."


But that comfort keeps getting more elusive. "The loss of decent-paying jobs that a high-school-educated man or woman could get makes it difficult for them to get and stay married," says Cherlin. As the knowledge economy has overtaken the manufacturing economy, couples in which both partners' job opportunities are disappearing are doubly disadvantaged. So they wait to get married. But they don't wait to set up house.

All this might explain why there was a 13% increase in couples living together from 2009 to 2010. Census researchers were so surprised at the jump that they double-checked their data. Eventually they attributed the sharp increase to the recession: these newly formed couples were less likely to have jobs. 

So, people are living together because they don't have enough money to live alone, but they aren't going to get married until they have enough money. That's the catch. In fact, the less education and income people have, the Pew survey found, the more likely they are to say that to be ready for marriage, a spouse needs to be a provider.

Cohabitation is on the rise not just because of the economy. It's so commonplace these days that less than half the country thinks living together is a bad idea. Couples who move in together before marrying don't divorce any less often, say studies, although that might change as the practice becomes more widespread. In any case, academic analysis doesn't seem to be as compelling to most people as the example set by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. Or as splitting the rent. 

But cohabitation among the economically blessed is a whole different ball game than it is among the struggling. For most college-educated couples, living together is like a warm-up run before the marital marathon. They work out a few of the kinks and do a bit of house-training and eventually get married and have kids. Those without a college degree, says Cherlin, tend to do it the other way around — move in together, have kids and then aim for the altar. And children, as Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston discovered, change everything.

The Kids May Not Be All Right

Rarely is there a bigger chasm between what Americans believe to be the best thing for society and what actually happens than in the bearing and raising of children. Half or more of the respondents in the Pew poll say that marital status is irrelevant to achieving respect, happiness, career goals, financial security or a fulfilling sex life. When it comes to raising kids, though, it's a landslide, with more than three-quarters saying it's best done married.

Yet very few people say children are the most important reason to get hitched. Indeed, 41% of babies were born to unmarried moms in 2008, an eightfold increase from 50 years ago, and 25% of kids lived in a single-parent home, almost triple the number from 1960. Contrary to the stereotype, it turns out that most of the infants born to unmarried mothers are not the product of casual sexual encounters. One of the most extensive databases on such kids, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a joint project of Princeton and Columbia universities, which has been following 5,000 children from birth to age 9, found that more than half of the unmarried parents were living together at the time their child was born and 30% of them were romantically involved (but living apart). 

Most of those unwed mothers said their chances of marrying the baby's father were 50% or greater, but after five years, only 16% of them had done so and only about 20% of the couples were still cohabiting. This didn't mean that the children didn't live with a man, however, since about a quarter of their moms were now living with or married to a new partner. That doesn't always work out as well as it seems to in Modern Family or Phineas & Ferb. Offspring from earlier relationships put pressure on new ones. For the least wealthy children, Mom's new boyfriend often means their biological father is less likely to visit and less likely to support their mother. Many stepparents are wonderful and committed, but a series of live-in lovers is not at all the same thing. "About 21% of American children will see at least two live-in partners of their mothers by the time they're 15," says Cherlin. "And an additional 8% will see three or more."  

Would marriage really stop the conveyor belt of parent figures? "Marriage is still the way Americans tend to do long-term, stable partnerships," says Cherlin. "We have the shortest cohabiting relationships of any wealthy country in the world. In some European countries, we see couples who live together for decades." To this day, only 6% of American children have parents who live together without being married.
 
Cohabitation seems to have no negative effect on a marriage's chances if it's preceded by an engagement, no previous live-in lovers and no children. Who has the clout to put those conditions into place? Women with their own means of support and guys who don't need a woman to look after them: the wealthy and well educated. The others often are left in limbo — not able to get married and not able to move on. "Ironically, the very people who would benefit from a committed marriage the most are the people who have the toughest time locating reliable long-term partners," says Stephanie Coontz, a marriage historian who teaches at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

The D Word

Even when couples are married, family life is a different experience for those with a college education and those without one. Professional occupations are much more likely to offer provisions for parental leave, the ability to work from home and flexible hours. Wealthy people can outsource the more onerous or dreary or time-sucking tasks that couples fight over. And the college-educated tend to have picked up more conflict-resolution and negotiation skills along the way. Their marriage is insulated from some of the stresses of balancing work and family. A sick child throws a much bigger wrench into the machinery of a factory or retail or service worker's life.

In recent years, the overall rate of divorce has plateaued somewhat, and leaving a spouse is on the decline among college graduates. But that drop is being offset by a rise in splits among those at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, the people least able to afford to divorce, so the rate is still high. Says Cherlin: "One statistic I saw when writing my book that floored me was that a child living together with unmarried parents in Sweden has a lower chance that his family will disrupt than does a child living with married parents in the U.S."

It seems that the 21st century marriage, with its emphasis on a match of equals, has brought about a surge in inequality. It's easier for the college-educated, with their dominance of the knowledge economy, to get married and stay married. The less well off delay marriage because their circumstances feel so tenuous, then often have kids, which makes marrying even harder. "A marriage gap and a socioeconomic gap have been growing side by side for the past half-century," the Pew study's authors note, "and each may be feeding off the other." But because it's unclear whether the burdens of poverty are making people's relationships less permanent or people's impermanent relationships are worsening their poverty, the solution is not obvious. 

What to Do About I Do

Is marriage, which used to be like the draft, now becoming more like West Point, admitting only the elite and sending the others off to the front line? Depends whom you ask. "The basis of marriage changed in the last century," says Seth Eisenberg, president and CEO of the PAIRS Foundation, one of the biggest relationship-education operations in the country. "But very few couples have had a chance to learn really what are the new rules of love and intimacy — not because the rules are so difficult to learn, just because no one told them. To interpret that as meaning there's something broken about the institution of marriage itself would be a horrible, horrible mistake."

Marriage educators' solution is to bolster marriage, to teach people how to better communicate with their spouses. While they believe their techniques could work with any couple, they're big advocates of the legal union. Marriage is like glue, says Eisenberg. You can build something with it. Living together is like Velcro. "The commitment of marriage gives people the opportunity to grow and thrive in ways that other relationships do not," he says. 

Sociologists tend to believe the answers lie outside marriage. Coontz thinks that if we changed our assumptions about alternative family arrangements and our respect for them, people would be more responsible about them. "We haven't raised our expectations of how unmarried parents will react to each other. We haven't raised our expectations of divorce or singlehood," she says. "It should not be that within marriage you owe everything and without marriage you don't owe anything. When we expect responsible behavior outside as well as inside marriage, we actually reduce the temptation to evade or escape marriage." 

As an example, she cites the 2001-03 Fox reality show Temptation Island, in which couples who were living together were invited to a desert island to see if they could be lured into cheating. "They found one couple was married, and with a great show of indignation, they threw them off the island," says Coontz. "In my point of view, it's just as immoral to break up a committed cohabiting relationship as it is a marriage."

Could living together become respected and widespread enough that it challenged the favored-nation state of marriage? The American Law Institute has recommended extending some of the rights spouses have to cohabiting partners. But cohabitation has not yet proved to be a robust enough substitute for most Americans to believe they can build a family on it. And as a successful marriage increasingly becomes the relationship equivalent of a luxury yacht — hard to get, laborious to maintain but a better vessel to be on when there are storms at sea — its status is unlikely to drop. As it stands, the way America marries is making the American Dream unreachable for many of its people. Yet marriage is still the best avenue most people have for making their dreams come true.

Prince William gave his intended bride Diana's engagement ring. He wanted his mother to have a part in the day, he said. And despite how his parents' marriage faltered, not all the old traditions of marriage are obsolete.

Source: Time

Cops: Driver Betrayed Bride Slain on Her Honeymoon (Britian)

Nov 22, 2010

A Swedish bride who was carjacked, robbed and slain while honeymooning in South Africa was set up by her taxi driver, who was working with the attackers, police said.

Driver Zola Tongo, 31, appeared in court in Cape Town this morning on murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges, according to media reports. He is the third suspect arrested in the shooting death of Anni Dewani.

"He is the driver of the vehicle, of the taxi," National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Eric Ntabazalila said, according to TheLocal.se, a website providing Swedish news in English.

The 28-year-old Dewani, a part-time model who grew up in Mariestad in central Sweden, had recently married British businessman Shrien Dewani, 30, in a ceremony in Mumbai, India. The newlyweds were on their honeymoon in South Africa when they were carjacked on Nov. 13, authorities said.

The couple had dined at a restaurant outside Cape Town and were on their way back to their hotel in the city when they asked their driver to take them through the township of Gugulethu so they could get a look at "the real Africa," according to the Daily Mail, a British newspaper.

The Telegraph, another British paper, quoted local media as reporting that police believe Tongo agreed to the request, then made a call to a friend.

Two armed men ambushed the car as it stopped at an intersection and Tongo was pushed out of the car. Shrien Dewani told authorities he was pushed out of the car at gunpoint about an hour later in a neighborhood.

The husband, who was not hurt, flagged down a passing motorist, who drove him to a police station.

The taxi was found the next morning in an impoverished township with Anni Dewani dead in the back. She had been shot and robbed of a Giorgio Armani wristwatch, a white gold and diamond bracelet, a handbag and BlackBerry phone, TheLocal said.

Mzwamadoda Qwabe, 26, and Xolile Mngeni, 23, were arrested last week, South Africa's the Mail & Guardian newspaper said. Tonga was arrested Saturday. He and Qwabe appeared today in Wynberg Regional Court with Qwabe. They were ordered held until a hearing set for Nov. 29.

Shrien Dewani, from Bristol, England, said that he had had booked Tongo through his secretary and that he driver had met them at the Cape Town airport, the Telegraph said.Dewani said that after the carjacking, he had some doubts about the driver, but his suspicions were allayed by Tongo's apparent willingness to help police.

"Initially I had a lot of suspicion about the driver. But he spent all of Sunday [Nov. 14] helping the police and was able to answer all the police's questions," Dewani said, according to the Daily Mail. "By the end of it, I quite liked him."

Tongo had previously insisted he was not involved.

"This is a very bad situation and I am in fear of my life. I did not do it. I have done nothing wrong," he said, according to the Telegraph.
Source: AOL

Britain's Men-Only Clubs Have to Let In the Ladies

Nov. 18, 2010

It was an unlikely venue for a civil rights sit-in. But on Oct. 1, Lady Antonia Fraser, the formidable Anglo-Irish author and widow of playwright Harold Pinter, walked into the Garrick Club — a plush, "gentlemen only" member's club in London's West End — and took a seat at the hallowed center table in the coffee room. Throughout its 179-year history, the table had been reserved for men. But there was nothing the members could do to stop Lady Antonia's defiance. Britain's new Equality Act — a law that prohibits establishments from discriminating based on gender — is forcing the country's male-dominated social clubs to overturn many of their cherished traditions.

London's oak-paneled, leather-chaired, jackets-and-ties-only gentlemen's clubs have long been a refuge for the country's ruling class. During the heyday of the British Empire, men from top universities were judged not only on their intellectual merit but also their "clubbability." In the past 30 years, however, as those who attended university during the social revolution of the 1960s came of age, many clubs have amended their policies. The Reform Club, where Phileas Fogg made his bet that he could travel around the world in 80 days, was one of the first of the prestigious men-only clubs to admit women, in 1981. United Oxford and Cambridge Club finally admitted women in 1996 — previously the club had been open only to male graduates of those venerated universities — and many others have since followed suit. 

A small group of clubs, however, has continued to confer on women inferior status. Now the Equality Act is forcing that to change. The Garrick — which was established by dramatists in 1831 — previously required "lady guests" of male members to enter through a back staircase, barred them from the cocktail bar before 9 p.m. and encouraged them to eat in a room named after Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne, who left much of his estate to the club. It became a running joke among the members that women must eat in the "poo room." Thanks to the new law, the club has lifted these restrictions, to the chagrin of some of its members.
A former conservative member of Parliament has reportedly rallied an insurrection against the reforms, collecting enough signatures for a general meeting to debate a resolution "that cherishes the traditional role of the center table." He's unlikely to succeed. In a letter to all members, dated Oct. 20 and obtained by TIME, the club's chairman wrote that "it is axiomatic that the Club comply with the law" and warned members that the motion "may be damaging to the Club because it will inevitably lead to publicity which is unlikely to portray us favorably." 

At the nearby Caledonian Club — set up 119 years ago as a meeting place for Scottish politicians and business leaders in London — the Equality Act led members to hold a general meeting in which, according to club secretary Ian Campbell, "everyone ended up in a bit of a sticky wicket" — which is to say, an awkward impasse. The members eventually decided that "Lady Associate Members" should be promoted to full members. Previously, women were required to drink in a floral drawing room, where they ordered drinks by ringing a bell to call the bartender in from the adjacent men-only bar. "Some were for the change, and some were 'agin it,' " Campbell says. "But I think everyone understood that this change was long in the works and inevitable."

Because of an idiosyncrasy in the law, single-sex establishments that do not allow those of the opposite gender on the premises — even as guests — can keep their exclusive status. The law kicks in only when one sex is given preferential treatment. That means some gentlemen-only clubs will not be required to tweak their rules to let in the ladies; others are considering complying with the legislation by entirely removing guest privileges to women.


But even in those clubs that end discriminatory practices, de facto segregation will likely persist. Since Lady Fraser's attempt at integration at the Garrick, only two other women have dared dine at the center table, according to an employee of the club. Even the chairman's letter in support of the changes stated that the club's committee "was of the view that in practice very few members were likely to bring lady guests to sit at the Centre Table." On a recent afternoon, I accompanied a woman to the Garrick for lunch. She was the only female guest on the premises, and each time she entered a room, many of the conversations fell into shocked silence. We dined in the poo room.

Supporters of men-only clubs have always argued that gender segregation is crucial for upholding decorum and British good manners, according to William Bortrick, executive and royal editor of Burke's Peerage and Gentry, a sort of Who's Who for the British, Irish and American aristocracy. "I suspect one of the reasons these clubs have such strict rules against women is, frankly, that they didn't want them to turn into brothels," he says. "The fear is that instead of bringing wives, the members would bring mistresses."

Even as they are forced to modernize, members-only clubs are increasingly becoming an anachronism. The landed aristocracy that once was their core constituency is thinning out. In the days of Cool Britannia and Tony Blair's New Labour a decade ago, power in Britain shifted from the hushed rooms of the older clubs to a new, more raucous breed of drinking clubs. The ruling class is now more likely to be found not sipping a claret or scotch at the ultra-private White's club or the Garrick but downing a chic cocktail at Zanzibar Club, Groucho Club, Soho House or any number of new, trendy coed drinking clubs.


Caledonian Club secretary Campbell says members of the club realized that abolishing gender inequality was an essential step to attracting the country's younger generation of forward-thinking elites — "our best hope to remain relevant." As Lita Khazaka, a 30-something female architect and member of the Caledonian, put it, "Getting young people involved in the club is crucial — and that can be hard to do if the club's policies are so old-fashioned that they cause embarrassment."

German Feminism: Playing Dirty

Jun. 18, 2008

"For as long as I can remember, i have had hemorrhoids." That revelation is the first line of the novel Feuchtgebiete (Wetlands), which has dominated German bestseller lists since its publication in March, and become the first German novel ever to lead Amazon's world rankings. Some say Feuchtgebiete's astounding popularity has been fueled by prurient fascination. But others place the book and its author, Charlotte Roche, whose first novel this is, at the center of an earthy neofeminist revival out to challenge Germany's comfortable preference for ideological abstraction.

The novel tells the story of Helen, 18, who, after a shaving accident, finds herself in hospital with the time and opportunity to ponder her favorite issues: bodily functions, bodily fluids and sex. Helen meticulously describes all sorts of sexual practices (involving men, female prostitutes and avocado stones) while expressing contempt for personal hygiene. Her attitude reflects Roche's own stand against the clean, waxed and odorless female beauty ideal propagated by the advertising industry and popular TV shows, such as former swimsuit model Heidi Klum's Germany's Next Top Model. "There are all these ads suggesting that you always have to smell as if you just came out of the shower and that otherwise you can't have sex," says Roche, a former music television presenter.

Roche's book is no isolated phenomenon. Feminism, which many German women have long considered the domain of unglamorous, joyless man haters with bad haircuts, suddenly seems sexy again — in the most basic sense of the word. A series of books with titles such as We Alphagirls; Why Feminism Makes Life Better, and Neue Deutsche Mädchen (New German Girls) has cropped up this year. Despite stylistic differences, the books have one thing in common: their authors espouse a feminism that is less interested in a general critique of male-dominated society than in helping women deal directly with sexuality and their everyday lives. "I think it is important that as a woman, you talk about your sexual organs," says Roche, 30. And when these young women do so, they don't mince their words.

Behind the explicit language, personal tone and sometimes infantile humor of these "new German girls" lies a set of concerns that is more visceral — if also more self-absorbed — than a previous generation's fight for equality and respect. "This generation of women dares to declare that there are other things in life than either career or children," says Christel Eckhart, a sociologist and professor of gender studies at Kassel University. This is not entirely new. Since the late 1990s, Berlin's vibrant musical underground has featured women who undermine gender clichés through in-your-face sexual behavior. The Berlin-based Canadian musician Peaches and the all-woman band Chicks on Speed are known for explicit lyrics and the use of sexual paraphernalia on stage. But what was a subcultural phenomenon may now be finding its way into the mainstream. Months before Roche's book was published, 27-year-old German-Turkish rapper Lady Bitch Ray caused a media scandal in a TV interview that included "74 sex words in 75 minutes," by the count of Bild, the tabloid newspaper. TV host Harald Schmidt was prompted to nominate the factions in a new German Kulturkampf: "The shaved against the unshaved, the washed against the unwashed."

The real antagonism, however, lies elsewhere. Traditional feminists such as Alice Schwarzer, a pioneer of the German women's movement in the 1970s, have condemned the latest feminists for being interested only in "their personal affairs: that is, career and men." Yet many young women say that Schwarzer does not speak for them anymore. "We need a new feminism," says Elizabeth Raether, one of the authors of Neue Deutsche Mädchen. "The old feminism is influenced by the language, the rhetoric and the thinking of the '68 ers. It's a problem to get rid of them. They think because they invented the generational conflict, they are going to be spared by it."

One source of generational discord is pornography. Schwarzer initiated the PorNo campaign in 1987 to fight for a ban on porn. Roche, by contrast, says "I get a lot out of good porn," and calls traditional feminism "joyless." Somewhere in the middle stands Ariadne von Schirach, author of the book Der Tanz um die Lust (The Dance Around Lust), who decries "the pornographization of society" and wants to free female sexuality from the pressures of a world where easily consumable porn is supplanting eroticism. "I'm not against pornography," says Von Schirach. "I'm against people selling butter or cell phones with a woman who looks like she is going to have sexual intercourse within the next three seconds."

Some of the issues motivating younger German feminists are far from new. Eckhart says this is "a generation of women who are better educated than any other before them," but who still face structural disadvantages and discrimination. Today's thirtysomethings, she says, have grown up with a rhetoric of equality. "But when they enter the job rat race, they realize that this is not the reality." Jana Hensel, Raether's co-author, writes that when she started an internship at the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel in 2003, she was shocked to find that there was only one woman among the "almost 20 editors discussing the state of the country."
Eckhardt argues that the German workplace has "a lot of catching up to do" with European neighbors like France or Belgium on such issues as equal wages, promotion prospects and daycare. In 2006 German women earned 22% less than their male counterparts, according to Eurostat, making Germany's wage gap the widest in Europe after those of Slovakia and Cyprus. And the proportion of management positions held by women — 15% — remains below the European average.

Why has Germany lagged behind other nations? Hensel says that the women's movement was put on hold for years while Germany concentrated on the challenges of unification. "Gender studies were being taught at university," adds Meredith Haaf, one of the authors of Alphagirls, "but that was all very theoretical." That ideological interlude is now over. Ursula von der Leyen, Family Minister in Angela Merkel's coalition government, has initiated reforms aimed at getting fathers to take parental leave, and expanding child-care services. With women's rights before a broader German public, Roche's book appeared at a good time. Now the question is whether her frank talk will advance gender equality or simply fade into a trivial cultural memory.

Source: Time

A Hopeless Case' - German Family Minister Slammed For Comments On Feminism

Intellpuke: The following article makes reference to a Spiegel interview with German Family Minister Kristina Schroder. That interview is posted below this article.

 
In an interview with Spiegel published on Monday, German Family Minister Kristina Schroder challenged several central beliefs of feminists. Politicians and leading feminists are not impressed. Leading women's rights activist Alice Schwarzer says she is unqualified for her job.

There is little doubt that Germany is not the easiest place to live and work if you are a woman. According to statistics released earlier this year, women earned an average of 23.2 percent less than men in 2008 -- a number that has been going up in recent years. There is also an extreme paucity of female executives at leading German companies.

Indeed, the situation is such that European Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding saw fit to censure Germany in March. "In economic terms," she said, "Germany is one of the most developed countries. As such, it should be a good role model rather than a straggler. I expect more ambition and more drive."

Given such a background, the biting criticism of German Family Minister Kristina Schroder, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, this week is perhaps unsurprising. In an interview with Spiegel published on Monday, Schroder, 33, expressed opposition to the idea of legally mandating a certain percentage of women in executive positions. She also gave short shrift to concerns over unequal pay.
"The reality looks like this: Many women like to study German and humanities; men, on the other hand, electrical engineering -- and that has consequences when it comes to salaries," she said.
'Crude and Antiquated'


Schroder also dismissed feminists by saying "I don't agree with a core statement by most feminists, the statement by Simone de Beauvoir: 'One is not born a woman, one becomes one.' Even as a schoolgirl I wasn't convinced by the claim that gender has nothing to do with biology and is only shaped by one's environment."

Her comments have not been universally well received. Renate Kunast, co-floor leader of the Green Party in parliament, said she was "flabbergasted" by Schroder's interview and said her comments on feminism were "crude and antiquated." She accused Schroder of having a "split personality -- another word for schizophrenic."

Manuela Schwesig, deputy head of the center-left Social Democrats, also blasted Schroder. "I haven't read so much nonsense in connection with women's issues in a long time," she said. "Ms. Schroder has absolutely no understanding of the historical significance of feminism." She also accused Schroder of having "no idea" about the very real problems facing women today.

Perhaps the fiercest broadside, though, came from Alice Schwarzer, Germany's leading feminist voice and the editor of the influential women's magazine Emma.

In her interview, Schroder took direct aim at Schwarzer, saying "I have read a lot of her work -- first 'The Little Difference,' later 'The Big Difference' and 'The Answer.' I found all these book very well argued and worth reading. But I found that many of her theories went too far. For example that heterosexual intercourse was barely possible without the submission of the woman. I can only say to that: Sorry, that's wrong."
 
'A Hopeless Case'
 
Responding to a question as to whether feminists oppose relationships between men and women, Schroder said: "There was indeed a radical movement that argued in this way and saw being lesbian as a solution. I didn't find it very convincing that homosexuality should be the solution to the problem of women being disadvantaged."

An open letter published by Schwarzer on Monday didn't mince words. "Whatever the chancellor's motives were in choosing you to become minister of family and women's issues, competence and empathy for women was certainly not it," Schwarzer wrote.

In response to Schroder's direct accusation, Schwarzer said that the minister was referring to something she had written in 1975 and that Schroder had both misinterpreted what she wrote then and ignored what she has written since. Schwarzer accuses Schroder of using "cheap clichés" and says she is "a hopeless case. Simply unqualified."

Still, Schroder has managed to find some support. "I think Mrs. Schroder is right," said Silvana Koch-Mehrin, of the business-friendly Free Democrats. "We are now far beyond the classical definition of feminism."

Source: Time

Here is the SPIEGEL interview with Ms. Schroder.
 
Interview With Germany's Family Minister - Women Need To Get Much More Self-Confident And Tough'
In a SPIEGEL interview, German Family Minister Kristina Schroder, 33, of the conservative Christian Democrats, discusses the shortcomings of feminism, how she plans to help disadvantaged schoolboys and why women don't want wimps as partners.
 
SPIEGEL: Frau Schroder, we took a look at your high school newspaper.
 
Schroder: Oh God, here we go …
 
SPIEGEL: It contains a sentence in which you say you never want to become a feminist. What was so bad about them?
 
Schroder: Nothing, but I don't agree with a core statement by most feminists, the statement by Simone de Beauvoir: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one." Even as a schoolgirl I wasn't convinced by the claim that gender has nothing to do with biology and is only shaped by one's environment.
 
SPIEGEL: Did you have real feminists in your school?
 
Schroder: Of course. My best friend for example still believes in the thesis I mentioned, she teaches feminist theory at university and still votes for the Greens. But that of course doesn't change the fact that she is and will remain my best friend.
 
SPIEGEL: Were there other differences, for example regarding the clothes you wore?
 
Schroder: I never wanted to express my independence by dressing in a particularly masculine way or appear particularly boyish. For me emancipation will only be truly reached if a woman can wear makeup and skirts without having her abilities doubted as a result.
 
SPIEGEL: Did you wear miniskirts and high heels when you were a school girl?
 
Schroder: That's not my style but I have indeed always liked to dress in a feminine way.
 
SPIEGEL: And you were never worried that by doing so you were submitting to the clothing rules of a patriarchal society?
 
Schroder: To be honest: No!
 
SPIEGEL: What do you think about (prominent German feminist) Alice Schwarzer?

 

Schroder: I have read a lot of her work -- first "The Little Difference," later "The Big Difference" and "The Answer." I found all these book very well argued and worth reading. But I found that many of her theories went too far. For example that heterosexual intercourse was barely possible without the submission of the woman. I can only say to that: Sorry, that's wrong.
 
SPIEGEL: Why?
 
Schroder: It is absurd if something that is fundamental for humanity and for its survival should in itself be defined as submission. That would mean that society can't carry on without the submission of women.
 
SPIEGEL: Did you think feminists fundamentally oppose relationships between men and women?
 
Schroder: There was indeed a radical movement that argued in this way and saw being lesbian as a solution. I didn't find it very convincing that homosexuality should be the solution to the problem of women being disadvantaged.
 
SPIEGEL: What do you think: has feminism made women happier?
 
Schroder: Good question. I think that the early feminism at least overlooked the fact that partnership and children can provide happiness. It isn't the only way but for very many people it is the most important way.
 
SPIEGEL: Is there such a thing as conservative feminism?
 
Schroder: Such artificial terms don't mean much to me. For me conservatism means accepting reality. The Left wants to re-educate people. We acknowledge that there are differences, also between men and women.
 
SPIEGEL: One of your first acts in office was to set up a department for the victims of feminism.
 
Schroder: I'm sorry but there is no department with such a name in my ministry.
 
SPIEGEL: A department for boys. Who gave you this funny idea?
 
Schroder: What's funny about it? I always thought we have badly neglected issues concerning boys and men. It's a fact that it used to be Catholic working class girls from rural areas who had the biggest problems in school. Now it's boys from low-education backgrounds.
 
SPIEGEL: How would you like to help boys?

 

Schroder: I want to make sure for example that there are more male staff in nurseries and elementary schools. Boys brought up by single mothers often don't get to see a man, either in the nursery or elementary school, until they're 12 years old.
 
SPIEGEL: Is that so bad?
 
Schroder: Yes. If one assumes that men and women are different then there's a lot to suggest that children benefit from being with both genders. For example a friend of mine who is a single mother keeps telling me that her little daughter wants to spend a lot of time with people she knows, uncles and brothers. She simply lacks a father figure in her everyday life.
 
SPIEGEL: What other help can boys be given?
 
Schroder: We must review what is taught in nurseries and schools to assess if fit takes enough account of the needs of boys. To put it in an exaggerated way: do we give enough dictation with football stories? That interests boys. Or is always just about butterflies and ponies?
 
SPIEGEL: Apparently they often deal with butterflies.
 
Schroder: It's a fact that boys are worse at school than girls, more of them go to secondary modern schools (the lowest tier of high school in Germany), and they have to repeat the school year more often.
 
SPIEGEL: That's nice of you.
 
Schroder: That's just the way I am.
 
SPIEGEL: We had the impression that men get along quite well without your help. Of the 185 management board members of DAX-listed blue chip companies in Germany, 181 are men.
 
Schroder: But I think it would be really rotten to tell boys that schools won't cater for them properly because men have unquestionably been dominant for thousands of years. A feminism that deliberately neglects boys is immoral in my opinion.

'A Quota Always Amounts to a Failure of Politics'
 
SPIEGEL: But you are the women's issues minister and not the men's minister, and you are responsible for promoting women in society. Why didn't you start demanding quotas for women in leadership positions long ago?
 
Schroder: Because a quota always amounts to a failure of politics. For me, economics is first and foremost the ability to act freely without state rules. That's why I believe quotas should only be used as a last resort. In fact, I am certain that we do not need quotas -- especially not in a time when we have a growing shortage of qualified workers. Companies are already asking head hunters to find women for top positions.
 
SPIEGEL: At the end of the day, economic freedom is more important to you than the goal of bringing more women into leadership positions?
 
Schroder: You also have to ask yourself which women would profit from a quota -- probably those who have no family obligations whatsoever. But aren't women with families precisely the people we want to help? That's why we should, if at all, theoretically introduce a quota for mothers, which would be impossible in practice.
 
SPIEGEL: If you don't want any quotas, could you at least help women out by banning wage disparities for the same work -- the so-called gender pay gap?
 
Schroder: That has already long been forbidden by the General Equal Treatment Act. But the reality looks like this: Many women like to study German and humanities; men, on the other hand, electrical engineering -- and that has consequences when it comes to salaries. We cannot prohibit companies from paying electrical engineers more than people with German literature degrees.
 
SPIEGEL: So women themselves are responsible for the fact that they earn less?
 
Schroder: At the very least, they need to be conscious of the fact that certain earnings potential is attached to specific career choices.
 
SPIEGEL: So there is no real disadvantage for women when it comes to payment?
 
Schroder: Of course there is, and in multiple regards. First, women are often years behind if they take time out from their careers for the family. Second, women who work part-time earn an average of 6.5 percent less than men. On top of that, many women are simply bad at negotiating (their salaries). Many are happy if they succeed in returning to professional life. The main thing for them is that their job is at least somewhat compatible with their family life. But that's exactly where they are wrong. We, as women, often believe that we have to endear ourselves by acting modestly. But that leads personnel directors to think: Anyone who gives themselves away so cheaply cannot be very good. On that point, women need to get much, much more self-confident and tough.
 
SPIEGEL: As a minister, you have an advantage when it comes to your salary. It is stipulated.
 
Schroder: That's true. I am happy that I didn't have to negotiate that.
 
SPIEGEL: Do you share the opinion of your predecessor, Ursula von der Leyen, that equality can only be considered to have been achieved when average women are in positions of leadership?
 
Schroder: That's a good point. It is indeed the case that women often have to be much better at their jobs than men in order to get the position they desire.
 
SPIEGEL: Studies have shown that women aren't particularly interested in placing their careers before their personal lives. You yourself became a government minister early on in your career. What's your feeling? Do careers make people happy?
 
Schroder: Not careers alone. A successful professional life and joy in work are certainly a part of it, but I couldn't be happy without a fulfilling private life.
 
SPIEGEL: As you were graduating from high school, you said you would like to have a family and children. Now you are 33, you're a government minister and you have no children. Was it worth it?
 
Schroder: You don't seriously believe that I am going to answer that question, do you?
 
SPIEGEL: Well, you are the family minister.

 

Schroder: Would you ask the health minister when he last had a preventative medical check-up?
 
SPIEGEL: We wouldn't have any problem doing so.
 
Schroder: Yeah, right.
 
SPIEGEL: Can a government minister take parental leave after having a child?
 
Schroder: So far, there hasn't been a case of that yet. One thing that is certain is that a member of parliament cannot because of constitutional factors. After all, they are directly elected by the people.
 
SPIEGEL: Your husband is a senior official in the Interior Ministry. Who will have to stay at home if the two of you have children?
 
Schroder: That is a decision that we will make together if it comes to that point.
 
SPIEGEL: You got married in early 2010. Why did you opt to take your husband's last name?
 
Schroder: I'd made up my mind to do so long before becoming a minister.
 
SPIEGEL: Still, there are women who claim that keeping your own last name after getting married is a sign of emancipation.
 
Schroder: That's really a matter of personal preference.
 
SPIEGEL: Don't you think that having a family minister who shares information about her own family life is just something that goes with the territory?
 
Schroder: I don't consider that to be an obvious given, but I will grant you one thing: There is no denying that, when it comes to family policies, you are dealing with very private issues. Still, my husband and I decided that we didn't want to make our private lives a matter of public discussion. What's more, I also wanted to get away from having a minister who pretends to be a certain type of role model. I don't want my life to serve as an example for anyone.

SPIEGEL: Your predecessor in office, current Labor Minister -- and mother of seven -- Ursula von der Leyen, didn't seem to have any problems with playing that role.

Schroder: That's not true. She was also very conscious about setting her own boundaries.

'Things Have Gotten Very Rough for Men'

SPIEGEL: Where do you personally believe the boundaries of equality should lie? For example, did you ever have a problem with allowing a man to pay for your dinner? 

Schroder: No. I interpret that as being a nice gesture, just like holding the door open for me. Still, these days, things are much less dogmatic that they once were. And for that very reason, we can once again be a bit more relaxed about finding such things nice. That's undoubtedly one of the privileges of my generation.

SPIEGEL: So, who does the cooking at your house?

Schroder: If I were to tell you that I'm the one who does all the cooking, you'd interpret it as me trying to be some kind of role model. And if I were to say that my husband does all the cooking, you'd say: "Ah, so that's how it is with family ministers."

SPIEGEL: So, who does do the cooking? You've already admitted to being a big fan of baking.

Schroder: I'm also a big fan of cooking. I just recently made veal cheeks. It's a pretty involved process: You have to braise them in red wine for two and a half hours.
 
SPIEGEL: Do you have any sympathy for the modern man who feels a bit insecure about things? On the one hand, they're expected to be loving, devoted family men; on the other hand, women don't like wimps.
 
Schroder: Things have gotten very rough for men -- but for women, too. For men, the problem is varying expectations about roles. When it comes to women, though, our perfectionism gives us a lot of grief. Women want to be super moms, super partners and super performers at work -- and all at the same time. That's stressful.
 
SPIEGEL: Who are the kind of men that the rest of us men should look up to as role models?
 
Schroder: For me, a male role model would be a man who, despite holding a leadership position, has the courage to say that he wants to reschedule a 7 p.m. meeting for 4 p.m. because he'd really like to be able to put his son to bed. I guarantee you that a man who did that would be loved by all the women in the company. We need to finally bid farewell to this typical German "presence culture." In the end, the person who sits at his or her desk the longest is not necessarily the best. In fact, he or she might also be the least efficient. It's also often the case that people with family responsibilities are particularly productive at work.
 
SPIEGEL: Most of the women of your generation grew up with posters of New Kids on the Block and Take That hanging on the wall. But you had one of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. Did you find him sexy?
 
Schroder: This whole thing about the Kohl poster is just a rumor that won't die. During the 1998 election campaign, I had a poster on my wall from the Young Christian Democrats. Its caption was "Keep Kohl!" and it was a picture of an elephant standing in Wolfgangsee (an Austrian lake near Salzburg where Kohl often went on holiday while he was chancellor). There wasn't a single image of Helmut Kohl on the poster. I thought the poster was funny.
 
SPIEGEL: In any case, even when you were only a girl, you already thought Kohl was great. Why?
 
Schroder: I was fascinated by the role he played in Germany's reunification. The way he courageously seized this opportunity was unparalleled. What a sensational statesman!
 
SPIEGEL: Were you already so aware of such things when you were only 12 years old?
 
Schroder: I'm not sure if I would have said it the same way back then. And when I look at 12-year-olds today, I wonder what was going on with me at that age. Still, I wasn't the only one who was fascinated by the fall of the Berlin Wall. That was a truly moving moment in German history. At the time, I would record television shows about politics on VHS cassettes in the belief that it was exciting and worth preserving for posterity.
 
SPIEGEL: You were a downright freak!
 
Schroder: I was just completely enthralled, 12-year-olds can get like that. For example, I learned the names of all the members of the cabinet by heart.
 
SPIEGEL: Just one more question, and a serious one: Would a career like the one you've had be possible in Germany if it weren't for feminism?
 
Schroder: No. Before feminism, that would have been impossible.
 
SPIEGEL: Minister Schroder, we thank you for this interview.

(Video) HYPERGAMY in Feminist Societies

Hypergamy (colloquially referred to as marrying up) is the act or practice of seeking a spouse of equal or higher socioeconomic status, or caste status than oneself.
The term is often used more specifically in reference to a perceived tendency amongst human cultures for females to seek or be encouraged to pursue male suitors that are comparatively older, wealthier or otherwise more privileged than themselves. Hypergamic behaviours can be explained in terms of genetic economic necessity, in which societies with high levels of gender inequality are more likely to have women who "marry-up" for the benefit of their children, and more likely to have men who "marry-down" to ensure that their mates have a higher incentive to remain faithful.
The word "hypogamy" typically refers to instances of the inverse occurring: marrying a person of lower social class or status.

Hypergamy: women only marry upward, never downward..even in 3rd world countries.

However, feminists feel entitled to a different kind of hypergamy.

(Video) Women Have A Shelf Life, Men Don't

A woman's period of highest attractiveness generally comes early in life, only to come crashing down around middle age. By contrast, most men continuously gain in appeal well into old age. This video explores why.

(Video) Why Marriage Is Bad For Men - The Marriage Dupe

The pressure for American men to make the mistake of marriage is profound. Through parents, peers, and various mass media, American men are bombarded with the message that marriage is a good thing for them. It is not. This video explores just the tip of the iceberg as to why men should avoid "The Marriage Dupe."