A note on Angela Merkel’s review of Susan Faludi’s Backlash and feminisms East-West

Abstract

ABSTRACT Angela Merkel’s review of Susan Faludi’s Backlash from 1993 is an illuminating document as regards her relationship with feminism as well as with the media. She wrote it as Minister for Women and Youth, when a central task was bringing East and West Germany again closer together. Twelve years later, during the decisive election campaign of 2005, Alice Schwarzer’s EMMA, a leading feminist magazine, reprinted the review in an effort to style Merkel into a feminist and so mobilise disappointed female voters. Nevertheless, almost to the last minute of her four terms as Germany’s first female Chancellor, Merkel notoriously refused public identification with feminism.