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In her book “The Patriarchate of Things”, the Cologne journalist Rebekka Endler advocates the thesis that many things in everyday life are designed to meet the needs of men, not those of women.
That calls for clarification.
During the video interview, the author can be seen in her apartment in front of a wall full of pictures.
That is the most beautiful wall in the apartment, she says with a laugh.
WORLD:
A few days ago your book “The Patriarchate of Things” was published, subtitle: “Why the world does not suit women”.
There are already many reactions to it.
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Rebekka Endler:
For me it's like an exam phase.
More exhausting than the Abitur.
I get a lot of encouragement, but also a lot of angry messages, with one exception only from men.
You probably haven't read the book, but you know it's all nonsense.
WORLD:
You speak of “patriarchal design” in the book.
What do you mean by that?
Endler:
You can find patriarchal design in the world of designed things and in the world of ideas.
It is a design that supports a certain - also historically conditioned - claim to power by men.
311 pages full of examples of discrimination
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WORLD:
As a starting point, take the “potty parity” - the design of public toilets and the question of why there are many free public urinals for men, but almost none for women.
How did you get into toilets?
Endler:
Deutschlandfunk commissioned me to make a contribution about it. In the course of my research, I met an industrial designer who told me a lot about equality using the example of public toilets. This is the simplest example of discrimination: men get free urinals, women have to look for a pay toilet. How can that be? Because of my physical condition, why do I have to pay 50 cents for something that men get for free? Later I thought that I should work the subject out bigger and offered it to various media. But all refused. It was said that there was no relevance. That pissed me off. And then I got down to this book.
WORLD:
You list on 311 pages everything that has been designed from the perspective of men and what women therefore have problems with.
The man, you write, is the measure of all things.
Can you give examples that were particularly striking for you?
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Endler:
First of all: Far be it from me to accuse anyone of deliberately designing patriarchally. That's not what the book is about. Rather, it was more about bringing the facts together. A few examples: Dummies for crash tests are based on the male body. You could even say that the whole car, including the security systems, is primarily made for men. This is proven by numerous studies, such as those by the US Federal Roads and Vehicle Safety Authority or research by the engineer Astrid Linder, who has just developed the first female dummy. Or: The seat of office chairs is usually tailored to the body dimensions of the average man, which can lead to back pain, especially for women. This is proven by Canadian studies and research at the University of Berkeley.Or let's take the dimensions and shape of racing bike saddles, which are also made for men. The British professional racing cyclist Hannah Dines was the first to speak out in public in 2019 after several operations on her vulva were necessary. The commercially available, non-sporty bikes have saddles for female butts, but not in professional sports.
“Pinky Gloves” as a current example
WORLD:
Have there never been protests from professional racing cyclists?
Endler:
They have been around since Dines made the topic public.
Since then there has also been innovation in bicycle saddle research for women.
The best example currently for me are the “Pinky Gloves”: A few men founded a start-up to manufacture pink gloves that women should use to throw away their tampons.
The idea was presented on the TV show “Die Höhle der Löwen” in order to find investors - male ones, of course.
Everything is contained in the idea, like in a nutshell: men design something that completely ignores the needs of women and get money for it from other men.
WORLD:
The founders have received massive criticism for this and have since withdrawn their product.
This shows that a lot has changed in the way men and women treat or should treat each other these days.
Or not?
Endler:
Sure, there is progress, especially in sports.
Around 2019, a number of women who love football got together and raised money with the help of crowdfunding to develop a female last for football boots.
There was no such thing before - women either had to wear men's or children's shoes.
In 2020, the first football boots that match the female sports morphology came onto the market.
WORLD:
If so many things do not fit women as you write - why do women not make the world fit for themselves?
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Endler:
At the beginning I actually asked myself: is it our fault?
Were we too lazy?
Or incapable?
If you look at history, you quickly realize that the world is full of women who have come up with clever inventions and designed them anti-patriarchally, only the resistance was enormous.
The first women cycling, for example, who were out and about in a specially made bloomers design, were spat at and pelted with stones.
All people benefit from equality
WORLD:
The line between the sexes is no longer as clear as it used to be. The traditional binary - the division of the sexes into male and female - has apparently become obsolete for some time. Nowadays, job advertisements are addressed to male, female and various interested parties as a matter of course. Discounters like Aldi use the expression "customers" - with internal asterisks. Not to mention the fact that there are different types of men and women, from male feminists to macho women who want to exercise dominance. What type of woman and man do you talk about in your book?
Endler:
I don't use a typology, but generally differentiate between social gender, i.e. gender, and biological gender, sex. When I talk about patriarchal design, I try to be precise: Who is being discriminated against and why? Women because of being a woman? So-called cis women - here are social and biological sex the same - because of being cis women? Or all non-cis-males because of their status as non-cis-males? This is important because patriarchal power doesn't just oppress women.
WORLD:
Your book contains hardly any suggestions for solutions, apart from the fact that you ask men to sharpen their awareness of where women might feel disadvantaged.
That should be difficult: How can a man develop a feeling for whether a racing bike saddle fits a woman?
Endler:
Admittedly, that would be asking too much. The only way to come to a solution here: You have to make it clear that all people - regardless of their gender - would benefit if there were more equality. And to do this, you have to start illuminating the blind spots. It's hard to look in the mirror in the dark. Patriarchal design doesn't just affect the world of things. Take health care as another example. When women come to a practice with physical symptoms, they are often told that their problems are psychological in nature. The publications by Bartley and Fillingim in the “British Journal of Anesthesia” from 2013 provide an overview of this. For men, it is the other way round: With them, complaints are often initially classified as physical,only then do you look in the emotional world to see whether it is possibly a question of depression. What I mean by that: The patriarchal world does not suit many men either.
The journalist and author Rebekka Endler lives in Cologne, where she was born in 1984. She studied social sciences and says: “Everything I know about people, I get from the waiters.” “The patriarchy of things. Why the world doesn't suit women ”(Dumont-Verlag, 336 pages, 22 euros) is her first book. A
podcast will be released in
autumn
, which she produces together with Vera Pache. It is about stories from the world of art.