Alice Schwarzer stops: Without her, the women's movement wouldn't be where it is today

Despite all the justified criticism of Alice Schwarzer - her transphobic views, her exaggerated criticism of the headscarf, her harshness towards prostitution and pornography, her hypocritical peace talk about Ukraine, her tax scandal - she remains one of the most important people in contemporary feminist history. It is mainly thanks to her and her magazine Emma that the power imbalance between men and women was permanently discussed - and the resulting injustices such as wage inequality, pension gaps, abortion bans, and partner and sexual violence not only remained in the discourse, but were also negotiated at the political level, albeit with different results.

Of course, Alice Schwarzer could be extremely annoying. When she didn't let up in TV debates and chatted mercilessly - which was equally female self-empowerment and therefore a novelty in the public presence of women. When she kept focusing on herself. When she tried to let go of Emma decades ago and scared away her chosen successors so quickly that they couldn't even write. When she expressed solidarity with women, but betrayed women as soon as they loudly criticized her.

Nevertheless, this made it the trademark of feminism for decades, first in Germany and later throughout Europe. Without Schwarzer's energy and her commitment to universal women's rights, equality would not be where it is today. Just remember her disputes with the CDU politician Heiner Geißler. As a conservative, he stood for the classic family of father, mother, children, and Schwarzer wanted to break up exactly that. The two argued publicly, not without humor, because Schwarzer has plenty of it. Until Geißler - partly due to a sexism scandal at a CDU party conference in 1979 - changed his attitude and, a few years later, called for a more modern women's policy: recognition of parental leave in retirement, help for pregnant women in need, that sort of thing. The CDU was angry.

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What did Schwarzer do then? She captioned a text in the mirror with “Heiner Geißler is right”. She had already realized back then that feminism and equality cannot be achieved without men.

For many years, Emma has helped many women to find their way in a male-dominated world and not to despair because men told them that they were not equal. Schwarzer gave women a voice and often support. And the courage to move from private life to public life, to free yourself from “men’s prisons”.

Unfortunately, at some point she no longer understood the younger women and their view of the world - and turned them against her. Even with her own energy. So that women, younger and older, turned away from her. Now Alice Schwarzer and Emma are leaving the public stage; the unique women's magazine is being discontinued after 50 years. Schwarzer's time is over. However, those for progressive women and gender policy are not.