Aufschrei (noun):
- A cry of pain.
- A cry of rage or indignation.
This double meaning fits the #aufschrei hashtag very well which has been trending in the German language parts of Twitter for the last few days as women recount their experiences with sexism. How did it come to this?
Obviously, the sexism has always been present and despite this allegedly more modern age it has not gone away or even been reduced as much as some might want to believe. But the ultimate trigger for the current discussion were several recent news stories:
- A Catholic hospital in Cologne refused an examination to a rape victim because they didn't want to be "in the position of having to advise on possible unwanted pregnancies resulting from [...] attacks".
- Rainer Brüderle, one of the great unreconstructed Old White Men of the German Liberal Democratic Party who has been scheming for years to return to the party leadership has been accused by a female journalist of making a sexist joke at her expense.
- Another female journalist has reported on her experiences with the rampant sexism within the fairly young Pirate Party.
However, the discussion has grown beyond these individual stories. The same people as usual are trying to downplay the problems - but for the time being at least the women's stories are heard. Time will tell if this changes anything in the long run, but if you can read German now would be a good time to pay attention to the stories.
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