The FDP politician Silvana Koch-Netzin has commented on a sexism incident with FDP Vice Wolfgang Kubicki on WDR. It’s not about exposing individual personalities, she told WDR on Thursday. “It’s kind of distracting.” She didn’t perceive Kubicki’s behavior as a problem. And that is exactly the problem.
Wolfgang Kubicki had irritated on Wednesday evening with statements about sexism allegations in his own party. After FDP politician Silvana Koch-mehrin openly wrote in her book “Now, where I’m already not dead” about the sexist experiences she had during her time at the FDP, Sandra Maischberger spoke to the deputy chief in her talk show.
She quoted from an interview that Kubicki gave in 2010: “I hit on my party colleague Silvana Koch-mehrin once,” he said. “We were sitting in a café in Brussels because somehow I had the idea of asking her if she wanted to become FDP general secretary.”
When asked about it, Kubicki only says: “It’s like that sometimes. You flirt and realize that the flirt comes back, but suddenly your partner is there.”
Koch- Mehrin told WDR that 20 years ago she asked her husband “to stop by after about an hour because I suspected there was more to it”. Today she finds it absurd that a woman should rely on a man to protect her.
In the Maischberger program, Kubicki described the situation from his point of view: he called her with the offer to become Secretary General, and she then made an appointment with him in a café in Brussels. “Then we met for coffee, and then I flirted with her,” says the FDP Vice. “All of a sudden there was a guy standing next to me who was three times my height and twice my width. And he looked pretty fit too. So I thought to myself, it might be better if you go.”
It’s like that occasionally. You flirt and realize that the flirt comes back, but suddenly your partner is there.
Wolfgang Kubicki, Vice President of the FDP
Al Maischberger asked whether something like this would still be conceivable today. “Flirting is still conceivable, I hope,” replies the FDP politician.
In her book, Silvana Koch-Netzin described other incidents in the party environment, but did not name any. “Hands on my knee, a soft grip on the shoulder. Gentle back massages, unsolicited. A smut here, a lewdness there, try what works,” she writes in it, among other things.
Maischberger asked Kubicki if that was still the climate in the party today. Koch-Überin has not been in an active position in the FDP since 2014. He couldn’t give an answer to that, said Kubicki, because he couldn’t understand what happened to women in the party.
However, since he and party leader Christian Lindner took over the leadership of the party, a lot has changed, and there are now ombudspersons. “It can still happen today, but it would have fatal consequences,” said Kubicki about the allegations. “People not only lose their offices, but also their reputation in the party.” (tsp)