For Cornelia Spachtholz, Renate Schmidt is a “political icon”, a “linguistic acrobat with an assertiveness” that she has always admired. But that the Jusos are said to be producing “Pipifax”, as Schmidt did in the Friday edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung has mentioned, she cannot understand with the best will in the world. The social-democratic youth organization has declared SPD General Secretary Arif Taşdelen an undesirable person at its events because he is said to have behaved inappropriately towards young women. From 2002 to 2005, Schmidt from Nuremberg was Federal Minister responsible for the Department of Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. Since then, at least in the SPD, she has been regarded as a pioneer for the interests of women. And now the Jusos produce “Pipifax”?
Spachtholz, 55, was chairwoman of the Working Group of Social Democratic Women (AsF) in Nuremberg for six years until 2022. With such a formulation “we run the risk of playing down facts,” she says. But that is exactly what you have to do about it. As crisp as the former chairman of the Bavarian SPD put it, you have to clearly contradict her at this point. “Women continue to be structurally and culturally discriminated against,” says Spachtholz, adding that a word like “pipifax” is simply not appropriate.
Is there now a clash of women generations in the SPD? In the SZ, the Nuremberg Juso Chairwoman Linda Reinke had advocated that women should be able to say “if they feel uncomfortable”. Taşdelen is said to have caused such discomfort among young women with tiresome attempts to make contact. Reinke said it was wrong for something like this to be automatically dismissed as a “snowflake topic for sensitive people”.
The Bavarian Jusos had already decided in September to forego Taşdelen at their events in the future, an unprecedented process. For Spachtholz there is a question: When exactly did the state party have this Juso resolution? She tries to get answers, but doesn’t get them. What is strange, when asked by SZ, the SPD state chairmen Florian von Brunn and Ronja Endres announced on Wednesday that they “found out about the decision at the end of September” and then had “several talks” with Taşdelen and the Jusos. But outside of this small circle, hardly anyone found out about the allegations.
“It’s thanks to the Jusos that this debate about sexism and discrimination against women is now being held,” says Cornelia Spachtholz, who for a long time chaired the working group of social democratic women in Nuremberg.
(Photo: private)
What is obvious, says Spachtholz: “It is thanks to the Jusos that this debate about sexism and discrimination against women is now being conducted.” Spachtholz himself worked in coaching for many years, the discussion now can encourage women inside and outside the SPD to “listen to their gut feeling”, to signal “when a limit has been crossed” – and when “the moment has come to get inside to seek support from the institution responsible for them”. Just like it happened with the Jusos. There, young women “dared to confide in someone”. What overcoming costs. Especially since you run the risk that someone will downplay their dismay as “Pipifax”. And in the worst case, make the decisions of the Jusos ridiculous.
It sounds very similar with Carolin Wagner, district head of the SPD Oberpfalz. “When several young women feel uncomfortable because of the behavior of a person with power status, that’s not a ‘pipifax’,” Wagner tweeted. It was “good that the women got in touch – far too often women withdraw after such situations. In the end the women are gone, the men stay – without being aware that their behavior has led to it.” If someone feels uncomfortable, it has “nothing to do with exaggerated sensitivity, but with the fact that the personal boundaries of that person have been exceeded”.
Maria Noichl also commented on the “Pipifax” sentence on Twitter. She is on the side of the women, “who became victims,” wrote the MEP, who as the AsF federal chair is the top advocate for women in the SPD. Anyone who follows up with her will first hear a clarification: she does not know any details about the Taşdelen case. In general, she is concerned with “the principle of victim protection”. For Noichl, this means: “When women say something was offensive here, then the first reaction shouldn’t be: Is she crazy again? The first reaction has to be to turn to the victim and ask the other side: Think about it, did you do something wrong?”
Facts have to be put on the table, says Brunn
In the Taşdelen case, Noichl is now holding the SPD state chairmen Brunn and Endres to task: “I expect that the party leadership will take action here and clarify things.” What also obviously annoys Noichl: Brunn and Endres did not openly communicate the Juso decision against Taşdelen within the party, even though they had known about it since September, i.e. for three months. Noichl calls for a presidium meeting on the Taşdelen case as soon as possible. Brunn and Endres urgently need to ensure that the allegations against the Secretary General are “on the table”. “I’m a member of the party executive in Bavaria and I can only say: So far I don’t know anything,” says Noichl.
He too would like “facts to be put on the table,” says party leader Brunn, by the Jusos. The fact that their decision against Taşdelen was not widely communicated also has to do with the fact that the Jusos themselves did not want “the people affected to be made public”. There was a “consensus” with the Jusos to keep Taşdelen out of the public eye, says Brunn. For this he informed the control commission of the Bavarian SPD. In the meantime, he had made the suggestion to the Bavarian AsF to clarify “neutrally and objectively” with consideration for everyone involved. He refuses to prejudice Taşdelen, says Brunn.