Review of Franziska Schutzbach’s book “The Exhaustion of Women” – Culture

“I was persecuted, yelled at, robbed and groped, (…) a few times I was threatened by acquaintances, others stalked me for an uncomfortably long time, but unlike many of my friends, I was never raped.” This is what Rebecca Solnit wrote in her memoir “Unseemly Behavior”, the creator of the unusually perfect neologism “Mansplaining”, which has long since established itself in this country. Her texts belong to the modern feminist canon with which the Swiss sociologist Franziska Schutzbach operates in her extraordinarily good book “The Exhaustion of Women”.

The exhausted, stressed out attitude towards life of many women, fluctuating between self-hatred and narcissism, is the starting point of Schutzbach’s analysis, “the feeling of non-stop stress, which especially female socialized people know well because of certain role ascriptions, expectations and power structures”. Where it comes from, who benefits from it and why it is a central obstacle to freedom is their topic.

In the past few years a process of particularization has taken place in the feminist discourse. On the one hand, probably because the actors now meet less in action and more often in the media, and then also in a great many different media. On the other hand, there was the so-called “intersectional turn”, that is, greater attention to multiple discrimination and exclusion mechanisms. With so many important aspects (representation, sexual violence, mental load, health policy) it becomes difficult to see the big picture, let alone take a perspective that goes beyond creating awareness and diversification measures.

Two measures in particular could really weaken sexism and misogyny over the long term

With “The Exhaustion of Women” comes a book at exactly the right time that provides relief. Franziska Schutzbach succeeds in bringing the extremely broad field of misogyny to a central point: the exploitation of emotional, physical and temporal resources that are culturally and socially attributed to women. It is exactly the right time because the political dimension of the exhaustion of the professional and private, largely female part of the population in clinics, nursing homes and private apartments around the world in the past two years can no longer be overlooked. The fact that the pandemic was a crisis in care work from the start has so far not led to any real upgrading of this care work financially, structurally or ideologically.

It is a particular merit of the author that the text is full of references to theoreticians such as Audre Lorde, Silvia Federici or Nancy Fraser, and is nevertheless also suitable for readers who have so far hardly dealt with feminist theory. After reading it, one not only understands the immense price at which femininity has to be paid and why this exploitation forms the basis of society and the capitalist economy. One also suspects that there are primarily two measures that offer a real opportunity to structurally and sustainably weaken sexism and misogyny and thus to achieve significant progress in matters of freedom and equality.

The fight against sexual violence, however, is precisely not suitable as such a primary goal. That is counterintuitive, it also sounds gloomy, but in principle there are only two types of women – those who can say the sentence “but I was never raped” with a mixture of gratitude and amazement, and those who can say that can not. The scandal that lies therein has often been referred to. Schutzbach, however, analyzes it as one of the many sources of excessive demands and expectations that only affect part of the population: the high probability of experiencing sexual violence is one of them human condition of all persons who are seen as female (not only those who are born with a biological female gender), which in turn “constantly requires them to assess situations correctly” – one of the many sources of exhaustion.

In Schutzbach’s analysis, women are primarily claimed as suppliers of care, sexuality and reproduction. In a certain way, the idea of ​​their availability can really only be ended by full physical self-determination. The right to and access to abortion – both of which are only guaranteed to a limited extent in Germany – would therefore be one of the two key emancipatory goals beyond any questions of identity. Only when women can no longer be forced to carry pregnancies to term do men really lose social superiority and thus also a basis for justification for abuse.

Above all, being a woman in patriarchy means living in the knowledge that mistakes are actually not allowed

For Schutzbach, women are also burdened by a millennia-old tradition of devaluation and invisibility: She sees the historical exclusion of women (and others) from the modern concepts of the subject as one of the central causes of exhaustion: “Because it led women ( …) have to repeatedly produce a kind of subject evidence and struggle for its raison d’être. ” This, so to speak, inherited poorer self-esteem, the impossibility to do justice to all the tasks that are assigned to them, are the great burden with which women still enter into economic competition with men today.

Being a woman in patriarchy doesn’t just mean having a tendency to have less money, power and freedom than the next man. Above all, it means living in the knowledge that mistakes are actually not allowed. Precariousness is a permanent female condition – also apart from street harassment or intimate partner violence, which by no means every woman experiences. “From the point of view of many women, mistakes prove their incompetence on a whole level,” writes Schutzbach, and this is not due to a supposedly female urge to perfect. Just making a mistake as a mother can result in severe social sanctions and even annihilation; But women are also less likely and less generous to forgive their mistakes in management or even as simple workers: “Many women react to this fear with double and triple commitment (…). This worry leads to countless overtime, physical and, above all, mental Expenditure. “

A large part of her book is devoted to the fact that women are intended as “social buffers that ensure that men and children can recover from the stressful world”, and that in the caring professions in which they are represented above average, the working conditions are below average. Work that is central to maintaining health, the prosperity of children and the dignity of adults is systematically underestimated and ultimately even despised. For Schutzbach, this is not just a moral scandal, but a failure of the system.

What is needed is a really fundamental revolution in the social time regime

Schutzbach is expressly not concerned with individual ways out, she rather thinks her way through the tunnel of female exhaustion, she wants maximum emotional, intellectual and, above all, political confrontation: “Being exhausted often means being away from yourself, no longer relating to yourself have, to things, to people, to the world and to oneself. That is why dealing with exhaustion (…) includes giving space to the longing for connection, joy and fulfillment. “

That is also the crux of the matter: Exhaustion arises precisely because women should be available for solidarity, affection, warmth, friendliness. In other words, for beautiful, important feelings that people need in order to survive – and to be productive. Schutzbach does not take the path of rejection, i.e. the withdrawal of women from caring for others. Rather, it demands upgrading. In a well-supplied society there would not only be enough gainful employment, education, warmth and living space for everyone, but also enough time and money to do all the work that is part of being human.

Without a really fundamental revolution in the social time regime, the (self-) exploitation of women, in families and care facilities, will never be resolved. Feminists and their allies must therefore do everything in their power to organize majorities for social change, because as long as society maintains its extensive availability of women, gender equality is not possible.

Schutzbach suggests the 4-in-1 perspective of the sociologist Frigga Haug for orientation. This stipulates that the 16 hours that adults are awake a day should be allocated equally to employment, cultural regeneration, care and housework, and voluntary work. That means halving the average working time: an idea that is as temptingly plausible as it is far removed from reality – and, one might add, should be thought of as a possibility rather than a rule. “Attacking exhaustion means defending our life, our love, our bodies,” writes Schutzbach. Your book is a martial arts script in the best sense of the word.