Esther Vilar - Part3

>>AS: Well, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe one should have said that earlier. It has been said too late. >>EV: Yes. Sure. >>AS: Because so far we have... yeah... >>EV: But you didn't have any opportunity to write so far. >>AS: I did. There isn't any lack... >>EV: You just said that. >>AS: No that... No, it's not exactly like that. I just said it's not that easy. Wait a minute! >>EV: Your colleagues, the other oppressed (female) journalists have given their best to hush up the book or to roast it... >>AS: Right. Right. >>EV: ...so you can be satisfied. >>AS: We were wrong because I honestly must say when this started three years ago I thought to myself, well for heaven's sake, what's up with this confused stuff, you don't need to respond to that, you would just be advertising it but it now seems like you came just in time for a society, that thinks some ideas that came from our corner stink and that you are propagandized to such an extent so that indeed you don't have to deal with your so-called ideas, that's not what I'm here for, but I think one has to deal with the fact that you are given such space with those stories in all the media and in the public in general. First of all. And secondly one finally needs to stop jesting, I mean I prefer laughing instead of being dramatic too, that fits my temper better... >>EV: Are you sure? >>AS: Yes, I am very sure about that. About that I am very sure. But this isn't the moment. I really think that your books, I have been through them again systematically yesterday, because I wanted to know with whom I'm dealing, I think that your books are so outrageous, such an insult, so infamous, that today I am really contemplating if women shouldn't inform themselves, should check if there can be filed a lawsuit against you because, and that's what I want to ask you now, if you would replace the word 'woman' in your books by the word 'jew' or 'negroe' then your writings would be fitting (ripe) for the "Stürmer" (right extremist newspaper in Nazi-Germany). You are not only... >>EV: You are talking such a mad nonsense. You above all knows that best. >>AS: That's not a mad...! You are... You aren't just a sexist, you are also a facist. >>EV: Yes, is that so? >>AS: I want to say that and that is a very serious accusation and looking at your personal situation it weighs even more heavy but I want to say that, yes. >>EV: I think your argument is a typical facist argument. That's how the facists argued at that time. With such words. I think we're not getting anywhere this way... >>AS: With what word? With the word sexist? >>EV: No. By using the most extreme formulation to add a label to someone. >>AS: That's not extreme. I am also not the first person to say this. It's not extreme at all. >>EV: Yeah, shall we... >>AS: One can prove that with your book ...if you say for example all women are stupid, all women let men work for them, all women do this and that, as well has been said all jews are cheap, all jews just make business with money, you know very well, I probably don't need to tell you, that those were, amongst other things, cultural results, that for example jews or blacks have been rejected in certain areas. >>EV: Ah stop it already with those ridiculous comparisons! Let's talk concrete here! >>AS: What do you mean by ridiculous? It's the same with women. >>EV: Let's talk really concrete. I want to tell you some disadvantages for men now and you should tell me what you think about them: Why do men get to retire three years later than women with the exception of public servants? >>AS: Five, right? >>EV: Three years. According to the new law three years. >>AS: I'll happily accept a correction. >>EV: There's the flexible age limit now. >>AS: Well, I suppose that you add motherhood to the equation, right? >>EV: Is that so? >>AS: You embarass me. I really don't know. >>EV: At that age you really believe that with 62 years of age you still have to take care of children? >>AS: That in the end everything is being added together. I don't know what law makers thought at that moment. >>EV: Well, that's one disadvantage so far which I am talking about. >>AS: And you want to cancel that? What do you mean that everybody should retire at 65 or 60? >>EV: I really don't care. I want equality for man and woman. >>AS: I would care. I'd like that too but I'd say I want retirement at 60 then. I wouldn't advocate the negative adjustment, and now you will talk about the military service, but instead the positve adjustment. >>EV: I said, I wouldn't care. I said, I wouldn't care. I am not in the position to decide that. >>AS: You don't care. Alright. >>EV: I just think that it is very unfair that men get to retire three years later than women and that's why... >>AS: I mean, they only work one third of the time. I mean, actually women should retire one third of the time earlier. >>EV: You really won't get away with this naive fallacy when dealing with me. Another disadvantage: For example that men have to do military service or alternative service while women don't need to. That you just, so to say, erase 15 months of their lives while women can follow their career plans. What do you think about that? >>AS: 15? - Isn't it one year? >>EV: 15 month. >>AS: Alright. I thought 15 years for a moment. I almost said: For heaven's sake! Another reform! Yeah, I can tell you what I think about that. First of all women get the children on their own and pause for years. First of all. So I think that this is compensated by the motherhoodthing. Not nullified but women accomplish quite a lot for society because the society can't ...itself, ...can't exist any further if someone isn't taking care of reproduction. The woman is, in biological terms, solely capable of pregnancy, nine month, the woman has been sentenced to social motherhood on her own, which means she raises ...she above all raises the children so those 15 month don't weigh that heavy. >>EV: Really? >>AS: And also, at this point, second part of the answer, I want to respond to you with what I said to the reform of the pension ...of...of the retirement pensions, to the age limit >>EV: ...also because of the kids. >>AS: There I'd say as well ...There I'd say as well I prefer the positive adjustment instead of the negative adjustment. I actually don't like the military that much and I think it's very sad that the... >>EV: Me neither. What do you think? >>AS: ...young men have to go there. So I am not going to be grotesque and say women should go into the barracks too but I can say at this point I hope that the young men don't need to go into the barracks either. There I am, just like you, for equality. There we fully, fully agree with each other. >>EV: Yes but it's just that society, especially the voters want ...do want this social basic order... >>AS: ...the voters, yes... >>EV: ...in which we are living here in West Germany and I think one has to respect that. >>AS: I don't have ...I don't mind the social basic order. We are on the same ground there. 0:33:57.500,0:34:01.000 >>EV: Yes and I think that the children aren't an argument because if someone has to suffer because children are being born then it is the man and not the woman because if a man becomes a father it means that he already got, so to speak, the ticket in his pocket for live-long jailtime because it means that he can never stop, if he has at least some sort of conscience, until he finally retires. So men have to sacrifice much more when children are born as women. >>AS: Yeah. With what... With what doesn't he stop? With what doesn't he stop? >>Ev: With work. >>AS: Well, for example there's an estimate of a federal German court, since we like to talk so much about our federal German ground on which we are moving, that housework should actually be paid, a fictional salary of 1800 Mark. Women never stop with that kind of work. Twenty years for a child. It takes twenty years to raise a child. Ok, I am not saying that men don't do anything... >>EV: Thank God! I wouldn't be surprised anymore though. >>As: ...and the phenomenon, which you ...which you are describing, you are somewhat right about that. It is true that women and men alike are being made unhappy with this conception of parenthood, of family, so that ...this fixation on each other, that women want to have children maybe even if they don't want them that much or something, that they think they need to do achieve that and that men need to make a career then and this whole pressure, you are somewhat right about that, it's just so that I now take the liberty... This all is conceded. It exists. There is machismo, there is a suffering from the male role, I know a lot of men who look into that subject subtly, right? But I just believe that in this society, as I have said, man and woman are victims, but that women are the victims' victims, that women are another step lower... >>EV: I know that you believe that. >>AS: ...that the housewife, that the wife of a worker, when he comes home after laboring the whole day and got insulted by his foreman, that he goes home and then says: "What?! Here! Why isn't my food on the table?!" and then there will be hell to pay, that she is even more dependant, that she is even worse off. That's what it's all about. It's not about saying men are doing fine. It's about saying that women are additionally a victim of a very specific discrimination and not only does society profit from that in a very abstract way, it does too because it's getting the children delivered for free and many things more, right? ...and underpaid work... >>EV: The society consists of men and women. You shouldn't forget that. >>AS: Right. The society in an abstract manner. Also every single man does profit from that. Every man that sits and reads his newspaper while his wife is washing the dishes. It's so trivial. So ordinary. >>EV: Now I am going to tell you about a newer research in Germany... >>AS: Yes. With source please! >>EV: ...published one year ago in the news magazine DER SPIEGEL and according to it the thing with the double pressure of the employed women is just a myth and indeed up to a big percentage rate because it emerged that men who have a employed woman ...first of all, nobody has double pressure because the children are not under the care of the woman who goes to work during the day, double pressure is already the wrong word, but that men who have an employed wife have to do 85% extra work just like the woman. They may indeed not always wash the dishes and so on... >>AS: But Miss Vilar! >>EV: ...but they do the gardening, they wash the car, they also do extra work which is important for the duration of the family. >>AS: But Miss Vilar the garden is being dug over once a year in spring and the dishes are washed every day. Please stop with that monkey business! And maybe they also change a tire twice a year! >>EV: I am sorry. That is an inquiry which hasn't been made by me but somebody else. >>AS: Yes. The two largest inquiries were made by Helge Pross (?), right? >>EV: Yeah. Right. >>AS: One, a year ago on housewives >>EV: Yeah, that is one... >>AS: ... and another one, three years ago, on employed women. >>EV: ...that is one of those inquiries. >>AS: I know the numbers. We can both check them again. >>EV: Yeah. Me too. >>AS: As I have said, one third of the husbands doesn't help their employed women at all, right? >>EV: They do something else instead. >>AS: No. >>EV: As I have said, they take care of their car... >>AS: So what are they doing? >>EV: ...you need that too. >>AS: Maybe they go out for a walk or lift dumbbells or something. That may be possible. >>EV: They take care of the children... >>AS: No. No. >>EV: ...they take care of the tax return, they go to authorities, that is... >>AS: Miss Vilar... >>EV: I am sorry. That is statistically proven. That's not something I am making up here now. >>AS: You are making that up! One moment! I can even see it in front of my eyes that research, ok? Doesn't help at all ...one third of the husbands doesn't help at all neither in the household nor with the education of the children. One third helps with one or two tasks like going down into the basement to fetch some beer or to dry up the dishes. One third helps with three or more tasks. I want to ask you to pay attention to the word 'helps', right? Best case, if men are nice, and nice men do exist, then they will help their wife. They never learned it differently. That's correct now. So they help their wife. They are gracious and help. By the way if they're not gracious and they don't feel like doing it, they won't do it, right? The woman depends on their mercy. But it always says men are helping women. This all remains women's work. A woman can work eight hours a day in the office or somewhere else, she still is responsible. She hears the ambulance sirens outside, if she has a child at home, and thinks: Hopefully that's not my child! She is conditioned this way, and you have described that also, you don't argue in a biologistic manner, right? You are not saying, if I understood you correctly, "That is so by nature" but you're saying: "This is our education." Right? >>EV: Yeah. Of course. >>AS: We have been drilled to be man and woman. The difference is, where we differ, I say the man profits from this drill and you say the woman profits from that drill, right? Correct? >>EV: I'm not only saying it, I am also proving it. >>AS: But how, dear good woman?! You are not proving it! You swim against the tide on your own and the macabre thing is that you can proclaim this light-heartedly and you even seem to believe it yourself. >>EV: Yeah, there are obviously still a few other people who believe that beside me. >>AS: Yes, but who? I am convinced to the core that your book is read by ...let's say about three quarters by men ...deeply ...is bought ...to the core. I don't know if there have been any studies. >>EV: You... >>AS: I can't imagine that women are reading this! >>EV: You can't? >>AS: Nah. >>EV: I know a few who have read it. >>AS: "A few"? Ok. >>EV: Who even liked it... >>AS: That's interesting. >>EV: ...you know those are not women who are in the public view, no journalist, but women who are at home... >>AS: Yeah, I know those as well. >>EV: ...and who know that they have the better part in life... >>AS: Yeah. >>EV: ...and what I accuse women of is not only that they aren't doing anything or that they abuse a certain situation... >>As: But I am telling you: They work! >>EV: That is easy because they are women. What I accuse women of is that above all they always whine and I think that is unworthy. This... This... >>AS: Who is whining? >>EV: ...This can't be. >>AS: Whom did you hear complaining so far? Where has one actually hear a woman whine? >>EV: So there are no women who whine? No women who are complaining? According to you? >>AS: No, women so far have only complained individually. Women could cry to their mother or to their friend... >>EV: That's what I mean, that individual complaining to the man. >>AS: ...but it has been said to each woman that this would be her very own private problem, right? That she is a *** who isn't satisfied with that. Until now, until a few years ago, it never has been said in public that this is a social problem, that there is a system behind it, that all women, if they just sit at home looking at their four walls around them and wash the same dishes everyday are not satisfied, are frustrated, have complexes, have minority complexes... >>EV: No, two thirds of all women claim to be happy, of all housewives. You probably know this inquiry as well. >>AS: The same study. Yeah. Right. Even though, you have to look closely here as well, Miss Vilar, this is relative. If you go and ask someone: "Are you happy?" First of all it is a question that implies a certain expectation, you surely are unlikely to say, if you can't escape the situation, "I am unhappy!" First of all. >>EV: That is a theory of yours. >>AS: Secondly. Secondly, that is a theory but now comes something ...now comes a hard fact: If you say "I am happy!" then you have to let the people define what they think happiness means and women are used to be being humble. Women already say... >>EV: Women have the right to their own definition of happiness and if they think of themselves as happy then I respect that and then I say 'In God's name! They think of themselves as happy, so they are happy. I can't dictate to anybody how he has to define happiness. >>AS: Yes, but Miss Vilar who is dictating something to whom? I, for example, never have dictated women anything and I think nothing is more cynical than some random standards that have to be established again or some frames you put around people whether they fit in them or not and I just can tell you I have spoken very, very much with women in my life, and especially in the last years, and I never had any interest in suggesting them something and if you let those women, who answer you spontaneously "Yes, I am happy!", talk for half an hour then you will hear things. Then you will notice that that what those poor women, and I'm not saying "poor women" in a pitiful way, that is our situation, call "happiness" isn't all that much. >>EV: Let the men talk too, then you'll see what comes out of that. >>AS: That is your privilege. You are talking with men. I take the liberty of talking with the other half of humanity now. It has been heard far too less so far and they are also 51%, too. We can talk about that too. >>EV: I talk to women sometimes too. You might be surprised. >>AS: Yeah? Well.