Is the World's Most Powerful Woman Finally a Feminist?

'Why the German leader is — finally — talking about her gender.

BERLIN — The day after the British Parliament voted down a deal on Brexit, with political instability dominating international headlines, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany sat down for a 45-minute interview with a journalist from the German newspaper Die Zeit.

They didn’t talk about Britain, however, or the future of Europe or even really about German politics. Instead, Ms. Merkel gave a rare and candid account of her experience as a female politician, her thoughts on feminism and how she has been shaped by her gender. It was her first time broaching the topic at such length in more than 13 years as chancellor.

Ms. Merkel is the most visible and powerful woman in the world: whether consciously or not, she’s served as a role model to women and girls across the globe, and as proof of the political heights to which a woman today can rise.

But she has built her political persona precisely by downplaying that female identity. When she was climbing the ranks of the conservative, male-dominated Christian Democrats in the 1990s, Ms. Merkel consistently sought to create a brand that transcended her gender, rejecting the label of feminist and opting not to vocally pursue women’s issues.

As she eyes an impending exit from political life, however, and contemplates her legacy — Ms. Merkel has announced that she will not run again as chancellor when her term expires in 2021 — her reticence to discuss such issues is clearly changing. The interview in Die Zeit is the clearest example yet, but follows a string of markedly more frequent comments about gender and women’s representation: The same day last fall when she announced she would step down as leader of the Christian Democrats, Ms. Merkel opined on the gender pay gap at an event; earlier that month, she’d called out the youth wing of her party for its disproportionately male leadership; that same month, appearing on a business round table in Israel with only men, she said “it would be better” if the next such gathering included a woman.

Those hoping for a full-throated embrace of the role of feminism in politics were likely still disappointed by the interview. Ms. Merkel drew a distinction between herself and those she considers real “feminists” — those who “fought all their lives for women’s rights” — and people like herself, who merely had to find “my way” to contribute. Throughout, Ms. Merkel suggested her importance to women came “automatically” — that is, by simply being a woman and being powerful — rather than from any specific outreach or advocacy on her part. “I rarely address only women,” she said. “The fact that women compare themselves to me arises from the fact that I am a woman and other women also sometimes face difficult tasks.”'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/opinion/angela-merkel-feminism.html?