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A MEMBER OF German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party has received support after she spoke out about vulgar and belittling comments she had been subjected to from another party member.
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Jenna Behrends made national headlines last week when she spoke out against gender discrimination within the party, saying that a member of the Berlin city-state’s government had called her a “big sweet mouse” in front of a group of people.
She said the same official asked another member of the party, using offensive language, whether he was having a sexual relationship with Behrends.
She told Bild that she had received “a lot of positive feedback” for coming forward.
The BBC reports that she said she had received ”party-wide solidarity” since she published an open letter in the Edition F website on Friday.
Peter Tauber, general secretary of the CDU, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday that remarks made public by Berlin Jenn Behrends were not an isolated incident.
“I hear about stories like these again and again, but without names. That makes it hard to do anything about it,” Tauber said.
We need a new sensitivity in all areas of society because sexism is not just a problem in politics.
Behrends hit out at the CDU’s Women’s Union for “shutting itself off” and addressing her complaint “internally”.
Behrends said that some of the CDU women members had painted as ”hungry for promotion” and “ambitious to get elected to chair the Women’s Union herself”.
The Women’s Union leader was quoted as saying Behrends was intimate with Bauer.
German news website Der Spiegel quoted Tauber as saying they had flirted before but decided to stay friends.
Shattering conventions
Merkel shattered party conventions when she, as a childless, Protestant woman from the former communist East, became CDU leader in 2000 following a long line of Roman Catholic family men from the west.
The chancellor, who has led Germany since 2005, on Sunday criticised German industry for failing to root out gender inequality on its own, in an interview with business magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
Citing the example of a quota introduced this year requiring Germany’s biggest companies to fill at least 30 percent of their supervisory board seats with women, Merkel lamented that executives in Europe’s top economy had to be forced into fair treatment.
“It is pathetic that in more than 65 years of the federal republic of Germany, it was not possible for the Dax-30 companies to get a few more women on supervisory boards on a voluntary basis,” she said, noting she had long opposed statutory quotas.
“But at some point there had been so many hollow promises that it was clear — this isn’t working.”
Merkel is expected decide by the end of the year whether she will run for a fourth term as chancellor in the 2017 general election.
- © AFP, 2016 with reporting from Cormac Fitzgerald
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Shows how incredibly removed he is from empathy with other humans and he’s an influencer? That’s worrying.
@Deborah Behan: if you’re being “influenced” by the like of him you need a reality check.
@Bourbon: Fool!
@Matt Beaumont: why?
‘Troll attention wh0re does something that outrages Twitter allowing journal to post same story twice in 2 days with different headlines for more clicks’ This will be 2018 journalism in a nutshell.
Not once did he make any effort to help the person. It was just a nature documentary for him. Stop letting your kids watch this tripe.
@Liam Byrne:
What exactly do you think he could have done to help the person?
@Liam Byrne: The guy was dead since that morning so there wasn’t much he could have done.
@Brian Ward: well, there was a lot more he could have done – nothing to save that persons life, but he could have called the authorities instead of filming and joking around!
@meatyslaps: He did call the police or rather he asked his guide to call the police.
@Walt Jabsco: Maybe not film them?
@Brian Ward: how did he know he was dead. Is he a physician. He had no idea how long he was there.
@Tom Tom:
I’m not defending him – filming the victim was in extremely bad taste and he fully deserves the public backlash he’s getting.
I’m just asking what exactly Liam thinks should have been done that would have helped the victim. Not much as far as I can see.
@Liam Byrne: The guide that was with hi said that the victim was there since morning so I assume (since the victims features were pixeled out) that it was obvious that he or she was dead for some time.
@Brian Ward: so it sounds like the guide found the body earlier and then brought the guy to it?
@Brian Ward: what could he have done? How about donating ALL the money he received in click-commission from his advertisers to a suicide-prevention charity?
FFS even his ‘Apology’ video is making him heaps of $$$ in advertising revenue!
@Dave O Keeffe: No, it sounds more like that this wasn’t the first time the guide had found a dead body and knew the signs of rigor mortise. He even says that a friend of his killed himself a few years back. The body was hanging so i am assuming that there was definite signs that it had happened long before the crew got there.
Anyway what does it matter? What really matters is that this Logan clown didn’t even have the decency to take off the ridiculous Pokemon hat that he was wearing after finding the body, his crew members couldn’t stop snig-gering and Logan some how makes it all about him and not the victim. Any decent human being would have shown much more respect in such tragic circumstances and made it about raising awareness of mental health and suicide rather than making a show to boost his own ego and ratings.
@Dave O Keeffe: I actually posted my last reply about 2 hours ago but the Journals word filters apparently consider the word s n i g g e r i n g to be offensive! The obviously have their filters set at the top snowflake level.
@Brian Ward: The filters are obviously automated, and it is quite obvious as to why it was blocked.
@Brian Ward: I always thought it was snickering
@Brian Ward: I don’t understand what you’re arguing about, I only asked a question. I am not going to watch the video because that helps this s(umbag
He’s got one of those heads you’d love to punch. Bellend
Ar$ehole – Youtube should get some criticism too, they should not have allowed it to go live.
@Eddie O’Neill: I think that the problem there is that there are so many videos being uploaded every second that YouTube can’t watch and verify every single one of them. They have to wait until someone flags it and then take it down.
@Brian Ward: it was flagged and YouTube manually reviewed it, said it was OK and placed it on the trending page.
@Richard Flynn: Ah well in that case the reviewer should get a bollicking.
Note how YouTube and Google have released a statement condemning it, but this video was on the top ten trending list 2 days ago. YouTube handpick their trending videos!
Just shows they would have had no problem monetising this if there hadn’t been a large public outcry. Now they are pretending they are just as outraged, they ignored their own terms of use policies for their golden boy. Makes me ashamed the lows people are willing to stoop to for a few clicks
@Cian Rynne: not to mention all the other very many violent horrible videos available on YouTube as it stands.
It’s so sad that this mans actions that were wrong are the focus and not a Forrest that is known for suicide. I see our government and agencies patting each other on what is a brilliant thing that less people dies on our roads. Will we have any one with the balls to tell us what our suicide rate is nationally and is it on the rise or falling. Having lost friends and family to suicide people in the right place are afraid to talk about the numbers
This story was run a few days ago on the journal
@Nick Allen: thanks for the heads up
Absolute braindead pri!!k that knows f all about living in the real world..
Most worrying aspect this was the support he received from his young fan base the defended him.
@Grimm: kinda makes you think what the youth of today are going to be like as adults…. mindless lil sheep.
It’s the media making a fuss , the guy apologized FFS
This moran should be prosecuted, teach this selfish git a lesson….
@Johnnie Sexton: For what? He might be an ahole but I doubt he broke any laws.
@Johnnie Sexton: Don‘t allow your children to watch that knob anymore!
No viewers, no money for the moron!
Plain and simple
You know your fooked when you piss off Japan!!!
@Warren Collier: you’re
have your say