## // Feminist Critical Theory

When we talk about power and domination, we usually think of politics and economics. Governments. Corporations. Laws. But power and domination also influence things that seem more banal. The language we speak. What counts as "beautiful" and "reasonable". The way we love or desire.

A feminist critique of society starts exactly there. Where domination hides in self-evident forms. In seemingly natural forms. In work. In relationships. In our desires. To do this, it must combine two lines of critique. The critique of gender-specific oppression. And the critique of the central institutions of capitalist societies. Wage labour. Private property. The state.

In other words: it needs tools from two traditions. From feminism. And from Critical Theory.

#### Two Traditions That Need Each Other

Critical Theory is a tradition of social critique. Often called the "Frankfurt School". It has sharply analysed how capitalist societies function. But for a long time it was "blind" in one eye. It largely ignored gender. Its analyses were often oriented towards the male subject.

Conversely, feminist theory risks losing sharpness. If it only revolves around individual identities. And loses sight of how society functions as a whole. Both must therefore be thought together.

#### Three Fields of Feminist Social Critique

**First: thinking wage labour and care work together.** Those who only talk about wage labour overlook: this work would not even be possible without unpaid care work. No office routine without people caring for the children. No political business without people washing the shirts. No factory operation without people taking care of the meal after the shift.

In the classical conception of work, there is a subject and an object. Someone who does something. And something that is processed. A carpenter works a piece of wood. A programmer works on code. Care work does not function like this. Whoever comforts a child or cares for a sick person does not have a passive object before them. Both sides are subjects. The activity is intersubjective. Care is a relationship. Not a processing. This is precisely what makes the devaluation of care work explainable. It does not fit the templates with which we measure "real" work. The structural underpayment of care, education and housework is therefore no coincidence. But an expression of an unequal exchange relationship. Between capital and care work.

**Second: questioning gender norms.** What does "typically female" or "typically male" actually mean? Where does the idea come from that heterosexuality is the self-evident norm? And everything else is the deviation? Feminist social critique sees behind such gender stereotypes the enforcement of an unjust division of labour. Women* should take care of childcare. Because compassion and selflessness are supposedly innate to them. Men should occupy decisive positions. In politics and public life. Because intellectual and physical strength are supposedly innate to them. It is precisely these gender images that are currently gaining significance in the so-called manosphere. Also for younger generations.

As binary and impermeable as a social image that strictly distinguishes between private and public, the gender norms are also. Those who do not fit the unambiguous role ascription of man and woman – like homosexual, trans and intergender people – fall out. Are considered suspicious. And are perceived as enemies of the existing order.

**Third: saving universalism – without abusing it.** Universal values such as freedom, equality or human dignity are precious. But historically they have often been used as camouflage. European colonial history is full of brutal "enlightenment" and "civilisation". Of supposedly less developed cultures. In the name of universal values. While the colonised people were precisely not granted these values. A feminist critique must take universal values seriously. But must not thereby mean a violent compulsion to adapt to Western ideas. Instead, it is about insisting on the universal rights of all people. On the securing of basic needs. On a good life. On the absence of physical and psychological violence and oppression.

#### Deconstruct and Redesign

Feminist theory faces a dual task. It must question old self-evidences. For example, the idea that there is a fixed "female nature". But critique alone is not enough. Positive designs are also needed. What could coexistence beyond these self-evidences look like?

Both belong together. Dismantling *and* rebuilding.

*Key reference: Karin Stögner, "Kritische Theorie und Feminismus", in: Kritische Theorie und Feminismus (eds. Stögner & Colligs)*

## // Critique of Patriarchal Ideology

The most effective form of power is the one that does not appear as power at all. But as nature. When women* run the household unpaid, care for the children and look after the parents, this is not considered work. It is said: they do it out of love. Out of their femininity. Because women* are simply like that.

This is precisely the trick of patriarchal ideology. It turns a social fact into something natural. Namely, that a whole half of the population systematically performs unpaid work. Work that underpins the entire economic system. Into a labour of love. Into something that one does not question.

#### How the Concealment Works

Patriarchal ideology conceals its effect in two ways.

**It shifts relations into the past.** Gender roles appear as the result of a long history. As "evolved" as they are. That they are made and changeable slips from view.

**It assigns spaces.** Women* belong to the private sphere. Men to the public. Woman inside. Man outside. As if this were a biological necessity. And not a separation enforced over centuries.

Added to this is a more subtle level: the man is tacitly assumed to be the human being. When "the human being" is mentioned, it usually means the man. An example from medicine: clinical studies were conducted almost exclusively on men for decades. The results were then considered general. The consequence is still felt today. Women* die more often from heart attacks than men. Because they are taken less seriously. Diagnosed later. And treated worse.

The experiences and achievements of women* are systematically concealed. Social phenomena appear neutral. Although they are deeply shaped by male dominance. Sociology calls this *androcentrism*. A worldview that makes man the measure of all things.

#### Doubly Burdened, Individually Responsible

Sociologist Regina Becker-Schmidt captured this situation in a concept: *double socialisation*. It means: women* are expected to do both today. Wage labour and care work. Have a career and hold the family together.

The problem: both areas follow different logics. The job demands availability. Efficiency. Constant optimisation. Care work needs time. Calm. Relationship. Doing both at the same time is objectively difficult. Often impossible.

If it still doesn't work out, the individual woman* looks for the fault in herself. "I'm not organised enough. I can't do it. Others manage it too." What is actually a structural problem – a contradiction in the arrangement of society – is experienced as personal failure.

Added to this: that women* have historically been repeatedly pushed into poorly paid, marginalised work is not a law of nature. It is the result of concrete political struggles. This history is hardly present in collective memory. And that is precisely what makes it so easy to perceive today's conditions as "normal" again.

#### What Is Needed to Overcome It

Three levels must interlock.

**Recognition.** To see through what appears natural as socially produced. That "the woman* takes care of it" is not a biological fact. But a political arrangement.

**Coming together.** Nothing can be changed alone. Alliances are needed. Also across different experiences. With attention to the fact that women* are affected differently depending on origin, class, skin colour, sexuality. And a fundamental revaluation of care work is needed.

**Rebuilding structures.** Who controls the areas that sustain our lives? Housing, care, health, education. How much time do people have to spend on wage labour? Who actually defines what a good life is? Different answers are needed. Answers that do not centre strength and independence. But what we really need. Care. Connectedness. The recognition that we are all vulnerable.

*Key reference: Regina Becker-Schmidt, "Zur doppelten Vergesellschaftung von Frauen" (2010)*

# /1 Intersectionality of Ideologies

Antisemitism, racism, sexism, nationalism are enemy constructions. They rarely appear alone. They interlock. They reinforce each other. And they follow strikingly similar patterns.

Three patterns can be observed repeatedly:

**The world is divided into two camps.** There is "us" – and "the others". This black-and-white division allows no shades of grey. Whoever belongs is safe. Whoever doesn't is suspicious.

**Identity is created through demarcation.** "We" are what "the others" are not. One's own self-image stabilises itself by needing a counter-image.

**Social problems are given faces.** Economic crises, social change, uncertainty. Instead of explaining these problems structurally, they are blamed on individual groups. "The Jews are to blame." "The migrants are taking our jobs." "The feminists are destroying the family." In psychoanalysis, this is called *projection*. One's own fears and conflicts are displaced outwards.

## // How These Ideologies Fuel Each Other

Antisemitic images often come with sexualised overtones. For example, the stereotype of the "lustful Jewish man". Racist prejudices are charged with gender politics. Sometimes migrant men are portrayed as threatening. As hypersexual. Sometimes migrant women* are depicted as "oppressed" and "backward".

Gender images play a special role here. They function like bridges between different prejudices. Sometimes an enemy group is ascribed a threatening sexuality. Sometimes the exact opposite is accused. They are "unmanly". "Effeminate". Or asexual.

In this way, different resentments can be coupled together. Without it being noticed.

## // Why Antisemitism Plays a Special Role

In the tradition of Critical Theory, antisemitism occupies a special position. It is not simply one form of racism among others. But fulfils a specific function. It offers people a supposed explanation for complex social crises.

Economic changes. Breaks in modernisation. The feeling of loss of control. All this is projected onto "the Jews" in the antisemitic worldview. Instead of analysing structures, culprits are named. This makes antisemitism a kind of hinge. It frames other enemy images. Connects them. Gives them a common basic structure.

## // What Characterises an Emancipatory Perspective

Those who want to work against these ideologies face a dual task.

On the one hand, there needs to be a clear rejection of neoliberal promises. They understand freedom only as individual freedom of choice in the market. On the other hand, resistance to racism, sexism or antisemitism must not tip into a cultural relativism. A cultural relativism that trivialises violence or oppression. As long as it is justified "culturally".

The goal is a society in which diversity has a place. Without people being left behind in isolation. A society in which not everyone fights for themselves. But also no one has to merge into a group. That prescribes who they have to be.

*Key reference: Karin Stögner & Elke Rajal (eds.), Intersektionalität neu verhandelt: Kritik von Ideologie und Identität, Herder (2025)*