Weimer’s gender ban: The main thing is the culture war – Commentary

Anyone who thought all the debates surrounding gender-appropriate writing and speaking had already been fully explored years ago was missing Wolfram Weimer. The new Minister of State for Culture (independent) has now reopened the issue, specifically in an interview with "Bild am Sonntag": He stated that he had forbidden his own department from using phrases containing asterisks or the capital "I" in official letters.

But it didn't stop there: Weimar now also demands that all publicly funded institutions follow his lead. According to the dpa, this applies to museums, foundations, and broadcasting.

Now, there are certainly a whole host of unpleasantnesses in the cultural sector that could be addressed with a bit of a ban policy. Facebook joke videos by Mario Barth, for example, or Labubus . However, Weimer is once again riding the dead horse of gender language. The past few weeks make it clear why.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) and his circle have apparently decided to regularly provoke all those they have identified as "left-wing nutcases" – the quote comes from Merz himself, specifically from his campaign speech the day before the federal election . And to do so, they are now either taking away their rainbow flag or their gender star and waiting for the corresponding reactions. It's not particularly imaginative, but the motto is clear: The main thing is a culture war.

It all began in July, when Bundestag President Julia Klöckner (CDU), notoriously committed to neutrality, strolled through the Bundestag offices in Berlin with a freshly brewed Nescafé (warning: satire!) and the Bundestag administration under her control ultimately banned the hanging of rainbow flags in members' offices (this, in turn, is not satire). Klöckner had already previously ordered that the colorful flag for diversity should no longer be flown on the Reichstag.

Chancellor Merz, who repeatedly uses talk show appearances ( keyword: "little pashas" ) to deliberately provoke, then upped the ante on "Maischberger." His surely very deliberate statement that the Bundestag is, after all, "not a circus tent" triggered the expected outrage. As did the gender ban now issued by the new Minister of State for Culture.

All of this is not only extremely banal, but also quite transparent. On the internet, this form of calculated outrage is referred to as "rage bait." And there's likely a broader agenda behind it.

In times of multiple crises, when a chancellor and his ministers are supposed to be standing up for social cohesion, they are digging the divides running through the population even deeper. To do so, they forcefully force culture war issues into the public debate, which are then debated for days.

Why? Perhaps to distract from misdeeds within their own ranks , perhaps to steal a few voters from the AfD—or to pave the way for a future coalition with it. The only problem is: If you allow yourself to be divided, the parties involved have already won.

Of course, there should be clear opposition when a politician like Weimar flirts with interfering with free broadcasting and imposing bans on public speaking – the German Journalists' Association (DJV) , for example, has done so quite clearly . However, one shouldn't jump through hoops either. Instead of seriously debating Weimar's initiative, cheering it, or being outraged by it, it would be better to call it what it is: a cheap trick. And then one can laugh at him broadly for it.

Many wise people had already predicted before Weimer took office that this form of culture war would face us in the coming years and that society would need a certain resilience in order not to be influenced by it.

After all, Weimer is no stranger to his mission. In 2018, the minister of cultural struggles already published a "conservative manifesto" in book form. And this much can be said: the "visions" described therein are not bearable, even if the sentences were consistently gender-neutral.