history – Pike & Hurricane

Do we ever learn? About the politics of recurring mistakes

Nina Kolarzik — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 09:25:53 +0000

“…it is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you’re attempting can’t be done.” ― Terry Pratchett, Equal Rites

A second world war, a second gulf war. Another outbreak of an infectious disease, an environmental crisis that scientists warn about since decades. Black Lives Matter does not only exist since last week and it is by far not the first movement against racism … it does not seem as if humans are capable of learning from mistakes. Or are we? Why are problems approached again, if people have failed before in solving them? And why is it important to make mistakes?

Learning from mistakes

A reason why people continue making mistakes is because we do not like to be wrong. In many cultures, for example in the USA, errors are avoided if possible. In everyday life, we have an internal sense of being right. This does become a dangerous problem, as an individual and a collective.

One reason why we insist on being right is because we might not realise when we are wrong. And another one is that when we realise it, we do not like the feeling of it. Culturally, we have learned dogmas about that successful means not to make mistakes. We learn that the one who does many mistakes is clumsy, lazy, does not work or study hard enough. We deal with this by becoming “perfect” and we are afraid of being wrong because it means in this situation that something is wrong with us, so we insist on being right. One example is Donald Trump: more than other politicians he always claims to be right.

However, being wrong is not a defect but it is something natural and fundamental to us. As humans, we are curious and ambitious and want to find out the truth and how things work. This is what drives us to produce things, to be creative, and it also includes failing from time to time. But insisting of being right can keep us from preventing mistakes.

However, when we realise and admit that we are wrong, we can learn from it. Learning from the aftermath of WWI, when Germans wanted revenge for the punishments they had received, the international community integrated Germany after WWII into the European society and included to build the European Union.

Acknowledging mistakes is an important step towards growth. How often was it said that we need to learn from the examples of 1945? What will the EU learn from the causes of Brexit? We explore mistakes and think about different solutions. It is important to make errors and study them, then we will also lose the fear of failure and embrace it instead. Productive failures enhance the learning eventually and if things do not work out, we come up with another idea. The more certain we were of a wrong answer, the more we remember when being corrected. This is probably because the surprise is bigger and we give more attention to the new information.

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” ― Otto von Bismarck

Mistakes happen to individuals as much as in politics. Take the COP15 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen 2009. Its results back then did not meet up with the expectations, and many tried to explain the failure. Years later, the Paris Agreement was signed and it can be argued that future negotiations have learned from the mistakes made in Copenhagen. Thin and thick learning has been taking place, means adjusting strategic decisions as well as expectations. Especially in international politics, failures are analysed to avoid future mistakes and blame.

From mistakes we learn and by learning we find new tools for another try. That is not to say that everyone will and it is not a promise for that the second try will work out. Or the third or the fourth. Bernie Sanders could tell you about that. Therefore, while it might seem like people do not learn from mistakes and do the same attempts over and over again like Sisyphos, they might actually have made adjustments with every new try.

Just as individuals, politics and foreign affairs, too, develop and change through the processes of making mistakes and learning.

Forget to learn

A part of learning is forgetting. It is a normal process and “necessary part of memory”. Contemporary research is increasingly treating learning, remembering, and forgetting as one process. Forgetting is not that information are actually lost from our memory, but it is not possible for us to access the information and remember it.

We are making memories all the time, intentionally or automatically. When we form a memory, the hypothalamus comes into play. It is one of many parts of the brain that is responsible for memories. It is critical for making the connections. The information that get to our brain through sensory systems (visual, audio etc.) are connected in the hypothalamus and synapses become stronger. A memory is created. The way we learn or experience things, how often we repeat and later actually make use of them, impacts of how safe the information is stored: in the immediate, the short-term, or the long-term memory.

Since this happens constantly, our brains would get literally filled up and overloaded one day. That is where forgetting comes in. After some time and if they are not “used”, the synapses go back to their former, lower level of strength. Information is captured and then the brain has some time to figure out what is worth keeping and what is not. The information that is considered boring or unimportant fades away to clear the mind for new information to be taken in.

The inference theory is a widely accepted explanation for why we forget: memories are interfering with one another. New information interferes with old memories, or previously learned information hinders forming new memories. The “forgetting curve” describes the relationship of forgetting to time. Most information is lost quickly, but if it is stored in the long-term memory, it is quite stable. Information that seems forgotten can be recalled or recognised when the memory is triggered.

What does the discussion of forgetting mean on the grand scale? Humanity needs forgetting to some extent to evolve, I would argue. Sometimes we might need to forget that someone has failed. If we forget it, or the severity of the consequences, then someone will try it again and at some point might succeed. This counts for fighting against social inequalities as much as for fighting a climate crisis.

History is the memory of humanity, as Golo Mann said. But knowing about history does not ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated. This memory might also forget certain things. Therefore, history can repeat itself. And earlier or later, problems are tried again after failure which is necessary to progress and arrive at something new.

by Nina Kolarzik

Photo Credits

Error 404, Aitoff, no attribution required

Earth hour, sumanley, no attribution required

Child, Tumisu, no attribution required

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FYI, the name’s Macedonia

Louis Louw — Sat, 22 Feb 2020 15:40:58 +0000

While recently scrolling across Google Maps to untangle the web of Balkan nations, my attention was caught by a newly etched-out national entity. Or at least so I thought. In truth, after some further investigation into the matter, what I had glimpsed was less a newly forged nation and more the latest installment in a longstanding dispute over the nomenclature of Macedonia, upon which both the “former” former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM and now North Macedonia) and Greece lay historical, territorial and identity claims.

Fast-tracking things a bit, this topsy-turvy dispute, which ostensibly spans all the way back to the conquests and spoils of Alexander the Great, took a new turn at the fall and partitioning of Socialist Yugoslavia. Ever since, both sides across the border have been involved in some feisty name-calling, with both sides refusing to back down on their claim over the cultural and territorial heritage of Macedonia. Underscoring this hard egg-or-the-chicken-first stance, a Greek veto all but barred the FYROM from ascension to the EU and by extension opportunities for development, growth, and prosperity.

Let them eat marble statues!

Fuelled by what it perceived as unfair treatment, the FYROM government ramped up its rhetoric by decreeing the fateful Skopje 2014 project, which was supposed to tie the FYROM closer to the glory of its, imaginary, epic past. However, this much derided project, which sought to remake the capital in the light of Greek antiquity, has left some to brand Skopje as the world’s “capital of Kitsch”. Adding insult to injury, the flood of neoclassical statues perched in lofty heights around the capital blew the project’s budget wide open in a country that continuously ranks as one of the poorest in the region.

Ironically, it was only by abandoning this bizarre showcasing of cultural appropriation and political escalation that a mutually beneficial breakthrough was achieved in 2018. Indeed, by re-establishing meaningful diplomatic ties, a formal agreement was reached, which consequently recognized North Macedonia as a nation distinct from the northern Greek province of Macedonia. In this instance, choosing the path of deescalation through dialogue truly paved the way for a better future for both parties. Bearing this in mind, can Skopje 2014 then be seen solely through the lens of the financial debacle that it undoubtedly was? Moreover, should the Macedonian government be considered the Atlas-esque bearer of all the brunt and backlash for its failure?

The M is for misunderstanding

One of the main reasons cited by Greek politicians for the controversy sparked by Skopje’s 2014 great leap backwards, was that the FYROM would potentially not only lay claim to what is seen as essentially Greek identity, but more importantly, that territorial aspirations on Greek soil would arise in tandem. This line of argumentation is reminiscent of the common trope of self-determination, which sees cultural imposition go hand-in-hand with territorial convergence.

However, what this line of argumentation fails to understand — and what I would suggest that the policy-makers behind the botched Skopje 2014 project failed to understand as well — is that the term Macedonia itself had semantically shifted away from the brittle aesthetics of antiquity to an entirely unique Slavic interpretation of the term long before the dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia. After all, Slavic populations had been lively in Northern Macedonia for well over a century while carrying the denomination of Macedonia. Therefore, if culture is what one makes of living practices understood in the more mundane configuration of everyday life and experience, how is it to be presumed that Macedonian identity as a concept was frozen in time and space before, during and immediately after the unravelling of Socialist Yugoslavia?

Get off your high horse, Alexander!

Therefore, I am putting the following proposition on the table; I believe that one can fairly assume that, had the Greek claims on Macedonia not arisen in the way they did — territorial integrity of the state at risk! — with the particular meaning they carried — cultural appropriation of classical antiquity as a threat!, then perhaps Skopje 2014 could have been entirely avoidable altogether.

This goes without saying that I am not tip-toeing towards a justification for its bamboozling execution. Rather, what I am suggesting is that by accentuating territory linked to antique culture from a uniquely Greek perspective, the breeding ground for the self-confounded chimera of embittered Greek and Macedonian relations was set to roost birds of exotic feather such as the Skopje 2014 project or the Greek “cultural” riots over ‘identity capitulation’. In this light, Skopje 2014 can almost be seen as the logical consequence of two nations engaging in foreign policy on equally egregious terms.

Instead of negotiating a compromise with consideration to the needs and wishes of everyday citizens on both sides of the divide, the Macedonian and Greek governments failed to live up to their responsibility to foster the well-being of their citizens. What’s more, they made things worse by clashing over dead concepts of identity that have little bearing on the everyday workings, experiences, and problems of the common (wo)man. To conclude, when Guy Delauney inadvertently states that Macedonia “might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb” with its fumbling extravagance, one may indeed ask how else to get Alexander off his high horse?

by Louis Louw

Photo Credits

Alexander the Great, Mite Kuzevski, CC BY-NY 2.0:

DSC_0069.jpg, mrhong42, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0:

Image, Rosino, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0:

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Les Gilets Jaunes: A Discovery of Revolution

Merle Emrich — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 20:16:18 +0000

Since the beginning of the gilets jaunes (‘yellow vests’) movement, a response to Macron’s planned fuel tax hike as environmental measure, it has become clear that the protests are not directed against green policies. The increasingly expensive fuel prices were merely the drop that made the barrel of social injustices overfull. In the wake of this revolt against neo-liberal policies references to the French Revolution of 1789 peak through in the discourse of newspapers and on the streets. But who – or rather why – are the gilets jaunes, and what do they have in common with 230-year old revolutionaries?

Do You Hear the People Sing?

Mass protests and revolts can be confusing, especially when they are led by a diverse, leaderless movement such as the gilets jaunes, leaving many underlying structures undiscovered until, with time, they surface. What first had been perceived as opposition to rising fuel prices, soon revealed much larger magma chambers of anger at social injustices, disillusionment with party politics, and dissatisfaction with France’s ‘arrogant’ ‘president of the rich’.

The existence of the people’s frustration and its eventual eruption should not have come as a surprise, however. The prelude to the gilets jaunes already began in 1983, when Mitterand’s government imposed austerity policies leaving the people worried about the state of their social protections. Since then the French welfare system has been increasingly dismantled by the following governments in which the Macron administration is merely the latest one.

‘The first social law is therefore the one that guarantees all members of society the means of existence’ – Maximilien de Robespierre

All the same, Macron having been elected by many as the lesser of two evils and his failure to emphasise with the regular people have not contributed to defusing concerns. During his election campaign, Macron portrayed himself as a politician different to the established career politicians of previous governments. Once elected, he – not very surprisingly – turned out to be just one more privileged mainstream politician by instantaneously amending the wealth tax (ISF) and continuing on the path of neo-liberal policies.

His unfortunate history of condescending statements towards working class people such as ‘You don’t scare me with your T-shirt. The best way of paying for a suit is to work’, or that it were easy to find a job if only one tried since ‘[e]verywhere I go people say to me that they are looking for staff’ have not helped in the least to create an image of Macron as the people’s man. In fact, especially in rural areas there is a lack of employment opportunities and Macron’s austerity project includes the cutting of 100 000 more jobs in the public sector. The people feel overlooked and ignored by Paris, and it is not only the poor who struggle with high prices of i.e. fuel but also the middle class.

We no longer want this system of exploitation.

We no longer want people having to sleep on the streets.

We can no longer count our money, be in debt by the tenth of the month.

And we are millions who are in this situation.

(Gilets Jaunes leaflet)

The Figure of he King and Rhetoric of Revolution

The gilets jaunes movement, sparked by an attempted environmental policy directed at those who already have troubles making ends meet instead of the actors mainly responsible for pollution, the big industries, is a heterogeneous mass. While uniting people with different backgrounds and expectations without a clearly defined leadership, and in part being targeted by right-wing groups seeking to use it as platform for their ideology, the protests have some clear general objectives. Their demands range from higher wages and social security payments over better (free) public services and a fairer tax system including the reintroduction of the ISF to more direct democracy and the resignation of Macron.

If you go to the city centre of any French city on a Saturday you will encounter a crowd of people with drums and flags, many of them wearing their high-visibility vests. And if you stop listening to the chants of ‘ Macron! Démission!’ (Macron! Resignation!) you might every now and then pick up a reference to the French Revolution. And indeed, since the beginning of the protest comparisons to the revolution of 1789 have multiplied. The yellow vests that the movement owes its name to involuntarily reminds of the sans-culottes: the ‘culottes’ (pantaloons) were a symbol of aristocracy in 18th century society, thus, the sans-culotte represented the anti-elitist movement of that time much like the gilets jaunes with their high-visibility vests which can be seen not only as a sign of distress (used e.g. in the event of a car accident), but also as a symbol of the working class, are the French anti-elitist movement of today.

And even though the socio-economic circumstances of today and 230 years ago are not the same, the themes are. Both the French Revolution and the current wave protests can be linked to an anger over high living costs (indirect taxes on i.e. salt then causing the price of bread to sore, Macron’s fuel tax now) and favouritism towards the wealthiest 1%, as well as dissatisfaction with a king/ president who is out of touch with the regular people. Or as a gilet jaune put it: ‘This is the beginning of the revolution. We are not in 1789, we’re not going to cut off heads but we want that Macron resigns […] In 1789, the aristocracy was about 1% of the population. That is the same percentage that the ISF applies to.’

Funnily enough, Macron is reported to have said that ‘in French politics what is absent is the figure of the king which I think basically the French people did not want dead.’ He could not have been more wrong. After all, the French Revolution, although France relapsed into authoritarianism with Napoleon, endowed the people with sovereignty. Sovereignty in so far as that they could hold their representatives accountable to guarding social justice and the equality of the people. Moreover, the constitution of 1793 degreed that a law if opposed by at least 10% in half of France would not be adopted. These principles and achievements of the French Revolution – social justice, equality, accountability and more direct democracy – are the objectives of the gilets jaunes. And more pragmatically, according to sociologist and president of the Fondation maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH), Michel Wievorka, the comparison with the revolution provides the protesters with a legitimating rhetoric that every French(wo)man can related to, and that thus unites an otherwise diverse movement.

by Merle Emrich

Photos Credits

Related articles:

Les Gilets Jaunes: The Uncovering of Violence

Photo Essay: A Nation Sees Yellow

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The Nazi Treasure

Maya Diekmann — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 19:42:33 +0000

When my sister was living in Argentina a few years back, she, more than once, encountered the myth of the Nazi-Treasure. Does she know where to look? Does she know what exactly to look for? She is German, she must know something. And although South and Central America are known to be popular destinations of refuge for accused Nazi criminals, it turns out their treasure never made it over the big pond. In fact, it never even made it out of Germany.

In February 2012, German authorities made a spectacular discovery. What started out as an investigation for tax evasion against Cornelius Gurlitt, resulted in the finding of over 1,400 works of art that had disappeared over the course of the Nazi art theft. Although an official inventory was never published, the findings include pieces by renowned artists like Picasso, Monet, Liebermann, Matisse and Dürer. A minimum of 300 pieces were declared to belong to the body of Nazi “degenerated” art. The question is, how did this collection of Nazi stolen art art, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, end up in a small apartment in Munich?

An Expensive Ingenious Idea

It is commonly known that Adolf Hitler had a thing for art. Rejected as an artist by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, he understood himself to be an unrecognized genius ruling both politics and culture with the power of a true artist. The notion of the genius and the Ingenious Idea, which Hitler largely adopted from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, would become a major influencing factor on the Nazi’s disdain of modern art. According to Schopenhauer, the genius perceives an idea from the phenomenal world. Through technical skill he will manifest this idea into a piece of art and thereby help the ordinary person embrace the idea that is invisible to him normally. Vice versa, in Hitler’s opinion flawed and inferior ideas could also be worked into a painting or sculpture and consequently be internalized by the observer–something that would cause great harm to his perfect Aryan population.

What started out as an ideological move against any non-Aryan artistic idea soon turned into million dollar–or rather Reichsmark–business. Overall, Nazis stole an estimate of one-fifth of all artworks within Europe. Confiscated art, both from museums and private ownership, wasn’t only pilloried but sold to foreign buyers to finance war efforts, or traded for classical artworks Hitler desired for his planned Führermuseum. The business of stolen art caused a boom in the global art market, with artworks confiscated in Germany and German occupied countries ending up in museums and private hands all over Europe and North America.

Monuments Men

The first big Nazi-Treasure was discovered right after the end of the Second World War by the Allied armies’ Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) Program, better known as the Monuments Men. The Altaussee salt mine in Austria contained over 12,500 stolen artworks, including 6,577 paintings, 230 sketches and watercolors, 954 illustrations, 173 statues, 1,200 cases of books and more. The MFAA, after a laborious recovery, soon began the long process of returning the stolen pieces of art to their rightful owners. And this is where the first problem arises–figuring out the rightful owner. Whereas the only appropriate thing to do–ethically and according to the ‘Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art’–was return the art to those it had been stolen from, things rarely happened that way. Buyers of stolen art, among them Hitler’s left hand Hermann Goering’s family, successfully claimed art confiscated from the family after the end of the war. Museums are often reluctant to give up pieces which have been claimed by their rightful owners. An example is the legal battle between the family of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy–a descendant from famous classical composer Felix Mendelssohn–and the state of Bavaria. At dispute is Picasso’s ‘Madame Soler’, with an estimated worth of $100 million.

The Burden of the Gurlitt Name

The 2012 Munich discovery hasn’t only revived the legal and historical issues around looted art but also the controversy around the Gurlitt family name. Hildebrand Gurlitt, Cornelius Gurlitt’s father, was one of the four art dealers in the Third Reich entrusted with the business of looted art. Being one-quarter Jewish and an aspiring young museum director with a liking for modern art, his relationship with the Nazis couldn’t be more complex. The chance to protect his family and save modern art from destruction by selling it abroad does not hide the fact that Gurlitt profited immensely from his deals, let alone that he knowingly dealt with stolen art. It’s difficult to pin him down as the good or the bad guy, and it is even more difficult to reappraise his deeds through his son, Cornelius. In an interview with him, German news magazine ‘Der Spiegel’ portray Cornelius as a man whose life “has become an infinite loop of remorse and coincidence”, a tragic figure bearing the consequences of his father’s actions. Whether Cornelius was aware of the full dimensions of his father’s business, remains questionable. What the interview does reveal is the intimate relationship of an 80-year-old man, “the heir of a collection with dubious origins”, with long-lost masterpieces of art. It is cases like these, which illustrate the difficulties that come with the restitution process, going far beyond legal issues. How can you ever truly make past injustices right and what if this involves an unjust procedure in the present?

An undeniably positive effect of the Gurlitt discovery is the attention and publicity it has drawn to the issue of stolen art. The Louvre has started to highlight works in their collection suspected of having been looted by the Nazis and then returned to France and the V&A Museum in London has invested in their provenance research. These little improvements initiated by individual museums, however, don’t release governments, above all the German, from facilitating the restitution process. Only if the government stuck to their obligations under the Washington Conference Principles and systematically identified looted art and encouraged pre-war owners to come forward and claim their property, could there be a chance of obliging museums to return objects of questionable nature to their rightful owners.

Even a domestic law in accordance to the Washington Conference Principles would not solve the problem of looted art as a whole. The Principles only apply to looted art in museums and do not concern private ownership, such as the case of Cornelius Gurlitt. So who knows how many more treasures of long-lost art are waiting to be discovered behind the plain doors of an ordinary apartment?

by Maya Diekmann

Photo Credits

IMG_0470A Pablo Picasso. 1881-1973, Jean Louis Mazieres, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Stolen Art, RV1864, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Witchcraft Brewery: The Dark History of Beer, Witchcraft and Gender

Merle Emrich — Sun, 02 Dec 2018 19:08:05 +0000

Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

Beer, witchcraft and gender – it almost sounds like a game of ‘find the odd one out’ yet there is quite a strong link between the three, a link that is still relevant in today’s society. It is by no means a coincidence that the medieval witch hunts coincided with the transition from one economic system to another, nor that this process is related to the construction of the purely domestic role of women, the spectre of which still haunts us. But to understand this spectre – and eventually overcome it – we must understand where it comes from. Therefore, I invite you to a trip back in history.

While beer is as popular as ever, it is an ancient beverage, first made at least 10,000 years ago and was since then associated with women. Because, in medieval times, water was not safe to drink. People drank beer instead. Therefore, beer (which had less alcohol than contemporary beer) was an everyday product made at home… by women. Many of these women would sell their surplus of beer, and some became excellent brewsters – one of them Hildegard of Bingen, a German nun, who was the first to suggest the use of hops to improve the flavour and make the beer last longer.

But where is the connection to witchcraft? Well, we shall see…

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

Between the 15th and mid-18th century an unknown number of European and North American women – for it was (and still is) mostly women – were executed as ‘witches’, the estimated numbers ranging from 60,000 to 100,000. The witch hunts did not only kill thousands of innocent women but also led to a massive roll back of women’s rights, such as there were, and shaped the world and role of women of today. Or as Silvia Federici describes it in ‘Caliban and the Witch’: ‘The outcome […] was the enslavement of women to procreation […] defining women in terms – mothers, wives, daughters, widows – that hid their status as workers.’

To understand why and how the witch hunts changed the role of women, and happened in the first place, we must examine the role of women in medieval society and some of the social processes taking place at the time. A time when feudalism began to transition into capitalism. A time when the plague killed one in three people in Europe and those of the lower social classes suddenly realised that they, due to a decimated population, were suddenly important enough to make demands. Anti-feudal, and consequently anti-proto-capitalist, resistance movements began to form which were often led by women. And women in medieval Europe already had, in addition to their new won political power, a lot of social power, namely ‘magic’.

Magic in this sense refers to “wise women’s” skills as healers, fortune tellers and midwives which made them valuable and respected members of their community. Yet, establishing capitalism with these women holding a large amount of political and social power, as well as people believing in magic, proved a difficult task. Thus, the power of women needed to be broken and magic had to be vilified.

Once women and their skills began to be demonised, the options women had in Western society were even further reduced. And whereas under feudalism your children would help you with your work and eventually, most likely, continue working in your profession, under capitalism they would be send off to work for somebody else’s profit. In such an economic system the role of women is reduced to giving birth to and raising the next generation of workers. The witch hunts played a key role in tying women to the domestic sphere and creating the image of women as ‘chaste, quite, at home, working to support the husband’.

The link between ‘witchcraft’ and the process of pushing women into an exclusively reproductive role becomes particularly evident if we look at the nature of the specific witchcraft charges, and how the image of witchcraft changed within the Church. Between the 13th and 15th century it transformed from denying the existence of witches to adopting the reverse policy. Magic was no longer associated with old pagan traditions and the valuable skills of wise women, but with demons and the Devil, and medieval inquisitors became increasingly suspicious of women falling prey to these demons which they were thought to not be able to resist due to the assumed lack of intelligence.

Not only did the icons of brewsters – a tall pointed hat to be better seen at the market, cats for chasing away mice, the cauldrons used for brewing beer, the brooms used to indicate if beer was available for sale – become symbols of witchcraft. And not only was it dangerous to be a woman with extensive knowledge about plants, which was a useful skill for brewing beer. With the help of the witch hunts, the Church propagating the role of women as being a domestic one only, and the shift from feudalism to capitalism defining the value of women to a purely reproductive role, women were pushed out of commerce. Midwifery was handed over to men. And so was brewing beer.

The discovery of hops that turned mainstream in the 16th century allowed for the commercialisation of beer brewing, as well as the enactment of purity laws. These food laws had the positive effect of outlawing often questionable, and at times even deadly, ingredients. But due to the limitation to water, barley and hops – and consequently increased production costs – brewsters who used different (harmless) ingredients were no longer able to sell their beer. This development was reinforced by the Church’s view of brewsters as temptresses who used their beer to get men drunk and spend their money, and eventually led to brewing becoming a men’s job.

When Shall We Three Meet Again?

Fortunately, the Dark Ages are over. Feminism is alive and kicking and it’s been quite some time since the last witch has been burned. At least in the Western world. And while the witch hunts were not a deliberate plot to oppress women and establish capitalism, we can still say that they proved an effective tool in suppressing rebellion and a challenging of norms. They were a byproduct of the shift from feudalism to capitalism in the process of which the role of women changed dramatically, tying them to the domestic sphere even more than before, and pushing them out of professions of healers, midwives and brewsters. It is an image of women that has left its mark on this society, reflected for example in the debate on the ‘second shift’ in the 1970s (and even today, 2018).

And what about beer? Well, beer used to be a women’s domain. With the standardisation, centralisation and commercialisation of beer production beer became a man’s world and has kept its ‘masculine identity’ until today. Gendered and more often than not sexist beer ads have labelled beer as a ‘manly’ drink. We can see this clearly reflected in the contemporary beer industry: Only 29 percent of brewery workers are women, and a mere four percent of microbreweries have a female head brewster. However, women are becoming increasingly involved in the craft beer scene. So, there is hope that we see a change towards beer becoming neither a ‘female’ beverage, nor something exclusively belonging to men, but a drink that can be produced and enjoyed by all.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Cascade hops!, Michael, Styne, CC BY-SA 2.0

Happy Halloween!, Chilly & Dull…Kinda Damp Too!, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

medieval woman next to fire, Hans Splinter, CC BY-ND 2.0

Scene from “Labors of the month August”, e-codices, CC BY-NC 2.0

“Nevertheless She Persisted…A Woman’s Place Is in the Resistance”, scattered1, CC BY-SA 2.0

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