He runs a successful company in Germany, but Wolfgang Grupp’s views on equality and family are causing criticism after a recent interview.
Wolfgang Grupp, managing director of the clothing brand Trigema, is known for many conservative views. For some, he is celebrated: He relies on production in Germany, thus creating many jobs, and prefers to run his company himself instead of relying on investors or shareholders. The 81-year-old has always done well with this. But he is now offending with other views that seem a bit out of date.
He also commented on his image of women and families. This seems to be inconsistent with current realities. “I’m surprised that there are so many single women today,” said the Trigema boss. “Children who are left to their own devices are not normally allowed to exist.” He doesn’t reveal what couples who can’t or don’t want to live together anymore should do. In addition, children of single parents are usually not on their own – but have at least one parent who is there for them.
Trigema boss has an idiosyncratic view of women
In Grupp’s opinion, both parents are not equally to blame for the dilemma of children left “on their own”: “I wonder what the women do to make their husbands run away,” he teases in the podcast, thus placing the entire responsibility on them mothers too. And not just when it comes to maintaining the relationship with the father, but also when it comes to raising children.
After all, that’s how it is in nature: “I’ve never seen a deer running around with a calf, only a doe,” explains the 81-year-old, explaining his image of women. “The children belong to the mother.” Apparently his own dealings with his children were also similar. “If my children had come to me before with minor aches and pains, I would have asked myself: What’s wrong with my wife, why don’t they go to their mother?”
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It seems as if he has ignored how equality and lifestyles have evolved over the past thirty years. In the world of the managing director, the roles are still clearly divided: “Men are responsible for the income, mothers are responsible for the children.” After all, that always worked. “But if today women want the jobs and men are supposed to do the housework, then the world has gone wrong,” he says.
At least that’s how it seems to have worked in his own family. However, Grupp sounds a bit more cautious when he talks about his own wife: “I’ve been married for 36 years. And I say, you have to have understanding for your wife. You have to live together. And for me it would be fatal if “I would have some kind of argument with my wife. Because that would then pass on to the children.” The businessman and his wife Elisabeth have two children, Bonita and Wolfgang junior.
Transparency note: The podcast episode appeared on RTL Deutschland. Stern and stern.de also belong to the same company.
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Source: Stern
