“The women’s slot is already occupied” – Comedian Carolin Kebekus used to be allowed to listen to such sayings more often. Now she has written a book and wants to deal with the cliché “the one” clean up.
Carolin Kebekus (41) first became aware of the fact that the role repertoire for girls is a little more limited than that for boys during the crib play in the day care center. “I still remember the smugness with which our kindergarten teacher always said: ‘I already know who may be allowed to play Maria!’ Then we knew: ‘All right, there is only one female role. All other roles for the girls are the sheep. ‘ The only fame I ever got in the nativity play was that my doll was allowed to be the baby Jesus. Then I was proud like a soccer mom. And that’s how it goes through life.”
Kebekus, currently Germany’s most successful comedian, has now written a book about it, a really thick tome of 352 pages. Release date: Thursday October 7th, title: ‘There can only be one’. That’s explaining everything. “I mean a feeling that is conveyed to us women: There can only be one at a time. The one, the most beautiful, the chosen one”, she explains in an interview with the German Press Agency. “For women there is no variety in the representation, but felt it is always just one. The one princess in the fairy tale, the one Maria in the nativity play. You learn that as a very small child.”
Together with her younger brother David, for example, she always has “The Smurfs” looked. “My brother had a variety of male Smurfs to choose from. He could choose who he wanted to be: the strong smurf, the cook smurf, the beauty smurf. For me there was only the Smurfette. And she just ran away crying when things got difficult.”
“The women’s slot is already occupied”
As she grew up, the feeling reappeared in new situations. For example, there were far fewer jobs for speakers at Cologne Carnival and for comedians in comedy shows. “In the beginning I called often and asked: ‘Can I perform with you?’ And then it was often said: ‘Oh, stupid Caro, we still have three open places on the show, but the women’s slot is already occupied.'” The subtext was: We only need one woman – because they are all the same.
At that time she took it for granted. The law, often tacitly accepted “There can only be one” lead to the fact that women at work often fought each other with the toughest bandages. “I still remember that I had a casting once, around 2003. Until then, I always got the feedback: ‘Carolin, you are the funniest.’ And then suddenly a colleague came along and said: ‘You, yesterday there was a girl who was so incredibly funny, we were all lying under the table!’ Inwardly, I immediately thought: ‘I hope she isn’t really pretty too!’ And then he said: ‘She looks so amazing!'”
Female role models
Today this woman is one of her best friends, but then she only felt rivalry. She did not realize that the two of them had been played off against each other here. With her book, she wants to help other women understand these mechanisms more quickly.
For example, women still have less access to capital, although women’s start-ups have been shown to be more successful than men’s. “So it should actually be clear to every investor that this is a plus point and has more future than a company only run by men. In fact, women are still being asked, ‘What do you do when you get pregnant?’ I know a lot of people who are lawyers, for example, and first had to say: ‘No, children are really not on my agenda at all.’ Just to get a job first.”
Role models have always helped her to break through roles and do what she really wanted. These included Gaby Köster, Anke Engelke and Gerburg Jahnke. “But also completely unknown people. I am sure I meet a woman once a week who makes me think: ‘I can learn something from her’.”
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