After the election, we ended up in a catastrophe

Six men in the suit sit wide on a table and grin complacent in the camera. On the covered conference table there are three breakfast plates with fruit, cheese and rolled sausage slices in the middle, small glasses with orange juice and a rondell with Coca-Cola bottles. What looks like the board meeting of a DAX company in the 90s is a round of leading politicians from the CDU and CSU about Friedrich Merz, which will advise on how the new federal government will continue.

“We are ready for a change of policy in Germany,” commented Markus Söder, commenting on the photo he uploaded on Instagram.

The photo symbolizes what goes wrong with the CDU and CSU. Diversity? None. Women’s proportion? Well below 30 percent. And that has an impact on the Bundestag: the Union is the strongest faction with 208 seats. However, the proportion of women is only 22.6 percent in a measly 22.6 percent. This affects the proportion of women throughout the Bundestag: of a total of 630 MPs, only 204 women are. Their share is 32.4 percent. It is also 2.3 percentage points lower than after the election 2021 (34.7 percent). Even in 2013, women were better represented with 36.5 percent.

The shrinked proportion of women compared to 2021 is not only due to the Union. The second strongest force with 152 seats is the AfD, and although the party with Alice Weidel has put a candidate for chancellor, one searches for female MPs almost in vain. With 11.8 percent, their proportion of women is lowest of all parties. In 2021 it was still 13.3 percent.

Above all, it was young women who stood against a shift to the right. If the AfD has benefited primarily from votes from young men, the majority of women chose left. According to figures from the research group elections, 17 percent of women have chosen AfD and 24 percent of men. The gap is most evident in 18 to 24 year olds. In this group, 15 percent of women chose the AfD, but 27 percent of men. Conversely, the result of the left is: this received 35 percent of votes from women up to 24 years, only 16 percent of men of the same age.

The unequal conditions have an impact on decisions that are made in the Bundestag. Political issues such as unequal wages or the right to abortion concern the reality of life of women. Especially in a black and red government, the proportion of women does not depict the conditions among the population. At 41.7 percent, the SPD has far more female MPs than the CDU. However, more women than men only create the Greens (61.2 percent) and the left (56.2 percent).

For comparison: Germany occupies 47th place in parliaments in the global ranking of women. At the time of the collection of the Interparliamentary Union (IPU) on February 1, 2024, the proportion of women with 35.3 percent was even significantly higher than now. In the European Union, Swedish (46.7 percent) and the Finnish parliament (46.0 percent) lead the list. With the shrunken women’s quota, Germany is likely to slide down again in the ranking – a certificate of poverty for the most populous country in the EU.

If you feel the impulse now, call: It doesn’t matter, it’s about competence and not about gender – two things are told. Anyone who believes that every man in the Bundestag has made it through all parties with performance and competence lies there. Even Friedrich Merz ‘suitability as a chancellor can be doubted, he has never ruled. Every village mayor has more government experience. And whoever believes that women are not competent enough to provide more than 32 percent of all MPs in the Bundestag is – you have to say it so clearly – Misogyn and refrain from being as intelligent as men.

Incidentally, the German Bundestag is also composed differently in age. The youngest are the members of the Left and the Greens with an average of around 42 years. SPD and Union each have an average of around 48 years. The AfD deputies are significantly older at the age of 51. The MPs of the AfD are therefore majority old and male, with the Union it is similar.

This is not surprising, because the AfD traditionally sees the role of women on the stove at home, with children and in the care of the grandparents and neighbors. The Christian Democrats – above all Markus Söder – conspired against everything that in their view should be “woke”: feminism, gender, veganism, climate protection. You could also say: against everything that is mostly young and female.

If you scroll on Söder’s Instagram profile, the picture is confirmed. In addition to photos of Söder himself, you can only find sausages with mustard and other men’s rounds.