"GO GIRL GO!" PODCAST - EPISODE 2 DOROTHEE BÄR

Dorothee Bär is the woman for digital in the federal government – ​​and quite a phenomenon in the male-dominated world of politics. Why is this still the case and what could be changed? How did today's Minister of State defend herself against stupid sayings and what can women learn from her? More than enough questions for a new episode of Judith’s podcast “GO GIRL GO”!

This woman defies every stereotype. Politicians walk through Berlin in a bad mood with template folders and in gray pinstripe suits? Anyone who scrolls through Dorothee – Doro – Bär’s Instagram feed immediately notices: Politics can be done differently. More colorful, more real and - above all, more feminine.

Reason enough to talk to the Digital Minister of State in the “GO GIRL GO!” podcast about her life, her teachings and her “how-tos” in the male-dominated field of politics. Because that is still politics, which is why it is “a small miracle that we are talking to her,” as host Judith says with a wink. Women have had the right to choose for more than 100 years. Nevertheless, just 31 percent of representatives in the Bundestag are female. In local parliaments it is only a quarter, and in some local councils only men rule. And some of them would still reduce women to being women and put them in a drawer, as Bär explains in the podcast.

She often receives “well-meaning advice”. Whether this or that topic is not too hard and whether she would rather devote herself to softer topics. “Go to the family committee and do something nice,” is what male colleagues say. She really experienced this attitude at the beginning of her career in Berlin. When she started in the Bundestag 19 years ago, she was involved, for example, in the Interior Committee, which, among other things, dealt with combating terrorism. "I noticed very early on that the reaction was more like: 'Yeah, that girl, why does she want to deal with all these topics?' If, on the other hand, the same argument came from an older man, one on one with the same wording, it was received differently. Over time you learn that it's not just what you say that counts, but who says it."

But men today would primarily see women as someone who is invading their territory. “One or two men think: I already have enough competition within my own gender, now I have to deal with the women too,” says Bär in the podcast and laughs.

If you listen to Bär in the podcast interview, you get to know a full-blooded politician with a heart who doesn't hide her femininity and is tough in debates but friendly in her tone. And above all: who is incredibly confident and simply stands above male-female clichés. “No portrait of me comes without talking about my clothes or being upset about my high heels.” But instead of being outraged by it, she finds it amusing. “If the only problem is my five-inch heels, my politics can't be that bad,” she laughs.

If you want to know how Dorothee Bär became the power woman who asserts herself so confidently in the male-dominated world of politics, listen to this episode of the podcast “GO GIRL GO!” Bär explains what her grandmother and her childhood in a four-generation house have to do with it, why she didn't wear jeans for a day at university, what drove her into politics in the first place and why digitalization is a great opportunity, especially for women's working world.