A dinosaur in search of a dirndl
A DIRNDL is a traditional southern German or Austrian dress that flatters well-endowed women. It was poor taste for Rainer Brüderle, aged 67 and the lead candidate of Germany’s Free Democratic Party (FDP) in this autumn’s election, to suggest to a female journalist young enough to be his daughter that she “could fill out a dirndl well”. But neither Mr Brüderle nor the journalist, Laura Himmelreich, could have guessed what her short account of the encounter in the magazine Stern would unleash.It began when a communications consultant, Anne Wizorek, coined a Twitter handle—#aufschrei (“outcry”)—to collect responses. Within days, more than 60,000 Tweeters had given their views on sexual harassment. The newspapers promptly made it their topic of the week, as did three of the public-television talk shows. For days, it seemed as if the country could speak of little else.At first blush, this seems odd. The incident took place over a year ago, at a bar on the eve of an FDP gathering. Mr Brüderle comes across less as a predator than as an awkward dinosaur (he also asked for Ms…
