Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Winter 1979

Abstract

Emma—a traditional German name, a name which sounds "round and energetic," but transforms tradition in the direction of "Amazon" and "ema/ncipation," according to Alice Schwarzer, the magazine's founder and publisher. Courage—for the seventeenth-century German writer Grimmelshausen's heroine, whose experiences transfigure her from camp-follower to a self-sufficient woman who fights for her rights with joy and humor. These are the names ofthe Federal Republic of Germany's two feminist magazines. Courage, published in West Berlin, was begun in June 1976; Emma, located in Koln, in February 1977. Each is about sixty pages long.costs three marks (about $1.50), is staffed exclusively by women, and is intended for feminist readers. Why are there two? Are there significant differences between them? Is there room for both?

At first, the predictable overlap in subject-matter is discouraging: both have many articles on women working, women in history, sexuality, lesbianism, motherhood, and so forth. But clear differences can be traced in their origins and their intentions. Courage's trial edition announced it as a publication founded by women active in the autonomous women's movement to provide a medium "by and for women" with the goal of expanding the movement. Emma, Schwarzer explained in her first column, is an undertaking by women journalists fed up with the restrictions and antifemale bias they have encountered in the established male press; its intention is to offer the female reading public a feminist magazine produced by professionals.

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