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Goethe immortalised the shaming of German women 200 years ago – we’re still at it | Fatma Aydemir

Abortion is criminalised and stigmatised – and now the right has found a new female scapegoat in its US-style war on bodily autonomyEvery nation has literary classics that shape its cultural identity. Germans have Faust, Goethe’s play about the successful but dissatisfied scientist Dr Heinrich Faust, who makes a deal with the devil. Faust has been performed, referenced and read in schools for more than two centuries now. Interestingly, the most tragic character in this tragedy is not the protagonist, but his “love interest”, Gretchen – a teenage girl groomed by the old man, impregnated and socially ostracised. Her solution? She drowns her “illegitimate” newborn child, accepts her death penalty and rejects Faust’s offer to save her from prison. In God’s mercy, the Christian girl seeks salvation and off goes Faust with the devil to new adventures in Faust, Part Two.What would Gretchen do today, I wonder. Her fate is not only a result of sexual abuse and an inherently misogynistic mora...


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