Cäcilia Rentmeister
Encyclopedia
Cäcilia Rentmeister (1948 in Berlin
) is a German
art historian, culture scientist and researcher of cultural conditions of women and of gender
. In addition to studying the different realities in which men and women are living, she has concerned herself with the matriarchy
.
and Brandenburg
, and since 1994 teaches at the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences "Cross-cultural Gender Studies
" and "Interactive Media
".
Rentmeister engaged since the early 1970s as activist in the Second-wave feminism
. From 1974, she wrote articles and essays on feminist art history
, archaeology
and cultural studies, which were also published in other languages. From 1977 on she lectured in art schools, teacher colleges and universities in Berlin
, Hamburg
, and Bremen
. She was one of the initiators of the interdisciplinary women's summer programs ("Frauen Sommeruniversität") at the Technical University of Berlin, which were attended from 1976 to 1986 by about 30,000 women, and gave a sustained impetus for women's studies
and gender research in all scientific disciplines.
Cäcilia Rentmeister was keyboardist
of the Flying Lesbians, the first women's rock band on the European continent. She reflected the significance of women's music
in her writings on ritual
s and women´s festivals.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Rentmeister also published critical essays on feminist aesthetics and women´s art, sparking controversy, which she 1978 also debated internationally with Valie Export
, Marlite Halbertsma, Ulrike Rosenbach and Lucy Lippard in the panel discussion "Feministische Kunst International" in the Stedelijk Museum
, Amsterdam
, Netherlands.
In the 1980s, she published as a science writer for the German public radio, - among other issues on patriarchal
motives of population growth
in history and present, and on the New Age
movement. Since 1973 she works with her partner, film director and writer Cristina Perincioli
. They wrote together the screenplay for "Anna and Edith" - the first feature film about a lesbian relationship on German television ZDF
in 1975. From 1985 on Rentmeister and Perincioli turned to the topic "computers and creativity". They developed models for artistic and educational work with multimedia, published and taught these concepts with the intention to interest women for the new digital technologies, whereas in the 1980s in German academia a computer-sceptical attitude still prevailed. From the 1990s Rentmeister worked as editor and project manager of websites on "sensitive" social and gender subjects that have been authored and produced by Cristina Perincioli.
As private pilot and member of the pilots networks Ninety Nines and the Federation of German Pilots Rentmeister is committed to promote the advancement of girls and women in aviation, through lectures, the media and by organising events for schoolgirls at the Girls’ Day
. Melanie Katzenberger writes: "The pioneers of the skies belong into the textbooks, calls Caecilia Rentmeister. ...Girls must get the feeling: If she can, I can also..."
, especially as mirrored in 19th and early 20th centuries reception, Rentmeister developed her ideology-critical approach. One example for this realistic approach - opposing to esoteric
ones - is her essay on "Why Are There So Many Allegories Female?" from 1976. In another critical essay she asked 1980: "How is politics made with notions of matriarchy?" and criticized, on the other hand, the blanket denial of matriarchy by contemporary European feminists. In her article „The Squaring of the Circle. The Seizure of Power by Men over Architectural Forms“, published 1979 in a special on „Women in Architecture – : Women’s Architecture?“ in the German bauwelt, Rentmeister reconstructed architectural-spatial traces of matriarchies in ancient Europe.
In another essay she asked 1980: "How is politics made with notions of matriarchy?" and criticized, on the other hand, the blanket denial of matriarchy by contemporary European feminists.
These and other early archaeological texts by Rentmeister were translated into several languages; they were discussed and referred to in the dedicated international and interdisciplinary discourses of the 1970s and 1980s, including architects like Margrit Kennedy
and Paola Coppola Pignatelli, and novelists like Christa Wolf
.
Sabine Herzog describes Rentmeisters approach: “The archaeologist and art historian Cillie Rentmeister published numerous works in the field of feminist cultural history and cultural criticism. In her book Women’s Worlds – Men’s Worlds of 1985, she describes the diversity of matriarchy in the past and present. Therefore a definition could only show a basic matriarchal pattern. Rentmeister ...lists some characteristics of matriarchies: In addition to matrilineality and matrilocality the avunculate and an extended family economy is characteristic, as well as a self-determined disposal of women over their bodies...”
Rentmeister defined as early as 1980 the term "matriarchy
" explicitly not as inversion formula for patriarchy. According to Rentmeister "... there were and are certainly as many forms of matriarchy, as there are at present - and simultaneously – forms of patriarchy." In 1985, she emphasizes this statement with regard to ethnological findings.
1988 Rentmeister analysed the "Debate on Matriarchy" of the past two centuries in Germany, particularly in their significance for the first fifteen years of the second wave women's movement in Europe. She distinguishes, somewhat ironically, three phases between 1973–1988, and - backgrounded by her journeys to matriarcal societies in the 1980s - a certain "esoteric
enthusiasm for matriarchy" and a "resuscitation of matriarchal ritual
s“ in Germany.
The question of the real existence of contemporary, modern matriarchies led Rentmeister from 1980 to the current to preoccupy with cultural anthropological research findings. She visited matrilineal, matrilocal societies, including Minangkabau
in West Sumatra
and Nayar
in Kerala
, South India. There she received - despite social change and crises - affirmative and confident statements by indigenous peoples
of the special qualities, and even merits and social dividends its matriarchal institutions and ways of life for both sexes.
How these benefits correlate statistically with a comparativily high level in the Human Development
-Indicators and Reproductive Health
, Rentmeister describes 2007 in her essay "Development is female”. Illustrated by the examples of the Minangkabau
and Nayar
societies, she shows that empowerment
, education and property in the hands of women contribute significantly to lower birth rates, to - in comparison to adjacent patriarchal communities - significantly less domestic violence
, and for the society as a whole less poverty
and better state of health can be observed.
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
) is a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
art historian, culture scientist and researcher of cultural conditions of women and of gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
. In addition to studying the different realities in which men and women are living, she has concerned herself with the matriarchy
Matriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
.
Biography
Rentmeister studied at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Cologne Art History, Archeology and American Studies. She received her PhD in 1980 at the University of Bremen. Rentmeister lives in BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, and since 1994 teaches at the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences "Cross-cultural Gender Studies
Gender studies
Gender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
" and "Interactive Media
Interactive media
Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user’s actions by presenting content such as text, graphics, animation, video, audio, etc.-Terminology:...
".
Rentmeister engaged since the early 1970s as activist in the Second-wave feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
. From 1974, she wrote articles and essays on feminist art history
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
, archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and cultural studies, which were also published in other languages. From 1977 on she lectured in art schools, teacher colleges and universities in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, and Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
. She was one of the initiators of the interdisciplinary women's summer programs ("Frauen Sommeruniversität") at the Technical University of Berlin, which were attended from 1976 to 1986 by about 30,000 women, and gave a sustained impetus for women's studies
Women's studies
Women's studies, also known as feminist studies, is an interdisciplinary academic field which explores politics, society and history from an intersectional, multicultural women's perspective...
and gender research in all scientific disciplines.
Cäcilia Rentmeister was keyboardist
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...
of the Flying Lesbians, the first women's rock band on the European continent. She reflected the significance of women's music
Women's music
Women's music is the music by women, for women, and about women . The genre emerged as a musical expression of the second-wave feminist movement as well as the labor, civil rights, and peace movements...
in her writings on ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
s and women´s festivals.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Rentmeister also published critical essays on feminist aesthetics and women´s art, sparking controversy, which she 1978 also debated internationally with Valie Export
Valie Export
Valie Export is an Austrian artist...
, Marlite Halbertsma, Ulrike Rosenbach and Lucy Lippard in the panel discussion "Feministische Kunst International" in the Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...
, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Netherlands.
In the 1980s, she published as a science writer for the German public radio, - among other issues on patriarchal
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is a social system in which the role of the male as the primary authority figure is central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination...
motives of population growth
Population growth
Population growth is the change in a population over time, and can be quantified as the change in the number of individuals of any species in a population using "per unit time" for measurement....
in history and present, and on the New Age
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
movement. Since 1973 she works with her partner, film director and writer Cristina Perincioli
Cristina Perincioli
Cristina Perincioli is a Swiss film director, writer, multimedia producer and webauthor. She lives in Berlin, Germany since 1968.-Life and career:...
. They wrote together the screenplay for "Anna and Edith" - the first feature film about a lesbian relationship on German television ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
in 1975. From 1985 on Rentmeister and Perincioli turned to the topic "computers and creativity". They developed models for artistic and educational work with multimedia, published and taught these concepts with the intention to interest women for the new digital technologies, whereas in the 1980s in German academia a computer-sceptical attitude still prevailed. From the 1990s Rentmeister worked as editor and project manager of websites on "sensitive" social and gender subjects that have been authored and produced by Cristina Perincioli.
As private pilot and member of the pilots networks Ninety Nines and the Federation of German Pilots Rentmeister is committed to promote the advancement of girls and women in aviation, through lectures, the media and by organising events for schoolgirls at the Girls’ Day
Take our daughters and sons to work day
Take Our Daughters And Sons To Work Day is an educational program in the USA that revolves around parents taking their children to work for one day. It is the successor to Take Our Daughters To Work Day, which was expanded to include boys in 2003...
. Melanie Katzenberger writes: "The pioneers of the skies belong into the textbooks, calls Caecilia Rentmeister. ...Girls must get the feeling: If she can, I can also..."
Awards
- 2010 Rentmeister received the Teaching Award of the University of Applied Sciences ErfurtErfurtErfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...
for her seminar "Political and Institutional Conditions of Social Work", and her course "Gender - Gender Relations: Differences, Equality, Equal Rights".
Matriarchies: specific approaches of Rentmeister
With respect to archaeological reconstructions of historic matriarchiesMatriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
, especially as mirrored in 19th and early 20th centuries reception, Rentmeister developed her ideology-critical approach. One example for this realistic approach - opposing to esoteric
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
ones - is her essay on "Why Are There So Many Allegories Female?" from 1976. In another critical essay she asked 1980: "How is politics made with notions of matriarchy?" and criticized, on the other hand, the blanket denial of matriarchy by contemporary European feminists. In her article „The Squaring of the Circle. The Seizure of Power by Men over Architectural Forms“, published 1979 in a special on „Women in Architecture – : Women’s Architecture?“ in the German bauwelt, Rentmeister reconstructed architectural-spatial traces of matriarchies in ancient Europe.
In another essay she asked 1980: "How is politics made with notions of matriarchy?" and criticized, on the other hand, the blanket denial of matriarchy by contemporary European feminists.
These and other early archaeological texts by Rentmeister were translated into several languages; they were discussed and referred to in the dedicated international and interdisciplinary discourses of the 1970s and 1980s, including architects like Margrit Kennedy
Margrit Kennedy
Margrit Kennedy is a German architect, professor, environmentalist, author and an advocate of complementary currencies and an interest and inflation-free economy....
and Paola Coppola Pignatelli, and novelists like Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf
Christa Wolf was a German literary critic, novelist, and essayist. She is one of the best-known writers to have emerged from the former East Germany.-Biography:...
.
Sabine Herzog describes Rentmeisters approach: “The archaeologist and art historian Cillie Rentmeister published numerous works in the field of feminist cultural history and cultural criticism. In her book Women’s Worlds – Men’s Worlds of 1985, she describes the diversity of matriarchy in the past and present. Therefore a definition could only show a basic matriarchal pattern. Rentmeister ...lists some characteristics of matriarchies: In addition to matrilineality and matrilocality the avunculate and an extended family economy is characteristic, as well as a self-determined disposal of women over their bodies...”
Rentmeister defined as early as 1980 the term "matriarchy
Matriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
" explicitly not as inversion formula for patriarchy. According to Rentmeister "... there were and are certainly as many forms of matriarchy, as there are at present - and simultaneously – forms of patriarchy." In 1985, she emphasizes this statement with regard to ethnological findings.
1988 Rentmeister analysed the "Debate on Matriarchy" of the past two centuries in Germany, particularly in their significance for the first fifteen years of the second wave women's movement in Europe. She distinguishes, somewhat ironically, three phases between 1973–1988, and - backgrounded by her journeys to matriarcal societies in the 1980s - a certain "esoteric
Esotericism
Esotericism or Esoterism signifies the holding of esoteric opinions or beliefs, that is, ideas preserved or understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. The term derives from the Greek , a compound of : "within", thus "pertaining to the more inward",...
enthusiasm for matriarchy" and a "resuscitation of matriarchal ritual
Ritual
A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....
s“ in Germany.
The question of the real existence of contemporary, modern matriarchies led Rentmeister from 1980 to the current to preoccupy with cultural anthropological research findings. She visited matrilineal, matrilocal societies, including Minangkabau
Minangkabau
The Minangkabau ethnic group is indigenous to the highlands of West Sumatra, in Indonesia. Their culture is matrilineal, with property and land passing down from mother to daughter, while religious and political affairs are the responsibility of men...
in West Sumatra
West Sumatra
West Sumatra is a province of Indonesia. It lies on the west coast of the island Sumatra. It borders the provinces of North Sumatra to the north, Riau and Jambi to the east, and Bengkulu to the southeast. It includes the Mentawai Islands off the coast...
and Nayar
Nayar
Nayar, Nayyar or Nair can refer to:Groups of people:* Naga People from North Eastern India* The successors of Nāga tradition* Nayar – a caste from the South Indian state of Kerala...
in Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, South India. There she received - despite social change and crises - affirmative and confident statements by indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are ethnic groups that are defined as indigenous according to one of the various definitions of the term, there is no universally accepted definition but most of which carry connotations of being the "original inhabitants" of a territory....
of the special qualities, and even merits and social dividends its matriarchal institutions and ways of life for both sexes.
How these benefits correlate statistically with a comparativily high level in the Human Development
Human Development Index
The Human Development Index is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate "very high human development", "high human development", "medium human development", and "low human development" countries...
-Indicators and Reproductive Health
Reproductive health
Within the framework of the World Health Organization's definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, reproductive health, or sexual health/hygiene, addresses the reproductive processes, functions and system...
, Rentmeister describes 2007 in her essay "Development is female”. Illustrated by the examples of the Minangkabau
Minangkabau
The Minangkabau ethnic group is indigenous to the highlands of West Sumatra, in Indonesia. Their culture is matrilineal, with property and land passing down from mother to daughter, while religious and political affairs are the responsibility of men...
and Nayar
Nayar
Nayar, Nayyar or Nair can refer to:Groups of people:* Naga People from North Eastern India* The successors of Nāga tradition* Nayar – a caste from the South Indian state of Kerala...
societies, she shows that empowerment
Empowerment
Empowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
, education and property in the hands of women contribute significantly to lower birth rates, to - in comparison to adjacent patriarchal communities - significantly less domestic violence
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
, and for the society as a whole less poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and better state of health can be observed.
Books
- Frauenwelten - Männerwelten (Women´s Worlds - Men´s Worlds), Opladen 1985
- Computer and Creativity, co-authored with Cristina Perincioli, Cologne 1990
- Gender in Teaching and Didactics - Gender in Lehre und Didaktik (Co-Editor), Bern, Berlin, Brussels, Frankfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Vienna 2003