Germany’s parliament is more female than it was

“A political man is disgusting, but a political woman is appalling…In history there are no more cruel phenomena than political women,” wrote Richard Wagner to Franz Liszt, his fellow composer, about Ortrud, the sorceress in his opera “Lohengrin”. Wagner was a misogynist and an anti-Semite as well as a musical genius, but he was not alone in his dislike of political women. Well into the 20th century, many Germans thought women should concern themselves only with “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” (children, kitchen, church).