3 - “Die Waffen der Frau” (the Weapons of Women): The Violent Woman as Phallic

Summary

AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN BILD in February 1974 demonstrates how violence perpetrated by women can be redefined as a crime against gender and normal female sexuality. The article is titled “Das Leben der Terrormädchen: Potente Männer, scharfe Waffen” (The life of the Terror Girls: potent men, loaded weapons) and is designated as “Thema des Tages” (topic of the day). An image of an almost naked Gudrun Ensslin dominates the article and page two of this Bild edition (fig. 23). It is a film still from Das Abonnement (1967), a short, experimental film that appeared three years before Ensslin went underground and the group formed that would become the RAF. The film tends to be branded as pornography in newspaper and magazine articles, and indeed the caption reads: “Szenen aus dem Leben einer Terroristin: Pfarrerstochter Gudrun Ensslin als nackte Darstellerin in einem Pornofilm” (Scenes in the life of a woman terrorist: Pastor's daughter Gudrun Ensslin as naked actress in a porno film). Ensslin's role in the film is conflated with real life, just as the preterrorist period is conflated with the terrorist period of her life. Ensslin's body, identity, and life are sexualized and made pornographic, the better to undermine her agency and the politics with which she is associated. By extension, German left-wing terrorism is also sexualized and made pornographic. The image, or a similar one from the same film, appears frequently in articles about Ensslin, women terrorists, and the Red Army Faction more generally.