Interviews

18 September 2024

"We are the donkeys here"
Interview with Elle Kamihira on the Podcast "Subject to Power"

Podcast description:
Motherhood, in our Western culture, is full of contradictions. On the one hand, mothers perform an essential task: creating and nurturing new human life. On the other, the status of mothers is that of general servitude to the nuclear family, with no significant public voice or power.

Western culture, adopted across the world, is still largely structured in the mold that the male Greek philosophers created millennia ago. Roughly divided into a public sphere that is inhabited and controlled by men, and the family sphere which is inhabited by women and children; a “private world” that is under constant surveillance and control by the public sphere.

While feminism continually challenges this patriarchal social order, and women as a class have made enormous gains in the public sphere, motherhood is still an arena where patriarchal interests come into direct conflict with human needs and women’s humanity.

In this episode Elle talks to political scientist and author Mariam Tazi-Preve, whose research fields are politics and reproduction, motherhood, fatherhood, family and population policies, European welfare state, gender and political theory, and theory of civilization.

13 December 2018

Kein Leben mit der Kleinfamilie
No life with the nuclear family

Interview in the December issue of EMMA on the subject.

Excerpt:

Is the nuclear family the source of all evil?

(laughs) Well, maybe rather: much evil. The

family is one of the cornerstones of patriarchy,

alongside politics, business and religion.

Had women had the power of definition, families would look very different today.But they didn't.

...

9 September 2018

Interview on Arte.tv on the topic:

Das neue Ideal der Familie? 

Towards a New Family Ideal?

Although the traditional nuclear family is culturally dominant in literature, film and advertising, new family compositions are becoming more common. A debate on family values and the value of the family.

 27 Min.

4 April 2018

Familienarbeit

Family work

In our society, family work is still mainly done by women. If you wanted to do all these activities commercially, you would need umpteen qualifications. But family work takes place in an invisible area, where there is no appreciation, no payment or social recognition. Hardly anything has changed in this regard over the centuries. Since women are still gainfully employed today, the women are doubly burdened and often completely overwhelmed.

Why is our society doing this to women? Who benefits from this model, who earns from it?

Podcast (in German): Familienarbeit- Arbeitswelt im Wandel

6 March 2018

“Neugier genügt”

"Curiosity is enough"
WDR 5 Live Interview

The end of the small family - Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve

speech time 30:26 mins

Father-mother-child - the ideal small family enjoys great popularity over the long term. Almost without exception, young people strive for it. But does the family really live up to the high expectations placed on them?

Guest: Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve

Moderator: Ralph Erdenberger

30 January 2018

Die Kleinfamilie am Rande des Nervenzusammenbruchs?
The small family on the verge of nervous breakdown?

Interview with the Budrich Verlag

Excerpt:

"Ms. Tazi-Preve, what made you decide to write this book?"

Mariam Tazi-Preve: "I've been asked that in many interviews. Most of my readers have understood the content very well and in numerous responses I have been told, for example, that I "finally do justice to the mothers" and generally say exactly "where the rub is"...

25 January 2018

Interview in the Stuttgarter Zeitung

The Austrian Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve has been concerned with the social developments of the family for a long time. In her opinion, the traditional nuclear family no longer has a future in today's everyday life.

Read the whole interview (in German): Stuttgarter Zeitung

25 October 2017

Interview for the Süddeutsche Zeitung

Austrian social scientist Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve researches on the life conditions of mothers and fathers. In doing so, she calls an estsablished life model into question: the nuclear family. A conversation about myths and false expectations.

by Barbara Vorsamer

The interview (in German): www.sueddeutsche.de

24 October 2017

"Familie ist ein hochpolitischer Ort!"

"Family is a highly political place!"

Why aren't things really moving forward with equality? And are decisions about women's withdrawal into the private sphere after childbirth really purely private, personal decisions?

Here is a link to the full interview in German: mama-arbeitet.de

28 August 2017

Frau Tazi-Preve, warum sind Mütter heute so erschöpft?

Ms. Tazi-Preve, why are mothers so exhausted nowadays?

Today's mother image drives women to exhaustion, says the Austrian political scientist Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve. The supposed ideal of the small family is to blame.

Interview: Claudia Landolt

The full interview in German can be found at this link: Fritz und Fränzi

23 May 2017

On the publication of my new book, The Failure of the Nuclear Family. Capitalism, Love and the State, an interview was held on occasion of receiving the publishing house's Award for Author of the Month.

13 May 2017

Mother's Day interview with the daily newspaper Der Standard

Excerpt:

STANDARD: In your new book you write that the nuclear family has failed. Why do you think that?
Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve: My central thesis is that the nuclear family is wrong. This is mainly due to two things: that the lifelong romantic relationship does not work and that it takes a lot more than two people to raise children safely. There is no such thing as eternal love, just think of the separation and divorce numbers... 

The full interview can be found in the print version of STANDARD from May 13, 2017 and under the following link on the newspaper’s website: Mariam Tazi-Preve, the interview 

More about this topic in my book:  Das Versagen der Kleinfamilie. Kapitalismus, Liebe und der Staat.

29 April 2017

Die Familie ist nur eine vermeintliche Idylle
The family is just a presumed idyll

My interview with Judith Wittwer for the swiss TagesAnzeiger quickly became one of the most read articles in the national daily newspaper.

For those who haven't read the interview yet, here is a small excerpt and a link to the newspaper's website.

Today more than ever, young couples dream of family happiness. But you are writing a book about the failure of the nuclear family. How does that fit together? 

Starting a family of your own is actually high on the wish list for boys. We are experiencing a re-familiarization. The more insecure the world in which we live and work, the greater the longing for a stable place of retreat. But the family idyll is only supposed. It leaves behind failed marriages, abandoned mothers, insecure fathers and sad children.

Why does belief in the family remain intact despite high divorce rates?

Because young people are being led to believe that the nuclear family is the desirable ideal of a private lifestyle. A good job, a functioning family life...

You can find the full interview in German on the website Tagesanzeiger

• 26 July 2016
  Interview on the desire to have children in Austria
  Kinderwunsch in Österreich, Oberösterreichische Nachrichten

• 14 October 2013
  Interview with  Sybille Stillhart for her book „Müde Mütter – Fitte Väter. Warum Frauen immer mehr arbeiten und es trotzdem nirgendwohin bringen“ (Tired Mothers – Fit Fathers. Why Women work ever more and still don't get anywhere)

• Film Trailer: 10 years Matriarchal Conferences 2003-2014 > Link (Dropbox)

• 24 October 2013
  Interview with SFR (Swiss National Broadcast Radio) on parental leave for fathers 
  SFR-Radio Interview (in German)
  

• Autumn 2012
  Cover story: Vienna’s Arbitration Panel for In Rem Restitution - Mariam Tazi-Preve on gender and the welfare state & more
  Interview with the Austrian Studies Newsmagazine (Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota). Gender and the Welfare State, Vol.24, No.2, Fall 2012, p. 16-18, 31

• 26 July 2012
  Interview for the online journal diestandard.at “Mütter haben überhaupt keine Lobby“ (Mothers don't have any lobby at all)
  

• 11 May 2012
  Interview at the National Conference.
  The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology. San Francisco, May 11, 2012 

• 19 July 2011
  Interview on Daycare and Motherhood
  Radio Ö1 Vienna

• 7 October 2010
  Guest appearance, live discussion on introducing laws against the Gender Wage Gap
  Radio FM4 Vienna