About EMMA

EMMA

EMMA (stylised in all caps) is a German-language feminist magazine published every two months in Cologne. Founded on 26 January 1977 by a collective around the journalist and feminist activist Alice Schwarzer, who remains its publisher and editor-in-chief, it has been Germany's leading feminist magazine since its first issue — and, as English-language Wikipedia notes, the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women. Its digital home is emma.de, where a free "reading room" makes every issue from 1977 to 2019 available online.

Overview

EMMA is a feminist magazine in the classic political-journalism tradition: its remit spans education, family, politics, and the world of work alongside culture, media, religion, and pornography. A 2005 study found that politics, the private division of roles, and media made up the largest share of articles — a profile that sets EMMA fundamentally apart from conventional women's magazines and gives it a special position in the German media landscape. Since its founding it has described itself with the subtitles Das politische Magazin für Menschen ("The political magazine for people") and the injunction Bleibt mutig ("Stay courageous").

The name "Emma" was chosen for its punchiness and as a wordplay on Emanzipation (emancipation). Alice Schwarzer herself once explained the choice in characteristically self-ironic fashion: that it was not only the allusion to em(m)ancipation, but also the self-ironic opposite of the platitudinous expectations — not "Nora", "the avenger", or "the Amazon", but simply Emma.

History

The first issue of EMMA appeared on 26 January 1977 with a print run of around 200,000 copies. Alice Schwarzer financed the launch with 250,000 marks from her author royalties plus 20,000 marks in loans from two colleagues — repaid, by her account, after a year with 10 percent interest. The first editorial office consisted of Schwarzer, television editor Angelika Wittlich, local editor Sabine Schruff, and Christiane Ensslin; from 1979 to 1986 Ingrid Strobl belonged to the staff. The German History in Documents and Images project notes that the first issue sold 200,000 copies but circulation soon fell to 90,000 — still a remarkable start for a magazine founded against the predictions of many pessimists.

EMMA was modelled on the American magazine Ms. in content, target audience, and layout. From the first issue it has been regarded as the flagship of feminism in the German-speaking world. The magazine positions itself as expressly politically and economically independent; by its own account it can finance itself almost entirely through newsstand sales and subscriptions and is not dependent on advertising — a claim tied to its women-only staffing policy, which has itself drawn legal attention: Personnel Today reported that a male journalist who claimed repeated job rejections on gender grounds threatened legal action under EU discrimination rules.

In December 2007 Schwarzer announced she would hand the editorship to television journalist and columnist Lisa Ortgies in spring 2008 while remaining publisher, editor, and author. Ortgies left two months after taking office, on 31 May 2008 — a departure that sparked a public controversy about Schwarzer's influence on day-to-day operations, the magazine's direction, and the compatibility of family and career inside the EMMA newsroom.

From 2010 to 2012 EMMA appeared four times a year and underwent a relaunch, expanding its online presence with a "Lesesaal" (reading room) where all back issues could be read free of charge. Since 2013 it has again appeared every two months; the cover price was cut from €9.80 to €7.50 to reach younger readers. Nicole Weegmann's 2022 two-part feature film Alice, about Schwarzer's youth, also depicts EMMA's founding — its second part ending with the team celebrating the printing of the first issue.

The magazine belongs to the German titles with the largest circulation losses: sold circulation was 44,687 copies in the second quarter of 2007, the last time it reported to the IVW audit; by its own account it was 25,717 in 2019 — a 55 percent decline since 1999. The print run was 34,300 copies in 2023 with a distributed circulation of 25,660; since 2024 the media data no longer state circulation figures.

Content

EMMA's campaigns and projects are the substance of its journalism: protests against female genital mutilation (1977); coverage and concrete aid in cases of sexual abuse (1978); actions against pornography (from 1978) and the PorNO campaign (from 1987); discussions and campaigns against fundamentalist Islamism and the headscarf (from 1979); demands for all-day schools and childcare (from the 1980s); the EMMA campaign for women's football (1998); and support for Girls' Day (from 1999). The PorNO campaign — which sent a self-drafted bill for a general ban on pornography to all Bundestag members — ignited fierce debates within feminism itself, including in the anthology Frauen & Pornographie (1988).

Since the magazine's founding, the satirical cartoons of Franziska Becker have been a fixture of every issue; her picture stories comment on feminist themes and the world of women and men. Becker was awarded the satire prize "Göttinger Elch" 2012 for her life's work as "Germany's funniest women's rights activist". From 1990 to 2012 the Alice Schwarzer-initiated EMMA journalism prize for women was awarded every two years, in 2012 supported by the federal government.

Since 2019 the EMMA editorial office has awarded the annual negative prize "Sexist Man Alive" — a play on People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" — for the man of the year deemed most hostile to women. Past recipients have included rapper Kollegah (2019), FDP leader Christian Lindner (2020), Pope Francis (2021), Sascha Lobo (2022), Jan Böhmermann (2023), and Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (2024). The 2023 award to Böhmermann cited the ZDF Magazin Royale coverage of trans people and attacks on Schwarzer and EMMA in that context — an episode illustrating the magazine's contested position in contemporary feminist debates.

Coverage & Audience

EMMA appears every two months in Cologne, where the editorial office is housed in the Kölner Bayenturm through Schwarzer's FrauenMediaTurm foundation. Long-serving staff include Franziska Becker (since 1977), Margitta Hösel (since 1982), Chantal Louis (since 1994), Angelika Mallmann (since 1998), Annett Keller (since 2001), Silvia Kretschmer (since 2002), Irina Rasimus (since 2005), and Annika Ross (since 2019). Its ISSN is 0721-9741.

The magazine has often been criticised for its opinionated and activist stance; within the feminist discourse its positions — for example on pornography or on women and Islam — have met both approval and resistance. But it has, as the English-language Wikipedia notes, affected German society by creating awareness and instigating debates on social and women's issues — and, in the formulation of German media scholarship, it stands in Germany as the prototype of feminist media publicness, having brought into public discussion topics that previously found no audience.

Ownership

EMMA is published by the Emma Frauenverlags GmbH of Cologne. Alice Schwarzer is publisher (Herausgeberin) and managing director as well as editor-in-chief — a concentration of roles that has defined the magazine since its founding and that was at the centre of the 2008 Ortgies controversy.

Digital Presence

The magazine's website, emma.de, was launched in December 2002. Having long been critical of the new media, EMMA developed its own internet presence under that domain with a moderated forum, supplemented by online clubs accessible only through registered membership. As of 2022 all issues from 1977 to 2019 have been digitised and can be read free of charge in the EMMA reading room — nearly half a century of feminist journalism, open to the public.

From the 200,000-copy debut of January 1977 — financed from book royalties and colleague loans — to the bimonthly magazine of today, EMMA has remained the German-speaking world's leading feminist magazine: opinionated, activist, and still entirely run by women.