A staff meeting in June: The professor informs the staff that a seminar, which was initiated, conceived, and led for five years by a female staff member, will be taken over by her male colleague in the summer term of the following year. The female staff member’s contract will end in March before the summer term begins. Because she has had two children, the contract for the postdoc position could certainly be extended until she completes her habilitation treatise. So, without prior discussion, the female employee is told in front of the assembled faculty that she is not only no longer head of the seminar but also that she is ‘out’ before having completed her postdoctoral thesis. The male employee who will be taking over her seminar throws both fists triumphantly into the air, “Yeah!”

In the same staff meeting, it is considered to replace the female student assistant with a male student. The professor expresses his reservations since the two are a couple and that replacing her with him would therefore be ‘too obvious’. A male employee responds, “Isn’t it normal to simply replace female with male employees?” The men of the group join in loud laughter, while the two women present make stunned faces.

Addendum: After the female employee had to leave at the end of her contract in March, another male colleague was hired, of course.