Profile
Birgit Rommelspacher
Birth:
1945
Death:
2015
Training Location(s):
PhD, Free University of Berlin (1978)
Diploma, University of Tübingen (1970)
Primary Affiliation(s):
Professor of Psychology, Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences – Berlin (1993–2010)
Director of the Department of Psychology and Gender Studies – ASH Berlin
Career Focus:
Intersectionality; racism and privilege; gender studies; postcolonial theory; social psychology of power
Biography
Birgit Rommelspacher was born in 1945 in Germany, in the final year of the second World War. Her life and work would be shaped by the legacies of this conflict, particularly its effects racism, and power in postwar German society. Rommelspacher was a psychologist, feminist theorist, and social critic whose work deeply influenced German debates on intersectionality, dominance culture (Dominanzkultur), and the psychology of structural inequality.
After earning her psychology degree at the University of Tübingen, Rommelspacher completed her Ph.D. in social psychology at the Free University of Berlin, where she became involved in the critical movements of the 1970’s. She was particularly influenced by the second-wave feminist movement in Germany but became increasingly critical of its failure to adequately engage with race, class, and colonialism. Her early academic work explored the reproduction of social hierarchies and power structures within everyday relationships.
In 1993, Rommelspacher became a professor at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, where she taught psychology with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. She was instrumental in institutionalizing gender studies in applied psychology in Germany and trained generations of psychologist’s to understand inequality not just as a political issue, but as a deeply internalized psychological structure.
Rommelspacher’s most well-known theoretical contribution is the concept of Dominanzkultur (dominance culture). This refers to the set of implicit norms, values, and behaviours though which white, middle-class, heterosexual norms are upheld as universal, while those who do not conform are marginalized or rendered invisible. She emphasized that dominance is not just enacted through overt violence, but through subtle, systemic privileging that reproduces inequality while appearing as “neutral”. This framework was a powerful tool for understanding how racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination operate at the interpersonal and institutional level, even within progressive movements.
Rommelspacher was also a vocal critic of white feminism, arguing that it often reproduced the very power structures is sought to dismantle. Her 1995 book Dominanzkultur: Texte zu Fremdheit und Macht (Dominance Culture: Essays about the Unknown and Power) became a landmark work in German feminist theory and helped introduce intersectionality into German psychological and feminist discourse.
Throughout her career, Rommelspacher combined academic work with grassroots activism. She collaborated with migrant women’s groups such as the Koreanische Frauengruppe in Deutschland (Korean Women’s Group in Germany), a self-organized collective that emerged in the 1980’s to resist gendered and racial oppression. She also worked alongside networks of Turkish migrant women and drew theoretical inspiration from their organizing in what became known as the Women in Movements (Frauen in Bewegung) initiatives. Rommelspacher participated in conferences and dialogues with anti-racist and postcolonial scholars including Elizabeth Jonuz, a scholar of pedagogy, with whom she co-authored work on intersectionality and multiple discrimination.
Rommelspacher died in 2015 after long illness, but her legacy continues in the fields of feminist psychology, intersectionality, and critical social theory in Germany. Her insistence that psychological theory must confront its own complicity in systems of oppression remains a vital challenge to the field today.
By Antonia Schlesinger (2025)
To cite this article, see Credits
Selected Works
Rommelspacher, B. (1995). Dominanzkultur: Texte zu Fremdheit und Macht [Dominance Culture: Texts on Otherness and Power]. Orlanda Frauenverlag.
Rommelspacher, B. (1998). Die Geschlechterverhältnisse als Verhältnis von Differenz und Dominanz [Gender relations as a relationship of difference and dominance]. In C. Wulf & J. Zirfas (Eds.), Erziehungswissenschaft und Differenz: Geschlecht – Klasse – Ethnizität (pp. 163–178). Leske & Burdock.
Rommelspacher, B. (2002). Was heißt hier Rassismus? [What does racism mean here?]. In W. Heitmeyer (Ed.), Deutsche Zustände. Folge 1 (pp. 91–102). Suhrkamp.
Rommelspacher, B. (2009). Die Farbe bekennen: Plädoyer für ein rassismuskritisches Denken in der Sozialen Arbeit [Coming clean: A plea for anti-racist thinking in social work]. Widersprüche, 111, 57–66.
About:
Fleischmann, L., & Jonuz, E. (2011). Feministische Perspektiven auf Intersektionalität: Theoretische und politische Herausforderungen [Feminist perspectives on intersectionality: Theoretical and political challenges]. In H. Bister et al. (Eds.), Intersektionalität und Psychologie (pp. 21–40). Psychosozial-Verlag.
Migrantinnen-Projekte in Deutschland. (2005). Frauen in Bewegung: Selbstorganisation von Migrantinnen in Deutschland [Women in movement: Self-organization of migrant women in Germany]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.
https://www.bpb.de/shop/bueche...
Scharathow, C. (2018). Postkoloniale Kritik in der Sozialen Arbeit: Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Dominanzkultur und Weißsein [Postcolonial critique in social work: A critical engagement with dominance culture and whiteness]. Widersprüche, 147, 49–62.
Birgit Rommelspacher
Birth:
1945
Death:
2015
Training Location(s):
PhD, Free University of Berlin (1978)
Diploma, University of Tübingen (1970)
Primary Affiliation(s):
Professor of Psychology, Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences – Berlin (1993–2010)
Director of the Department of Psychology and Gender Studies – ASH Berlin
Career Focus:
Intersectionality; racism and privilege; gender studies; postcolonial theory; social psychology of power
Biography
Birgit Rommelspacher was born in 1945 in Germany, in the final year of the second World War. Her life and work would be shaped by the legacies of this conflict, particularly its effects racism, and power in postwar German society. Rommelspacher was a psychologist, feminist theorist, and social critic whose work deeply influenced German debates on intersectionality, dominance culture (Dominanzkultur), and the psychology of structural inequality.
After earning her psychology degree at the University of Tübingen, Rommelspacher completed her Ph.D. in social psychology at the Free University of Berlin, where she became involved in the critical movements of the 1970’s. She was particularly influenced by the second-wave feminist movement in Germany but became increasingly critical of its failure to adequately engage with race, class, and colonialism. Her early academic work explored the reproduction of social hierarchies and power structures within everyday relationships.
In 1993, Rommelspacher became a professor at the Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences in Berlin, where she taught psychology with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. She was instrumental in institutionalizing gender studies in applied psychology in Germany and trained generations of psychologist’s to understand inequality not just as a political issue, but as a deeply internalized psychological structure.
Rommelspacher’s most well-known theoretical contribution is the concept of Dominanzkultur (dominance culture). This refers to the set of implicit norms, values, and behaviours though which white, middle-class, heterosexual norms are upheld as universal, while those who do not conform are marginalized or rendered invisible. She emphasized that dominance is not just enacted through overt violence, but through subtle, systemic privileging that reproduces inequality while appearing as “neutral”. This framework was a powerful tool for understanding how racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination operate at the interpersonal and institutional level, even within progressive movements.
Rommelspacher was also a vocal critic of white feminism, arguing that it often reproduced the very power structures is sought to dismantle. Her 1995 book Dominanzkultur: Texte zu Fremdheit und Macht (Dominance Culture: Essays about the Unknown and Power) became a landmark work in German feminist theory and helped introduce intersectionality into German psychological and feminist discourse.
Throughout her career, Rommelspacher combined academic work with grassroots activism. She collaborated with migrant women’s groups such as the Koreanische Frauengruppe in Deutschland (Korean Women’s Group in Germany), a self-organized collective that emerged in the 1980’s to resist gendered and racial oppression. She also worked alongside networks of Turkish migrant women and drew theoretical inspiration from their organizing in what became known as the Women in Movements (Frauen in Bewegung) initiatives. Rommelspacher participated in conferences and dialogues with anti-racist and postcolonial scholars including Elizabeth Jonuz, a scholar of pedagogy, with whom she co-authored work on intersectionality and multiple discrimination.
Rommelspacher died in 2015 after long illness, but her legacy continues in the fields of feminist psychology, intersectionality, and critical social theory in Germany. Her insistence that psychological theory must confront its own complicity in systems of oppression remains a vital challenge to the field today.
By Antonia Schlesinger (2025)
To cite this article, see Credits
Selected Works
Rommelspacher, B. (1995). Dominanzkultur: Texte zu Fremdheit und Macht [Dominance Culture: Texts on Otherness and Power]. Orlanda Frauenverlag.
Rommelspacher, B. (1998). Die Geschlechterverhältnisse als Verhältnis von Differenz und Dominanz [Gender relations as a relationship of difference and dominance]. In C. Wulf & J. Zirfas (Eds.), Erziehungswissenschaft und Differenz: Geschlecht – Klasse – Ethnizität (pp. 163–178). Leske & Burdock.
Rommelspacher, B. (2002). Was heißt hier Rassismus? [What does racism mean here?]. In W. Heitmeyer (Ed.), Deutsche Zustände. Folge 1 (pp. 91–102). Suhrkamp.
Rommelspacher, B. (2009). Die Farbe bekennen: Plädoyer für ein rassismuskritisches Denken in der Sozialen Arbeit [Coming clean: A plea for anti-racist thinking in social work]. Widersprüche, 111, 57–66.
About:
Fleischmann, L., & Jonuz, E. (2011). Feministische Perspektiven auf Intersektionalität: Theoretische und politische Herausforderungen [Feminist perspectives on intersectionality: Theoretical and political challenges]. In H. Bister et al. (Eds.), Intersektionalität und Psychologie (pp. 21–40). Psychosozial-Verlag.
Migrantinnen-Projekte in Deutschland. (2005). Frauen in Bewegung: Selbstorganisation von Migrantinnen in Deutschland [Women in movement: Self-organization of migrant women in Germany]. Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung.
https://www.bpb.de/shop/bueche...
Scharathow, C. (2018). Postkoloniale Kritik in der Sozialen Arbeit: Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Dominanzkultur und Weißsein [Postcolonial critique in social work: A critical engagement with dominance culture and whiteness]. Widersprüche, 147, 49–62.