Profile
Irmgard Höllmüller
Birth:
1959
Training Location(s):
Mag., University of Vienna (1985)
Primary Affiliation(s):
Feminist bookshop collective Frauenzimmer
Women's counselling centre KASSANDRA (Mödling/Lower Austria)
Women's qualification training and counselling INNOVA (Feldbach/Styria)
Gender Unit at the Medical University of Graz
Mentoring project of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz
Career Focus:
Feminist social counselling; labour market policy counselling; social research; project management.
Biography
Irmgard Höllmüller is an Austrian sociologist, supervisor, feminist social therapist and counsellor who has worked in both urban and rural settings. In addition to her freelance work as a supervisor, her main focus of work is on social therapy and labour market counselling for women, as well as the establishment and management of a regional qualification and counselling project for women, and the mentoring of young scientists at the Medical University of Graz and the Karl-Franzens University of Graz.
As the middle child of three, Irmgard Höllmüller grew up in a working-class family in a community of 3,000 inhabitants in Styria, thereby experiencing the huge influence that social class and gender can have on one's life at a very early age.
She faced the disdain of her classmates towards her family because her father was a municipal worker and her mother was a trained seamstress but 'only' a housewife. Although she was "one of the smartest children", she was not allowed to attend a general secondary school like her brothers because she was "too emotional". In the family household, too, chores were assigned according to traditional gender roles.
Her parents, committed to the social democratic ideals of the Kreisky era (the social democrat Bruno Kreisky was Austrian chancellor from 1970 to 1983), were convinced that social advancement could only succeed through education. Nonetheless, due to their own lack of schooling, they were not in a position to support their children in pursuing their educational aspirations. Irmgard still passed the Matura (Austrian High School Degree) and went on to study pharmacy in Vienna, but quickly changed her focus of interest to sociology: "I wanted to understand why the injustices I experienced first-hand [...] can exist. And how it can be , and how a society, in which this is possible, is organized." (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
At university, the young student experienced a sense of belonging to a political group, autonomy and the growing desire to make a difference for the first time. Meanwhile, together with other women, she founded the Women's Group Sociology, which became active beyond the university – Höllmüller began to see herself as a feminist: "That's when I created a group and a home for myself [...] from then on I certainly said I am a feminist". (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
The feminist activists engaged in public discussions on the issue of rape and also fought against the sexist display of the female body in advertising. Höllmüller got involved in the so-called “Palmers action”, in which public advertising posters were painted over and a great stir was caused. Their women's group had a lively exchange with the then State Secretary and later Minister for Women's Affairs, Johanna Dohnal, who supported the cause of protecting women against violence: "We really believed we could change the world. It was incredibly energising, it was an incredibly beautiful time." (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
Irmgard Höllmüller completed her studies with a joint diploma thesis on the life aspirations of 16-year-old girls. She describes her co-author Andrea Ernst as one of the few nurturing and supportive women in her professional career. Höllmüller then led the first course on "Girls in non-traditional professions" in Vienna, which was based at an adult education centre (VHS) and funded by the then Ministry of Social Affairs (Department for Experimental Labour Market Policy), and got involved in the collective of the feminist bookshop “Frauenzimmer”.
At the end of the 1980s, she started working as a social counsellor at the women's counselling centre Kassandra in Lower Austria, completed the 3-year feminist social therapy training with Agnes Büchele and Sabine Scheffler, as well as supervision training at the Austrian Working Group for Group Therapy and Group Dynamics. In order to be able to meet her own demands for a qualified counselling of women, these professionalization and qualification processes were highly important to Irmgard Höllmüller.
In 1995, the native Styrian moved from the city of Vienna back to the countryside, but in the small Styrian village she could no longer openly live as a lesbian.
In the district capital Feldbach, together with a colleague from Graz, she set up the qualification project INNOVA for women, which mainly consisted of a women's counselling centre, a tourism project and a socio-economic business. Initially, The Public Employment Service supported women's projects in the region, until larger EU projects displaced the smaller regional projects in the 1990s. Therefore Irmgard Höllmüller sees it as a distinct success that the Feldbach Women's Counselling Centre and its qualification project still exist today.
As a counsellor, Irmgard Höllmüller was mostly able to live up to her feminist claim of supporting women individually and specifically: "I worked concretely with women, balancing social expectations and the needs of individuals [...], to look for solutions in between, good things happened again and again [...]". (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021). But in her job as a supervisor, she increasingly saw herself in the role of doing "repair work" for a system in which women received just few opportunities and little support, and over time she gave up this part-time job.
Until this day, Irmgard Höllmüller has either created her own jobs or solely worked in teams with equal rights. After more than 10 years "in the countryside", she first moved to the gender department of the Medical University of Graz, then to the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, where she supervised, supported, and accompanied young female scientists. However, Höllmüller experienced herself as "culturally foreign and alienated” to the hierarchical structures of the university: "[My] feminist stance [...] I always had the feeling that it created an alienness [...] I think I always wanted too much and partly also overwhelmed people." (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021). At the age of over 50, she changed professionally to the disability counselling sector, where she worked for another 10 years.
Overall, Irmgard Höllmüller's biography is marked by the mutual appreciation of women and energetic and equal cooperations with like-minded people in projects, but also by fractures, the search for a feminist homeland and places of belonging, plus the lack of mentors.
Höllmüller is content with her achievements as a feminist advisor and continues to find it extremely important to: "[...] not only illuminate figureheads, but [...] it must also be clear that there are many more [women], that promotion pays off at all levels [...], not just to see that those who want to make a career get through, that it is also worthwhile for simple women to be encouraged and recognised for the part they do." (Höllmüller, Interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
Looking back on her own work, she also critically notes that it is not only about supporting women in technical professions particularly, but adds: "I myself have also wished to work with people. Maybe it's about paying the care professions better and promoting their reputation" (Höllmüller, Interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
She, who is currently learning a trade after her retirement, would like to pass on to young feminists in the psychosocial profession: "You learn by practising, you have to make mistakes, every mistake is worth its weight in gold and especially women should dare to make mistakes [...] Repetition is totally important, I mean, in terms of doing, but also in terms of talking. Some things have to be talked about again and again and it is not enough to think we've already dealt with that anyway." (Höllmüller, Interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
By Emelie Rack & Susanne Hahnl (2022)
To cite this article, see Credits
Selected Works
Irmgard Höllmüller
Birth:
1959
Training Location(s):
Mag., University of Vienna (1985)
Primary Affiliation(s):
Feminist bookshop collective Frauenzimmer
Women's counselling centre KASSANDRA (Mödling/Lower Austria)
Women's qualification training and counselling INNOVA (Feldbach/Styria)
Gender Unit at the Medical University of Graz
Mentoring project of the Karl-Franzens-University Graz
Career Focus:
Feminist social counselling; labour market policy counselling; social research; project management.
Biography
Irmgard Höllmüller is an Austrian sociologist, supervisor, feminist social therapist and counsellor who has worked in both urban and rural settings. In addition to her freelance work as a supervisor, her main focus of work is on social therapy and labour market counselling for women, as well as the establishment and management of a regional qualification and counselling project for women, and the mentoring of young scientists at the Medical University of Graz and the Karl-Franzens University of Graz.
As the middle child of three, Irmgard Höllmüller grew up in a working-class family in a community of 3,000 inhabitants in Styria, thereby experiencing the huge influence that social class and gender can have on one's life at a very early age.
She faced the disdain of her classmates towards her family because her father was a municipal worker and her mother was a trained seamstress but 'only' a housewife. Although she was "one of the smartest children", she was not allowed to attend a general secondary school like her brothers because she was "too emotional". In the family household, too, chores were assigned according to traditional gender roles.
Her parents, committed to the social democratic ideals of the Kreisky era (the social democrat Bruno Kreisky was Austrian chancellor from 1970 to 1983), were convinced that social advancement could only succeed through education. Nonetheless, due to their own lack of schooling, they were not in a position to support their children in pursuing their educational aspirations. Irmgard still passed the Matura (Austrian High School Degree) and went on to study pharmacy in Vienna, but quickly changed her focus of interest to sociology: "I wanted to understand why the injustices I experienced first-hand [...] can exist. And how it can be , and how a society, in which this is possible, is organized." (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
At university, the young student experienced a sense of belonging to a political group, autonomy and the growing desire to make a difference for the first time. Meanwhile, together with other women, she founded the Women's Group Sociology, which became active beyond the university – Höllmüller began to see herself as a feminist: "That's when I created a group and a home for myself [...] from then on I certainly said I am a feminist". (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
The feminist activists engaged in public discussions on the issue of rape and also fought against the sexist display of the female body in advertising. Höllmüller got involved in the so-called “Palmers action”, in which public advertising posters were painted over and a great stir was caused. Their women's group had a lively exchange with the then State Secretary and later Minister for Women's Affairs, Johanna Dohnal, who supported the cause of protecting women against violence: "We really believed we could change the world. It was incredibly energising, it was an incredibly beautiful time." (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
Irmgard Höllmüller completed her studies with a joint diploma thesis on the life aspirations of 16-year-old girls. She describes her co-author Andrea Ernst as one of the few nurturing and supportive women in her professional career. Höllmüller then led the first course on "Girls in non-traditional professions" in Vienna, which was based at an adult education centre (VHS) and funded by the then Ministry of Social Affairs (Department for Experimental Labour Market Policy), and got involved in the collective of the feminist bookshop “Frauenzimmer”.
At the end of the 1980s, she started working as a social counsellor at the women's counselling centre Kassandra in Lower Austria, completed the 3-year feminist social therapy training with Agnes Büchele and Sabine Scheffler, as well as supervision training at the Austrian Working Group for Group Therapy and Group Dynamics. In order to be able to meet her own demands for a qualified counselling of women, these professionalization and qualification processes were highly important to Irmgard Höllmüller.
In 1995, the native Styrian moved from the city of Vienna back to the countryside, but in the small Styrian village she could no longer openly live as a lesbian.
In the district capital Feldbach, together with a colleague from Graz, she set up the qualification project INNOVA for women, which mainly consisted of a women's counselling centre, a tourism project and a socio-economic business. Initially, The Public Employment Service supported women's projects in the region, until larger EU projects displaced the smaller regional projects in the 1990s. Therefore Irmgard Höllmüller sees it as a distinct success that the Feldbach Women's Counselling Centre and its qualification project still exist today.
As a counsellor, Irmgard Höllmüller was mostly able to live up to her feminist claim of supporting women individually and specifically: "I worked concretely with women, balancing social expectations and the needs of individuals [...], to look for solutions in between, good things happened again and again [...]". (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021). But in her job as a supervisor, she increasingly saw herself in the role of doing "repair work" for a system in which women received just few opportunities and little support, and over time she gave up this part-time job.
Until this day, Irmgard Höllmüller has either created her own jobs or solely worked in teams with equal rights. After more than 10 years "in the countryside", she first moved to the gender department of the Medical University of Graz, then to the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, where she supervised, supported, and accompanied young female scientists. However, Höllmüller experienced herself as "culturally foreign and alienated” to the hierarchical structures of the university: "[My] feminist stance [...] I always had the feeling that it created an alienness [...] I think I always wanted too much and partly also overwhelmed people." (Höllmüller, interview S. Hahnl, 2021). At the age of over 50, she changed professionally to the disability counselling sector, where she worked for another 10 years.
Overall, Irmgard Höllmüller's biography is marked by the mutual appreciation of women and energetic and equal cooperations with like-minded people in projects, but also by fractures, the search for a feminist homeland and places of belonging, plus the lack of mentors.
Höllmüller is content with her achievements as a feminist advisor and continues to find it extremely important to: "[...] not only illuminate figureheads, but [...] it must also be clear that there are many more [women], that promotion pays off at all levels [...], not just to see that those who want to make a career get through, that it is also worthwhile for simple women to be encouraged and recognised for the part they do." (Höllmüller, Interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
Looking back on her own work, she also critically notes that it is not only about supporting women in technical professions particularly, but adds: "I myself have also wished to work with people. Maybe it's about paying the care professions better and promoting their reputation" (Höllmüller, Interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
She, who is currently learning a trade after her retirement, would like to pass on to young feminists in the psychosocial profession: "You learn by practising, you have to make mistakes, every mistake is worth its weight in gold and especially women should dare to make mistakes [...] Repetition is totally important, I mean, in terms of doing, but also in terms of talking. Some things have to be talked about again and again and it is not enough to think we've already dealt with that anyway." (Höllmüller, Interview S. Hahnl, 2021).
By Emelie Rack & Susanne Hahnl (2022)
To cite this article, see Credits