Cäcilia Rentmeister

Cäcilia (Cillie) Rentmeister (born 1948 in Berlin) is a German art historian, culture scientist and researcher of cultural conditions of women and of gender. In addition to studying the different realities in which men and women are living, she has concerned herself with the matriarchy. Rentmeister studied at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Cologne Art History, Archeology and American Studies. She received her PhD in 1980 at the University of Bremen. Rentmeister lives in Berlin and Brandenburg, and, since 1994, teaches at the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences "Cross-cultural Gender Studies" and "Interactive Media".

Rentmeister engaged since the early 1970s as activist in the Second-wave feminism. From 1974, she wrote articles and essays on feminist art history, archaeology and cultural studies, which were also published in other languages. From 1977 on she lectured in art schools, teacher colleges and universities in Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen. She was one of the initiators of the interdisciplinary women's summer programs ("Frauen Sommeruniversität") at the Technical University of Berlin und the Free University Berlin, which were attended from 1976 to 1983 by about 30,000 women, and gave a sustained impetus for women's studies and gender research in all scientific disciplines.

Cäcilia Rentmeister was keyboardist of the Flying Lesbians, the first women's rock band on the European continent. She reflected the significance of women's music in her writings on rituals and women´s festivals.In the 1970s and 1980s, Rentmeister also published critical essays on feminist aesthetics and women´s art, sparking controversy, which she 1978 also debated internationally with Valie Export, Marlite Halbertsma , Ulrike Rosenbach and Lucy Lippard in the panel discussion organised by De Appel "Feministische Kunst International" in the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands.In the 1980s, she published as a science writer for the German public radio, - among other issues on patriarchal motives of population growth in history and present, and on the New Age movement. Since 1973 she works with her partner, film director and writer Cristina Perincioli. They wrote together the screenplay for "Anna and Edith" - the first feature film about a lesbian relationship on German television ZDF in 1975. From 1985 on Rentmeister and Perincioli turned to the topic "computers and creativity". They developed models for artistic and educational work with multimedia, published and taught these concepts with the intention to interest women for the new digital technologies, whereas in the 1980s in German academia a computer-sceptical attitude still prevailed. From the 1990s Rentmeister worked as editor and project manager of websites on "sensitive" social and gender subjects that have been authored and produced by Cristina Perincioli (Two of them also in English versions)As private pilot and member of the women pilots networks Ninety Nines International Organisation and the Federation of German Women Pilots Rentmeister is committed to promote the advancement of girls and women in aviation, through lectures, the media and by organising events for schoolgirls at the Girls’ Day. Melanie Katzenberger writes: "The pioneers of the skies belong into the textbooks, calls Caecilia Rentmeister. ...Girls must get the feeling: If she can, I can also..."This important function of role models - from across the STEM sector - and that they should be introduced to girls at the earliest possible age of "five to twelve" is evidenced by Rentmeister's 2018 essay "This is your captain speaking. The Gender Factor in Aviation," in the companion volume to the exhibition "Violence and Gender" at the Military History Museum of the German Armed Forces in Dresden. Based on international studies, Rentmeister analyzes here the reasons why for decades the proportion of female pilots worldwide has stagnated at an average of only six percent, and how it could be increased. As further central factors, she discusses conscious and unconscious prejudices and stereotypes towards "women and technology", widespread among men as well as women. She provides positive examples of how to increase confidence in technical skills and makes the case for why women's participation in aviation is generally a win-win situation - for the women themselves as well as for business and society. Rentmeister also discusses these issues for the current German situation with professional women pilots, members of the Association of German Women Pilots, against the background of their specific, different biographical experiences and professional careers, in "55,000 Flying Hours - Five Professional and Commercial Women Pilots."