In addition to entrepreneurial freedom, personal freedom is also important to her, says Brunner. She saw her cropped when the municipal council office rejected an interpellation from her in 2019 because it had not been written “in gender language”. Brunner complained to the district council and was right. Since then she has been fighting against the “gender police” and also against the gender “language dictation” of the city council in the city administration: Brunner is the face of the initiative “Tschüss Genderstern!”, which supported the revision of the city regulations on linguistic equality from last year ( we reported on the Council debate on the subject).
Susanne Brunner studied political science at the University of St.Gallen, and after starting her job at Credit Suisse (“Of course it almost brings tears to my eyes,” she comments on the end of the big bank), she first made a foray into development policy: “I noticed that I want to work for the common good and found that I wasn’t needed here in Zurich, where everything is going well,» she says. She went to Sarajevo for the UNO, where she worked for two years as a project manager in the field of “Youth and Employment”. What she learned during her studies about the functioning of society and the state, she got to know in practice there, “in a very difficult environment in a war-torn country”. It had become clear to her that development cooperation was just a business and that she didn’t want to spend her whole life abroad. “You can help there, but you can’t take responsibility,” she recalls. Instead, her desire for political engagement in Switzerland arose there: “I came back with a burning heart and I knew: I want to work to ensure that we in Switzerland continue to do so well that we take care of our community and our state. »
Why did you become a councillor?
We had discussions at the family table and I think “taking responsibility” was instilled in my genes. That’s why it was clear to me that I would get involved in politics where I live.
With which:r Ratskolleg:in the other side would you like to have a beer?
With all! The contacts and the exchange in addition to the debates in the council chamber are important to me. In this way we promote mutual understanding and increasingly find good cooperation.
Which voting result has upset you the most so far?
The «gender police» annoyed me the most. Before my time on the municipal council, I could never have imagined that the council office and then the entire municipal council would give me language requirements for formulating my own proposals. It turned out differently – and I fought against the “gender police”. In the end, I was right when the district council overturned the parliamentary decision.
