A dirndl is a traditional southern .German or Austrian dress that flatters well-endowed women. It was poor taste for Rainer Briiderle, aged 67 and the lead candidate of Germany's Free Democratic Party (fdp) in this autumn's election, to suggest to a female journalist young enough to be his daughter that she "could fill out a dirndl well". But neither Mr Briiderle nor the journalist, Laura Himmelreich, could have guessed what her short account of the encounter in the magazine Stern would unleash.It began when a communications consultant, Anne Wizorek, coined a Twitter handle-ttaufschrei ("outcry")-to collect responses. Within days, more than 60,000 Tweeters had given their views on sexual harassment. The newspapers promptly made it their topic of the week, as did three of the public-television talk shows.
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