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Women In German Society
For centuries, a woman's role in German society was summed up and circumscribed
by the three "K" words: Kinder (children), Kirche (church),
and Küche (kitchen). Sometimes the fourth "K" is
mentioned: Kleider (clothes). Throughout the 20th century, however,
women have gradually won victories in their quest for equal rights. In
1919 they received the right to vote. Profound changes also were made
by World War II. During the war, women assumed positions traditionally
held by men. After the war, the so-called Trümmerfrauen (women of
the rubble) tended the wounded, buried the dead, salvaged belongings,
and began the hard task of rebuilding war-torn Germany by simply clearing
away the rubble.
In West Germany, the Basic Law of 1949 declared that men and women were
equal, but it was not until 1957 that the civil code was amended to conform
with this statement. Even in the early 1950s, women could be dismissed
from the civil service when they married. After World War II, despite
the severe shortage of young men that made marriage impossible for many
women, traditional marriage once again became society's ideal. Employment
and social welfare programs remained predicated on the male breadwinner
model. West Germany turned to millions of migrants or immigrants--including
large numbers of GDR refugees--to satisfy its booming economy's labor
requirements. Women became homemakers and mothers again and largely withdrew
from employment outside the home.
In the east, however, women remained in the workforce. The Soviet-style
system mandated women's participation in the economy, and the government
implemented this key objective by opening up educational and vocational
opportunities to women. As early as 1950, marriage and family laws also
had been rewritten to accommodate working mothers. Abortion was legalized
and funded by the state in the first trimester of pregnancy. An extensive
system of social supports, such as a highly developed day-care network
for children, was also put in place to permit women to be both mothers
and workers. Emancipated "from above" for economic and ideological reasons,
women in the east entered institutes of higher learning and the labor
force in record numbers while still maintaining the household. East Germany
had to rely on women because of its declining population; the situation
was made more critical by the fact that most of those fleeing to West
Germany were men. Because of these developments, about 90 percent
of East German women worked outside the home. They made up about half
the membership in the two most important mass organizations of the former
GDR--the Free German Trade Union Federation (Freier Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund--FDGB)
and the Free German Youth (Freie Deutsche Jugend--FDJ). In 1988 slightly
more than one-third of the membership of the ruling Socialist Unity Party
of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands--SED) consisted
of women. In contrast, only about 4.4 percent of West German women were
members of a political party.
After several decades of conforming to traditional social patterns, West
German women began to demand changes. Following patterns in Europe and
the United States, emancipation in the Federal Republic originated "from
below," with women themselves. In the 1970s, the women's movement gathered
momentum, having emerged as an outgrowth of student protests in the late
1960s (see Citizens' Initiative Associations, ch. 7). Rallying around
the causes of equal rights (including the right to abortion, which was
somewhat restricted in West Germany), the movement succeeded in having
legislation passed in 1977 that granted a woman equal rights in marriage.
A woman could work outside the home and file for divorce without her husband's
permission. Divorce was permitted when the marriage partners could no
longer be reconciled.
Women also made gains in education in both Germanys. By the mid-1960s,
East German women accounted for about half of all secondary school graduates
who had prepared to study at institutes of higher learning in the GDR;
by the 1975-76 academic year, they were in the majority (53 percent).
To assist women in completing their studies, an extensive support system,
including supplementary payments and child care, was provided. Expanded
educational opportunities for West German women were slower in coming
and never equaled the levels reached in the east. Only in the early 1980s
did West German women qualify for admission to universities in the same
numbers as men. Although fewer than that number pursued college and university
studies, between 1970 and 1989 the percentage of female students increased
from 31 percent to 41 percent. Two factors were believed to be responsible
for the discrepancy between eastern and western rates of attendance at
institutes of higher learning: West German women had a stronger orientation
toward traditional familial relations; and they had dimmer prospects for
admission to particular academic departments and for professional employment
after graduation. Despite significant gains, discrimination remains
in united Germany. Income inequalities persist: a woman's wages and salaries
range between 65 percent and 78 percent of a man's for many positions.
In most fields, women do not hold key positions. Generally, the higher
the position, the more powerful is male dominance. For example, women
are heavily represented in the traditional care-giving fields of health
and education, but even in such fields there is a wide disparity between
the number of females working in hospitals (75 percent of total staff)
and schools (more than 50 percent) and the number of female physicians
(4 percent) and principals (20 percent in the west and 32 percent in the
east). In the late 1980s, only 5 percent of university professors in West
Germany were women.
Although substantial barriers to equality of the sexes in Germany remain
as a result of a persistently patriarchal family structure and work environment,
women have managed to gain isolated high-profile victories. A separate
national office for women's affairs was created in West Germany in 1980,
and similar agencies have been established in most Länder in united
Germany. Since the mid-1980s, offices responsible for working toward women's
equality have been active, first in West Germany and after unification
in the new Länder . The Equality Offices (Gleichstellungstellen )
have as one of their tasks ensuring that women occupy a more equitable
share of positions in the public sector.
Some women have succeeded in reaching positions of power. One of the
most successful women in politics in the 1990s is Rita Süssmuth,
president of the Bundestag. In the field of industry, Birgit Breuel assumed
the leadership, following the assassination of Detlev Rohwedder in April
1991, of the Treuhandanstalt (Trust Agency), the powerful agency charged
with privatizing the former East German economy. Other influential and
prominent German women in the mid-1990s are Marion von Dönhoff, coeditor
of Die Zeit, and Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, director of the Allensbach
Public Opinion Institute. Yet despite this progress, a 1991 article in
an influential weekly magazine made it clear how far women must go to
achieve equality. The magazine's list of the 100 most powerful people
in Germany included only four women.
Almost all segments of eastern German society encountered tremendous difficulty
in the unification process, but women suffered the most. Some reports
indicated that two-thirds of working women in the new Länder were
unemployed, and many more were turned into part-time workers as a result
of privatization, downsizing of firms, and elimination of support services
such as day-care and after-school centers. To improve their prospects
for employment, some women in eastern Germany reportedly were resorting
to sterilization, one of the factors contributing to the steep decline
in births from twelve per 1,000 in 1989 to 5.3 per 1,000 in 1993.
Among the issues that demonstrated differences between women of the old
and new Länder, one of the most contentious was abortion. In 1991
there were about 125,000 registered abortions performed in Germany, about
50,000 of which were in the east. Although the number of registered abortions
in both parts of Germany had been declining in recent years, the actual
number of abortions was estimated at about 250,000. For a time following
unification, the restrictive western and permissive eastern legislation
on abortion continued in force. In June 1992, however, the Bundestag voted
to ease abortion restrictions and to permit the procedure during the first
twelve weeks of pregnancy with compulsory counseling. Resorting to what
had been a successful policy in the early 1970s, those opposed to the
new law, including Chancellor Helmut Kohl, appealed to the Federal Constitutional
Court in Karlsruhe to nullify the new law. Just before it was scheduled
to take effect, the law was blocked when the court issued an injunction.
Subsequently, a new restrictive law came to apply in all of Germany.
- Population
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junior, senior, vocational, higher)
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Miracle, financial system, Bundesbank, business culture)
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the Chancellor, the President, parties, Bundestag)
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radio and TV)
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navy, air forces, police)
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