A brief overview of the gender equality situation in the GDR up to 1989/1990.
In the GDR, the equality and employment of women was enshrined in the law and in various accompanying measures. In the Constitution of the GDR of 1949, Article 7 states: “Man and woman are equal in rights. All laws and regulations that are contrary to equality are repealed.“
in 1952, the household day was introduced in the GDR by law – for married women. In various supplements, it also applied to unmarried women with children under the age of 18, or to unmarried women from the age of 40 without children, as well as to men under certain conditions. After the reunification, the budget day was abolished with effect from July 1, 1994.
At the VIII Party Congress of the SED in 1971, it was “determined” by the SED party leadership that the “equality of women according to the law and also in life” had been realized. Women’s policy measures were then “transformed” into population, family or compatibility policy. For example, from 1971 there were numerous facilities for the “working woman” – comprehensive childcare: crib, kindergarten, school, after-school care with lunch; cleaning combines (ReiKo) were created to have house linen (bedding, towels, etc.) washed and other supporting offers.
As a result, stereotypical gender-specific attributions were only partially eliminated. (1)
After graduating from school, all young people in the GDR switched to vocational training or studies – often in connection with the management of young women* in technical professions.
In a summary of the living conditions of girls and women in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1970 to 1989, the Leipzig sociologist Uta Schlegel observed that:
The majority of women in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) were subject to the following typical living conditions:
1. The traditional gender differences in school, vocational, and higher education have been effectively eliminated. This is evidenced by the convergence of occupational spectrums and gender shares in university entrance. Women have completed their education in a timely manner and have experienced direct transitions in their subsequent professional careers, as well as after the birth of children.
2. They pursued gainful employment in qualified professions, including learned and studied occupations, and achieved gender parity in access to higher education since the 1970s.
3. They were continuously employed throughout their lives, primarily in full-time positions with long-term, stable employment relationships, often with the same company, combination, or institute for an extended period, and with the expectation of career advancement.
4. Women had access to a social framework that facilitated the reconciliation of work and family life.
5. Consequently, women in the GDR were able to enjoy economic independence throughout their lives, a state achieved relatively early in their youth.
6. A comparatively early marriage and the birth of the first child (at the age of 22/23) without a long family break were typical, with the exception of the statutory exemption from paid parental leave of up to 12 months since 1976.
7. Women were afforded the option of undergoing an exclusively self-determined abortion.
8. Over the course of 40 years in the GDR, there was a notable shift towards the equal sharing of domestic responsibilities within families and cohabiting couples.
9. Both women and men were amenable to and utilized childcare services outside the home to a considerable extent.
10. From the early years of the GDR, women derived their self-image and self-awareness from themselves and their own achievements, rather than from the professional or social status of their husbands.
11. The cultural patterns associated with the housewife and housewife marriage were no longer prevalent in the GDR and were regarded as historically obsolete.
13. In consideration of the emphasis placed on the quality of the marital relationship and the absence of financial implications, women demonstrated a relatively high proclivity for divorce, particularly given the ease with which it could be obtained and the fact that it did not result in social exclusion, even in cases where children were involved.
The prevailing life pattern of women in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was typified by “economic and reproductive autonomy.” Conversely, three factors constrained gender equality in the GDR:
a) The aforementioned advances in equality were not fought for by the women themselves because they were realized by the GDR state in a paternalistic manner, i.e., from the top down. In this way, women were essentially the object of politics and essentially excluded as subjects/actors with regard to political strategies and decisions.
b) There was no public social discourse on gender relations in the GDR. This was due to a combination of factors, including the totalitarian nature of the GDR, which resulted in a lack of political culture, as well as a widespread appreciation of the state’s achievements in promoting female employment and structurally relieving the burden on families.
c) The latter, in particular, in the context of the widespread absence of overt discrimination against women (such as pornography and sexist advertising), meant that GDR women were largely unaware of and unable to identify even subtle mechanisms of gender-based discrimination; they were simply not sensitized to them.
It is only against this background that the majority of GDR women internalized conflicts in everyday life on an individual level. The lack of awareness of their own structural disadvantages due to gender, coupled with the absence of a broad, politically active women’s movement, contributed to the fact that GDR women showed a distinct distance to feminism.
