Women* organize themselves in socio-political contexts.

It was officially difficult to deal critically with real everyday life. And so women* met privately to exchange ideas and work thematically. Women who were at home on paid parental leave after the birth of the child, the so-called “baby year”, also sought contacts with other women in the same situation, because there were no maternal or family centers. From this isolation, one or the other private circle of mothers / parents emerged, because some (a few) men also took parental leave or looked after children at home. In these rounds, women* exchanged ideas – also on care work, everyday challenges, changes in their own bodies, raising children and health … also in view of the high air pollution, e.g. in the Halle / Leipzig area. This was followed by an exchange about the political system and socially necessary changes.

Despite the real socio-economic equality of women* and men* and the “complete equality decided by the SED leadership”, there were still sufficient gender-specific attributions in the GDR with the well-known resulting stereotypical behavior patterns. In this context, the need of activists* to address the views of women* on an equal footing in socio-political work grew in almost all out-of-state movements and initiatives. Since these confrontations in mixed groups were often annoying, time-consuming and energy-consuming, a wide variety of women* groups were founded in the 80s.

On the whole, opposition groups in the GDR have been gaining more and more popularity since the beginning of the 1980s, as many people perceived the arms race in East and West as an immediate threat. A key factor was the deployment of medium-range missiles in both German states in 1979. This led to protests in East and West. In 1978, the subject of “military education” was also introduced at schools in the GDR. The “Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen” in the GDR unsuccessfully objected to this. The increasing militarization and the securing of peace through rearmament were considered incompatible with Christian values. As a result, active Christians in the GDR were increasingly in opposition to the state. Independent peace circles with numerous young people were formed “under the roof of the church”. For the Peace Decade of November 9 – 19, 1980, the materials were accompanied by a bookmark with the Bible quotation (Micah 4:3): “Swords to Plowshares”.

The phrase stood for the desire for worldwide disarmament and became a symbol of state-independent disarmament initiatives in the GDR from November 1980. Due to the adoption of the new GDR Military Service Law on March 25, 1982, by which women* could also be conscripted during mobilization, massive public resistance was formed in the entire population, especially among women*. One of the consequences was the founding of the “Women for Peace”.