One could draw many parallels, superficial and meaningful, between
the current state of the women's movements in Germany and the United
States. Which is to say, both look to be in pretty dire straits if
we look at the federal level. An examination of movement goals,
politics, and political opportunities will reveal some meaningful
differences, and show that by embracing bureaucratization, certain
German feminist movements have been able to make great strides in
regaining some of the protections lost when West Germany (hereafter
the BRD) annexed East Germany (hereafter the DDR), and in placing
women's rights firmly on the agenda at the municipal and state level.
This analysis will be conducted through a political opportunity
lens, and will show that bureaucratized “state feminism” is the
viable future of the German women's movement.
Barbara
Epstein has thoroughly outlined a pessimistic view of the American
women's movement which is far from inaccurate. She points out how
despite feminist publicity of the unfair expectation that women
perform household and childrearing labor regardless of whether they
work outside the home or not, this “second shift” persists, along
with increasingly successful attacks on reproductive freedom,
lethargic action to improve protections against pay and hiring
discrimination, and myriad other defeats.
On the same page she also highlights the role elite feminist theory
has played in reducing issues in women's lives to the most abstract
minutiae, segregated from any concept of relevance or applicability
to women's lives or the activist process. She discusses the cultural
successes the feminist movement has achieved, mostly spreading
awareness of feminism as an idea which seems unlikely to die
completely due to the breadth of its ostensible support, but has
weakened politically since its heyday.
The parallels cannot be overstated- Epstein links the decline of the
American feminist movement to the loss of the world's most prominent
alternative to American hyper-capitalism: the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics. The collapse of the DDR government was hastened
by the same forces which brought Soviet Socialism down, and women's
movements in both the United States and Germany have been hampered by
the political discourse forbidding further alternatives. The German
women's movement has adapted to this by bureaucratizing as has the
American women's movement, but also has infiltrated both of Germany's
mainstream leftist movements- the Greens (hereafter die Grünen) and
the Left Party (hereafter Die Linke, or PDS when Professor Guenther
was writing), which has borne notable results, particularly at the
local level.
Much of the
framework for women's rights during the DDR's existence was laid
decades beforehand- German feminists were extremely active in radical
circles and in war resistance. Germany's greatest woman radical,
Rosa Luxemburg was a crucial leader in the aftermath of the 1918
revolution until her martyrdom at the hands of the proto-Nazi
Freikorps in 1920, and her writing led the new Communist Party of
Germany (KPD) to embrace a detailed platform to undermine the
influence of sexism on society, calling for public daycare, hiring
protections and educational expansions which would have taken a
meaningful chunk out of the “second shift” had they been
implemented. Weimar Germany also saw the first organized forays of
feminism into film, including the first film with lesbian
protagonists, “Mädchen in Uniform” (previously reviewed on this site) critiquing double standards
of behavior and misogynist, natalist ideology. This free, critically
thinking climate was one of the Nazi party's many targets, and the
surviving Communist leadership seems to have felt a degree of
solidarity with other Nazi victims- they would have little other
reason to legalize homosexuality and conscientious objection to
military service. Under the communist government of the DDR, women
were able to make dramatic gains in the field of arts, especially in
theatre with works like Franziska Linkerhand, and films like the
Legend of Paul and Paula which concern themselves with the struggle
of proletarian women in what was still very much a man's world, and
music with Tamara Danz of Silly being the most prominent example of
feminist rock musicians. Many male artists also devoted considerable
attention to what are often considered “women's issues”- the
Puhdys released songs about heroic single mothers, loathsome abusive
fathers, the absurdity of some performative gender roles, and women's
suffering in war zones, to name a few. The ultimate anthem of
empowerment however, has to be Silly's “Mont Klamott”- a funky
power ballad recounting the rebuilding of Berlin by its women- the
“Trümmerfrauen” in the wake of World War II. This is important
as evidence of what ideology the regime was willing to support, and
as will be demonstrated later, the DDR was extremely supportive of
women's personal and professional rights.
Over the same
period as American feminism's decline or abeyance, German politics
have taken an increasingly hostile stance towards women's economic
empowerment and reproductive freedom, actually starting considerably
sooner in the early 70s as the Supreme Court struck down the Brandt
government's modest reforms as unconstitutional attacks on religion.
The 70s also marked the beginnings of modern globalization, producing
a contest between progressive interest in state power over market
abuses against the force of globalization making firms and their
interests bulletproof. State power has shrunk just as women begin to
access it, abetted by the conservative approach of putting some
issues out of state reach.
Even aside from
that, the fact that all German women now live under the BRD has been
a major blow to their liberties. There were serious campaigns and
mass mobilizations to legalize Abortion in the 1970s, 80s and 90s, bu
none of them has yet achieved lasting success. The closest German
women have yet come is in the early 70s, when the practice was
legalized by the Willy Brandt government. After protests began, the
supreme court struck the legalization down. Abortion has now been
legalized for reasons of hardship, eugenics(!) health of the mother,
or rape or incest cases. The solution was in 1995 to ban other
abortions but only punish with mandatory de facto religious
counseling,
and both public and private insurance is forbidden to cover abortion
services. Finally, the dominance of the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) has led to massive government subsidies to Catholic churches
and organizations which conduct the shaming/counseling of women who
seek abortions or obtain them without certain doctors' permission,
even in heavily protestant or atheist areas. Bavarians have used
their outsized influence through the CDU to ban doctors from earning
more than 25% income from Abtreibung.
While this is a gross violation of human rights, there have been
positive developments arising on other fronts at the local level.
A large part of the
current activity of German Feminism is motivated by the desire to
regain the rights women had under the Communist government, which
were considerable. Among its highlights were a formal (though hard
to enforce) ordinance mandating equal division of household labor,
family policy that did not incentivize marriage, a full year of paid
maternity leave, and guaranteed time off to care for sick children
available to both parents, and an extra day off each month for women
to deal with time sensitive errands and childrens' appointments.
(This latter policy obviously contradicts the goal of equal division
of domestic labor, but it sure helps more than having a culturally
mandated second shift and no day off). Access to healthcare was also
markedly improved in the DDR- birth control was fully available for
free to single and married women alike, and abortion was also free
and legal, if somewhat stigmatized,
and the revolutionary Poliklinik model brought more people access to
specialist medical providers than ever before. Culturally, single
motherhood was not only tolerated but actively embraced by the state
with several popular state-backed musicians both male and female
producing songs glorifying their work and openly acknowledging their
difficulties. Employment was more available than in the west, but
glass ceilings were ubiquitous. Despite this, the DDR set a new
world record in 1984 with 83% of women employed outside the home,
compared with less than 40% in the BRD.
The advantages of this cannot be overstated- employed women are more
valued in a materialist culture, and also have the means to free
themselves from abusive situations. Crucially, 90% of DDR children
under 3 were cared for in state day facilities, compared to 3% of BRD
children.
All of this would be destroyed overnight by the western government,
whose lack of a minimum wage law until 2014 meant that it was not
unheard of for women to be hired in the service sector for only 1
euro per hour.
The opportunity to
act came about through great backlash among eastern women and some
men at the loss of women's rights under the western regime.
Organization efforts were primarily localized, and this arena
provided the best opportunities following the legal mandate for each
political unit of 10,000 or ore citizens to appoint a high level
official as “Bearer of the Equality Objective” (hereafter Die
Gleichstellungsbeauftragte, or GB). Nascent women's movements sought
to cooperate with and in some cases supply this new leadership of
state activism.
Gleichstellungsbeauftragten are generally tasked with ensuring
municipal compliance with gender equality legislation, and for gender
mainstreaming city policy- making sure it doesn't have a disparate
negative effect on vulnerable populations as well as disseminating
information on inequality as well as providing governmental advice
and counseling to citizens seeking redress and direction.
This opportunity allowed for symbiotic institutionalization-
many cities' women's movements became dependent on the political
power of these new officials, who themselves relied on information,
policy drafts, and activist support from these organizations to
remain relevant, ensuring a steady stream of state funding for things
like women-targeted job training and domestic violence shelters.
Particularly in Rostock, women's movements' partnering with the
local Gleichstellungsbeauftragte has contributed greatly to the
resurgence of daycare co-ops, and was crucial in getting city funding
for these feminist undertakings.
The leading organization in women's rights in northeastern Germany
(at least as of 2005) was the Landes-Frauenrat Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
(State Women's Council of West Pomerania), based in Rostock, seeking
women's equality in politics, women's political participation,
solidarity among women, consolidation of women's interests, improving
the representation of women in media, business and politics, reducing
long-term unemployment among women, and restoration of support for
single mothers. They primarily use petitions and letter writing
campaigns to engage at the legislative level rather than street
protests, but with strong GB offices in both Rostock and the state of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, they've accomplished much, especially in the
arena of funding for women's shelters and job training.
We can see examples
of successful bureaucratization in Germany, helped by a receptive
political climate and elites in the east. The American feminist
movement should look to our German sisters for inspiration of how to
get back up after the most savage of punches, and look to work at
municipal levels to gain access to the health care, childminding, and
employment rights Washington would withhold from us.
Sources
Epstein, Barbara.
Decline of the Women's Movement, the.
From the Social movements Reader, 2nd
edition. Goodwin, Jeff and Jasper, James, eds. Wiley-Blackwell
publishing, West Sussex, UK: 2009
Günther,
Katja. Making Their Place: Feminism After Socialism in
Eastern Germany.
Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA: 2005.
McCarthy,
John D. and Mueller, Carol McClurg. Cultural Continuity
and Structural Change.
From Women's Movements Facing the Reconfigured State.
Banaszak, Lee Ann, Beckwith, Karen and Rucht, Dieter eds. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge: 2003.
