Reflections on Women in the GDR

Warm thanks to Robin Buttcrfield. Caroline Knowles and Gwyn Edwards lor help of various kinds.

I was based at the Institute for Sociology and Social Policy at the Academy of Sciences. The study tour was organised by the British Academy. I wrote this article in September.

Williams F , ‘Recent Developments in Policies for Women in Hungary’. CSP No 16, Summer 1986.

Molyneux M , ‘Socialist Societies Old and New: Progress Towards Women's Emancipation?’ Feminist Review No 8, 1981. Also Molyneux. M ‘Family Reform in Socialist States: The Hidden Agenda’, Feminist Review No 21. 1985.

The modernity may be much more characteristic of Berlin than elsewhere.

91.1 per cent of employable women of working age are employed. Statisstisehes Jahrbueh der DDR 1985. A strong incentive to work lies in the fact that although basic goods are highly subsidised others are very expensive and any degree of comfort requires two incomes and overtime.

72.7 percent and 89.9 per cent of children in creches (0–3) and kindergartens (3–6) respecively in 1985. Satisches Jahrbueh der DDR, 1986. Kindergarten places arc available from all wanting them.

In 1984 80.3 per cent of employed women had completed a vocational training compared with 59 per cent in 1970. The breakdown was as follows:

There is a lot of concern about the quality of creche provision, especially understaffing and lack of one-to-one nurturing. The level of developmental activities has received a great deal of attention. In 1986 one year's paid maternity leave was introduced and is being taken up widely.

Sec story of a divorce settlement in GE Edwards, GDR Society and Social Institutions. 1985 p 16–17. The majority of legal personnel, professional and lay. are women.

Poor quality cleaning materials are a major handicap, however, and the public services arc as yet often inferior.

Starke K , Friedrich W . Liebe u Sexualitüt bis 30. 1984.

36 per cent of births arc illegitimate, although 30 per cent of single women under 35 are living with a partner, from research by a leading demographer. Divorce rates arc also high.

I have since been told that one volume of Kollontat was published, ‘Wege der Liebe’.

Miucilungsblatt der Forschungsgemeinschaft ‘Geschichte des Kampfes der Arbeiterklasse um die Befreiung der Frau‘ Pädagogischc Hochsehule Klara Zetkin. Leipzig.

Demographic Processes and Population Policies in the GDR 1970–83, Institute for Sociology and Social Policy, Academy of Sciences. Berlin 1984. Voluntary childlessness is much higher in the West, they said, eg 25 per cent in Holland and Sweden.

Starke and Friedrich's (ibid) survey indicated 10 per cent of young people having some kind of homosexual experience and 1–3 per cent real homosexuals.

Edwards (ibid) shows men apply for custody of children in 20 per cent of cases and get it in 10 per cent.

There arc two women managing directors, one in the browncoal industry and one in textiles.

See Achberger KR . ‘GDR Women's Fiction in the 1970s: The Emergence of Feminism within Socialism’, East Central Europe 11:2. 1984. Also Rcid JH . ‘Women. Myth and Magic: On Christa Wolfs Kassandra and Irmtraud Morgner's Amanda in (ed) Childs D , Honecker's Germany 1985.

Anita Grandke. Familienförderugn als Gesellschafilichc and Staatliche Aufgabe DDR, 1986.

eg Jutta Gysi and Uta Meier. ‘Zu theoretischen Problcmcn ciner sozialistischer Politik’. in Jahrbuch für Soziotogic u Sozialpolitik. 1984. Also Kuhrig Herta , Zur Gesellschafi lichen Stellung der Frau in der DDR. DDR 1978.

See GE Edwards op cit. p 4.

Deacon , B Social Policy and Socialism. 1983.