Although German reunification asymmetrically affects East and West Germans, East German women were particularly hurt by German reunification.
Unemployment, Abortion, and Gender Roles: Women after Reunification
More than 90 percent of women were employed in the GDR, but since reunification women have been particularly struck by unemployment and deskilling (Welsh et al 116-177).
Abortion has been another highly controversial issue. Abortion was less restricted in the GDR, partially because the role of women as wage-earners, and the delegitimization of GDR abortion law reflected “a general discrediting of East German social policies” (Mushaaben et al 162).
Eastern German women reportedly view the more restrictive abortion policies as “an extraordinary imposition,” particularly since the laws have been accompanied by a decrease in social benefits such as child care, available employment, and inexpensive rent” (Mushaaben et al 164).
Although East German women have gained freedom by becoming citizens of a parliamentary democracy and consumers in a prosperous mass culture, their rights have simultaneously been restricted through the reintroduction of the limits of conventional gender role (Mushaaben et al 171).
Gendering National Unity: Reunification as a Marriage or Relationship
The inequality of men and women, and of East and West Germany, is reinforced by the gendering of reunification.
German national unity is often understood in terms of a relationship or marriage: “National unity is imagined in terms of relationships between ‘men and women,’ whereby – in accordance with time-honored hierarchies – the partner who is in the position of power, i.e. the Federal Republic of Germany, is connotated as being male, whilst the partner who is considered to be inferior, i.e. the German Democratic Republic, is connotated as being female” (Hoffman-Curtius 78).
This gendering is evident in a 1990 poster that pictures a dark-haired, dark-eyed couple with a scarf in the German colors wrapped around them (Hoffman-Curtius 78). The metaphor of marriage is also explicitly employed in a 1992 article that asks, “Is the current unification a marriage of convenience or the consummation of genuine love and affection?” (Küchler 55).
And perceived characteristics of the FRG and GDR have also been gendered; for example, Stephen Brockmann points out that “the GDR came to be embodied by a woman, Christa Wolf, associated with culture and subjectivity, while the FRG came to be embodied by a man, Helmut Kohl, associated with cultural oafishness and ‘realism.’” (Brockmann 29).
Related Articles
Psychological Wall between East and West Germany
Identity Construction in East Germany
The Asymmetry of German Reunification
Sources
Brockmann, Stephen. “Introduction: The Reunification Debate.” New German Critique 52(1991): 3-30.
Hoffman-Curtius, Kathrin. “A Gendering of Germany.” The Oxford Art Journal 17.2(1994): 78-88.
Küchler, Manfred. “The Road to German Unity: Mass Sentiment in East and West Germany.” Public Opinion Quarterly 56(1992): 53-75.
Mushaaben, Joyce, Geoffrey Giles, and Sara Lennox. “Women, Men and Unification: Gender Politics and the Abortion Struggle Since 1989.” In After Unity: Reconfiguring German Identities, ed. Konrad Jarausch (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997), 137-172.
Welsh, Helga A., Andreas Pickel, and Dorothy Rosenberg. “East and West German Identities.” In After Unity: Reconfiguring German Identities, ed. Konrad Jarausch, 103-136. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1997.
Rebekah Richards - Rebekah Richards has published fiction and nonfiction in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Brandeis Law Journal, Where the Children Play, ...
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