Women in the Federal Republic of Germany

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  • Women in the Federal Republic of Germany
    • Work
      • Immediately after the war, women worked and set up committees to organise a return to normal
      • 1982 Survey - 50% of men and 54% of women believed the husbands career was more important than the wife's
        • 70% of men and 68% of women believed that the wife should stop work upon marriage
    • Other Facts
      • The divorce rate of 1948 was 80% higher than in 1946
    • Politics
      • Fewer women got involved in politics and those that did were the same women from the Weimar era
      • Adenauer
        • Made speeches about encouraging women in the workplace and creating equal pay and working conditions
        • The Government did not make this happen
      • Political Parties
        • CDU - Did not want to encourage women to work by providing equal pay and better working conditions
        • SPD - Championed equal rights
      • Law
        • Civil code not amended until 1858 which gave women legal freedom
          • Before this, married women still needed their husband's permission to work and the husband god full control of property upon marriage
        • Article 3 of 'Basic Law' - Guarenteed unqualified 'equality under the law' for all citizens
        • 1977 - Marriage and Family Law was revised to give women equal rights in marriage
          • Also overturned a point in the Civil Code which said women could only work of it did not interfere with the role as a wife and mother
      • Ministry for Family Affairs
        • 1953
        • For many women, they still believed their place was at home as a mother and wife
        • Provided wives and mothers with financial benefits
        • This ministry underlined women's belief that they belonged at home
    • Women's Liberation movements
      • Active in the 1960s and 1970s
      • Popular with students and radicals and so were mainly city / university based
      • Some West Berlin students set up a commune to live on equal terms
        • After 6 months most of the women left as they ended up doing all of the cooking and cleaning
      • Jan 1968 - The Action Council for Women's Liberation was set up
        • Set up day-care  centres
        • Organised demonstrations to change the way schools and nurseries were run
        • In September, a member spoke at the Socialist German Students Federation convention
        • Aplit in 1969 and the 'mother faction' was blamed for not looking at women outside the family
      • Paragraph 218
        • Paragraph 218 of the German Penal Code, established in 1871, made it a crime for women to seek an abortion unless there were strong medical reasons to do so
        • Journalist Alice Shwarzer put 30 photos of women on the cover of the magazine 'Stern' with the headline "We've had abortions"
      • Groups would set up refuges for battered women in the cities and small towns
        • Wrote magazines and provided information on contraception
    • By 1989
      • There was still a clear difference in thinking between 'mothers' and 'working women'
        • Highlighted when Germany re-united
      • Families still had tax breaks and benefits to encourage mothers to stay at home for the first three years of each child's life
      • Only 50% of married women with a child under 15 living at home had a paid job
        • Driven by the fact school hours meant women had to be at home in the afternoon if they had no childcare

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