Not all of it was rolled back, the gender pay gap is still lower in East Germany even today - in spite of a disproportionate number of highly educated women moving westwards after the wall fell and their old lifes collapsed. It's a common cliché in Germany today that many rural parts of the East are kind of "incelized", as all the girls move to college towns as soon as they're out of school and all the dudes stay behind. The differences in mobility are really notable statistically.
But yes, the reunification was definitely a setback for women in many, many ways - abortion rights were infringed and many mothers lost the excellent daycare provided in the GDR because the publicly owned businesses they were part of got sold off and closed down.
As far as feminism as public discourse goes, the GDR didn't have the same feminist grassroots movements as the FRG. Women organized within the SED party, and i'm not particularly familiar with that subject. But i don't think a category like 2nd wave feminism can properly be applied to women's struggles in the GDR, as discussion of such societal issues was always grounded in Marxist theory, just as the agitprop image of women followed socialist ideals, portraying them with the same proletarian heroism as men (which, if you ask me, is a much healthier portrayal than what we see in capitalist advertising and entertainment of the same decades).
portraying them with the same proletarian heroism as men (which, if you ask me, is a much healthier portrayal than what we see in capitalist advertising and entertainment of the same decades).
:10000-com:
Not to mention, even when modern capitalist society attempt to portray women as "heroic", something about it just seems to ring hollow. Not sure how to articulate it, but it runs deeper than just the "more female drone pilots meme", idk.
even when modern capitalist society attempt to portray women as “heroic”, something about it just seems to ring hollow. Not sure how to articulate it, but it runs deeper than just the “more female drone pilots meme”, idk.
Might be because experience has shown us that capitalism will absolutely throw women to the wolves the second it becomes profitable to do so.
Not all of it was rolled back, the gender pay gap is still lower in East Germany even today - in spite of a disproportionate number of highly educated women moving westwards after the wall fell and their old lifes collapsed. It's a common cliché in Germany today that many rural parts of the East are kind of "incelized", as all the girls move to college towns as soon as they're out of school and all the dudes stay behind. The differences in mobility are really notable statistically.
But yes, the reunification was definitely a setback for women in many, many ways - abortion rights were infringed and many mothers lost the excellent daycare provided in the GDR because the publicly owned businesses they were part of got sold off and closed down.
As far as feminism as public discourse goes, the GDR didn't have the same feminist grassroots movements as the FRG. Women organized within the SED party, and i'm not particularly familiar with that subject. But i don't think a category like 2nd wave feminism can properly be applied to women's struggles in the GDR, as discussion of such societal issues was always grounded in Marxist theory, just as the agitprop image of women followed socialist ideals, portraying them with the same proletarian heroism as men (which, if you ask me, is a much healthier portrayal than what we see in capitalist advertising and entertainment of the same decades).
:10000-com:
Not to mention, even when modern capitalist society attempt to portray women as "heroic", something about it just seems to ring hollow. Not sure how to articulate it, but it runs deeper than just the "more female drone pilots meme", idk.
Thank you for sharing this.
Might be because experience has shown us that capitalism will absolutely throw women to the wolves the second it becomes profitable to do so.