Women's and Family Policy in the GDR

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In women's and family policy in the GDR , a focus on women-oriented work-life balance was a priority, and for women in the GDR , their own work was the norm. Reasons for working with women were on the one hand economic and on the other hand socially justified. In the early years of the GDR, women were indispensable for the reconstruction of the cities and the economy, as many men had died in the war . The emancipation and equality of women were strongly promoted ideologically. This was where the GDR differed significantly from the old Federal Republic . The woman was not only seen as a worker, but was also given considerably more rights towards men than in western Germany . In the Federal Republic of Germany, for example, until the 1970s, men were legally granted sole decision-making rights in the family in matters of upbringing, and women only had the right to work if they did not neglect their domestic duties. It was not until 1976 that a new marriage and family law was passed there; it came into force on July 1, 1977 and changed this.

In the GDR an emancipatory path was taken as early as 1950 with the law on women's rights. In 1947 the Democratic Women's Association of Germany was founded, which developed into an important organization in the GDR and also sent delegates to the People's Chamber . The Democratic Women's Association of West Germany (DFW) organized a peace congress in Munich in 1950, at which 1000 women demanded the banning of nuclear weapons and the limitation of all weapons. The DFW was very active in peace policy; he was soon received in West Germany as the "puppet of the GDR". His work was observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, hindered with assembly bans and other legal measures and completely banned in 1957.

The crèche and kindergarten network has been massively expanded to make it easier / better to combine work and raising children . During the maternity leave, the full salary was paid and the woman's return to work was guaranteed. In this way the SED succeeded in integrating around 92% of women into the work process by 1989. The women in the GDR were faced with the need to reconcile work and family life . The so-called " equality policy " of the GDR influenced these individual areas of life for East German women. On the one hand, they were proud of their achievements, which were not only achieved at home.

On the other hand, they were also very challenged by the double burden and sometimes overtaxed or overloaded. The “second shift”, looking after the children and household chores, took an average of 50 hours a week and thus lasted longer than the “first shift”, the professional work. This was the result of a survey by the Leipzig Institute for Demand Research in 1965. At the end of the 1970s, the “second shift” lasted 47 hours.

The equality of women was not achieved in all professional fields. So were management positions in business and politics in general men reserved. In the SED Politburo in the entire 40 years, not a single woman was present. In 1984, 4% of the decision-making officials in the district leadership of the SED were women.

Values ​​such as the right to a comprehensive network of kindergartens and crèches, fully paid maternity leave, the right to equality in work and pay, etc. were already firmly anchored in the constitution of the Soviet Union . Interestingly, this women's policy contradicted the views of Marx (1818–1883), who saw the labor activity of women as a process of capitalist exploitation.

The SED's theory of emancipation

The realization of equal rights for men and women was anchored in the first constitution of the GDR . Thus the constitution of the GDR from 1949 ensures the legal and political equality of women in all areas of public and private life. This clearly shows that the emancipation of women played a major role for the SED. The aim of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany was to “promote the development of personalities in the socialist sense” so that personalities were shaped in a socialist manner. In addition, according to the SED, equality between men and women should be sought, because each partner should be able to combine family and work and also get involved in society, such as for socialism. In order to enable both partners to combine family and work, the best possible division of labor between men and women was sought. The clear distancing from the role of women as housewives and mothers served, especially in the early years, as a demarcation from Hitler's fascism and the Federal Republic, which largely adopted the traditional image of women.

Equality between men and women

Equality for women and their integration into the labor market have been one of the official goals of social policy since the GDR was founded in 1949. This emancipation was justified in terms of ideology, economics and population policy. In ideological terms, the equality policy of the GDR resulted from the ideals of the workers' movement , for which the solution of the “ women's question ” had been part of the political program of the “liberation of the working class from capitalist rule” since the end of the 19th century . The economic situation in the GDR also made it necessary for women to work in order to compensate for the social "bloodletting" caused by the war and the refugee and emigration movement from 1945 to the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and to ensure an increase in production.

In the first years of the GDR, the main focus was on legal equality between men and women and the integration of women in the employment sector. In connection with the Marxist tradition and the practice of the Soviet Union , work was seen as a central social element, as a basic human need, individual right and as a "heart of the socialist way of life" ( Lenin ). Accordingly, equality between the sexes can only be achieved through their professional activity, since women gain social and economic independence in this way, are socially integrated and are thus equal to men. Existing gender differences were viewed as the legacy of capitalism, which would, as it were, dissolve automatically with the abolition of private ownership of the means of production and their takeover by the “ruling working class” under socialism.

In particular, the writings of the proletarian women's and workers' movement by Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) and August Bebel (1840-1913) were often used by politicians in the GDR in connection with the liberation and emancipation of women. As far as the division of labor between the two sexes within the family is concerned, Zetkin assumed that the participation of women in the labor market would automatically lead to a change in the gender division of labor, so that through her gainful employment women were free from the domination and exploitation of men in the family and household would be freed.

The main theses on women's liberation, which determined the theoretical basis of GDR women's policy, were:

  • The women's question is subordinate to the class question and automatically dissolves with it.

Because:

  • The employment of women leads at the same time and inevitably to a change in the gender ratio in the private sector and in the family.

And

  • With the integration of women in the employment sector, equality between men and women is also established in the public sector.

In practice, the leading positions in the state and party were dominated by men. The Democratic Women's Federation of Germany (DFD) was the government-loyal mass organization for women in the GDR. The DFD, founded on March 8, 1947, recruited and mobilized women to work, but this organization had no influence on women's work-related problems. Civil society and therefore non-governmental women's organizations were not tolerated.

Employment of women

In order to motivate women to work, there were incentives as well as moral and economic pressure. Incentives included the opening of almost all occupations to women, the legal stipulation of equal pay for the sexes for equal work, women's qualification measures, the creation of crèches , kindergartens and after-school centers, the establishment of service centers and a number of other social benefits for mothers . The economic pressure was based on the fact that, due to the salary structure of the GDR, a family was usually dependent on both partners being employed in order to be able to achieve a sufficient economic standard of living, while the moral pressure in state propagation through models and the statutory stipulation of the "duty to work" was justified. Women who wanted to devote themselves above all to their children and their families were referred to as "parasites". The model that made up the moral pressure was the working woman who could perfectly balance both work and family. Men were also one of the models of the GDR. For women it was therefore important to achieve what the man had already achieved, whereby the woman could not realize herself.

Women, like men, had not only the right but also the duty to go to work, according to Article 24, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the GDR of April 9, 1968: “Socially useful activity is an honorable duty for everyone who is able to work Citizen. The right to work and the duty to work form a unit. "

The ideal in GDR socialism was a lifelong professional activity - for men up to 65 and women up to 60 years of age - which women could only interrupt by taking one year of parental leave (“baby year”). Longer breaks in work due to motherhood and child-rearing, or lifelong exclusive housewife work was rejected because equality can only be achieved through the work of women, longer career breaks impair equal opportunities and force women to do less qualified jobs. Housework was considered “not work” and was not accepted by the SED. Only in the case of so-called large numbers of children was a longer professional break explicitly tolerated, as looking after at least 3 underage children at home was treated as equivalent to a professional activity and promoted as a socially useful activity. In other cases, however, housewife was neither prohibited nor particularly rare, although not as viewed as professional activity.

The social awareness on which this judgment is based was heightened by the corresponding state propaganda. a. through the GDR standard work on women's issues: "The woman in the German Democratic Republic" (author collective Panorama DDR 1978), in which it was conveyed that the professional activity of women not only brings about their emancipation, but also increases their personal and social value:

“It turns out ... that the wealth of knowledge and experience resulting from professional activity, but also the economic independence that comes with it, consolidate the position of women in the family. As a rule, working women are more intellectually demanding spouses and more capable educators of their children. Life confirms thousands of times the realization that a woman's personality, the abilities and creative talents dormant in her, can only come to full bloom if they are not only oriented towards household and family and remain subordinate to the concerns of the man and the children . Only the creative, socially useful work in a society free of exploitation, the social and economic independence that goes with it, the combination of meaningful professional activity with motherhood give women the opportunity to `` face the man as truly free and equal '', to To become master of her destiny, as August Bebel foresaw. "
(Author collective Panorama DDR 1978, p. 61)

In this highly idealized representation of “equality between the sexes” through mutual employment, however, the fact that women were required to work harder than men who were supposedly equal, because of the double burden as employee and mother. According to the Leipzig Institute for Needs Research, women did 90% of household chores in 1965. Conflicts in this context were not discussed socially and a bourgeois family ideal with the corresponding gender-specific role distribution was adhered to.

As a result of government efforts and economic constraints, the proportion of employed women rose steadily and reached around 80% in 1986 (women of working age between 15 and 60 years; without apprentices). At this point in time, almost half of all employees in the GDR were women.

Employment of women in the GDR

year Total employees including women Proportion of women in%
1950 7 196 000 2,880,000 40.0
1960 7,686,000 3,456,000 45.0
1970 7 769 000 3,750,000 48.3
1980 8 225 000 4 106 000 49.9
1986 8 548 000 4,200,000 49.1

Source: Statistical Yearbook of the GDR 1987, p. 17

Despite the state proclamations regarding the “gender equality” achieved and the promotion and qualification measures for women and mothers, the labor market in the GDR remained segmented according to gender. Women were particularly represented in the social, health and education sectors, the service sector, in trade and in the postal, banking and telecommunications sectors, while they were clearly underrepresented in industry, crafts, construction and transport. In industry, women were to be found particularly in the textile and electrical industries, where, measured by their high proportion, they held only a few managerial positions and were more frequently employed in less qualified positions, with less favorable working conditions and poorer wages than their male colleagues. Women in production often worked on the assembly line with difficult communication options and high work pressure. It should also be noted that no equal wages were paid for the same work.

Work-life balance aimed at women

The GDR made it possible to reconcile work and family through state childcare, family-related leave from work and other measures, but this was almost exclusively geared towards women. Compatibility was a matter of course for women in the GDR, in line with the propagated model of women and families. The alternatives of living as a “only housewife” or childless single practically did not exist and contradicted the social norm. The state job guarantee usually led to a lifelong employment as early as the admission to an apprenticeship or study. In the GDR, for example, there were seldom extended phases of youth experimentation, such as in the Federal Republic. The socialization of children and adolescents often followed a tight, predetermined pattern that was determined by legal requirements: compulsory schooling , compulsory training, compulsory work. Social and financial benefits were preferred to people with children. In times of housing shortage, the only way to leave the parental home and get your own apartment was often your own parenthood. Correspondingly, in 1986 70% of women in the GDR had their first child before the age of 25. If the marriage or partnership broke up, the former couples were often forced to continue living together as a result of the lack of housing.

One of the government's reconciliation measures in the GDR was the expansion of service facilities in order to relieve women of household chores in addition to their employment. For example, bringing up children should be collectivized and relocated to society in order to ensure that women can continue to work. It was a declared socialist goal to free women from the “yoke of housework” and to have as many of the reproductive tasks as possible done institutionally in order to free women for the labor market and still secure social reproduction . Due to the shortage economy in the GDR, a lack of capacities and a labor deficit caused not least by low productivity , however, in reality this ideal was far removed and institutions such as laundries or the so-called "houses of services" only played a subordinate role. Household appliances that could have made work easier and became affordable in West Germany in the 1970s were described as "gimmicks" that do not belong in a "socialist household".

Crèche children eating

Furthermore, the state has increasingly expanded childcare facilities. The expansion of day nurseries , kindergartens and after-school care centers was probably also strongly promoted in the GDR in order to strengthen the influence of the state and the SED on the socialization of children. Critics consider the early separation of the toddler from the mother by the day nurseries to be problematic.

Since women in the GDR should be able to return to full-time employment as quickly as possible after giving birth and the professional break of the “baby year”, the state had to create sufficient childcare facilities and motivate mothers to hand over early childhood care and education to these institutions. Within the framework of the socialist family model, the family was not a separate place of retreat from society, but rather a public basic collective alongside other collective forms of community whose declared common goal was to raise the child to become a “socialist personality”.

Reservations about crèches, kindergartens and after-school care centers were therefore either veiled or embellished in the GDR media - despite the available empirical data about language and behavioral disorders in children in crèches - so as not to create the impression that the development of children was in the labor market subordinate. According to surveys after the fall of the Wall, by no means all women were satisfied with the care facilities and also told of the neglect of the children. In the interviews, women report on their inner turmoil and the difficulties in meeting the needs of their children due to working hours, travel times, poor supplies and a lack of services. On the other hand, according to current German and American research, care facilities for children make an indisputable contribution to their socialization, especially for children from small families .

Since families were usually economically dependent on the second income of women and state childcare facilities were declared the norm, the family socialization tasks were shifted to social institutions like in hardly any other country in the world. Most recently, the national average of the supply rate for small childcare was 80%, while in the big cities there was almost 100% supply of day nurseries. There were kindergarten places for 94% and after-school care places for 82% of the children. In comparison, in 1990 the old federal states offered crèche places for 2%, kindergarten care for 78%, after-school care places for 4% of school children.

The care facilities were financed mainly by the state, only a small allowance, based on the parents' salary, had to be paid (1.40 M for crèche children, 0.35 M for a kindergarten lunch). The established opening times of the childcare facilities were 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., and there were also so-called week nurseries in which the children were looked after from Monday morning to Friday evening. Many children spent 10 or more hours in crèches, kindergartens or schools and after-school care centers. Times from 6:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. were not uncommon.

Development over time of the GDR women and family policy and its legislation

In order to secure the economic efficiency of the GDR, the main focus of the legislation was directed, within the framework of the formal legal equality of women, on women-specific protective rights and professional qualification measures in order to promote the employment of women. Furthermore, regulations and family policy provisions should follow, which, in view of the decline in the birth rate in the GDR, should enable women to combine motherhood and work in order to ensure the continued existence of society in the GDR. The mixture of economic and population policy goals found their ideal match in the model of the "working woman and mother".

post war period

Due to the war deaths and prisoners as a result of the Second World War, there was a demographic surplus of women of 57.5% in the former Soviet Zone in 1945. In the period from 1945 to 1949 it was therefore particularly necessary to induce women to rebuild and to produce and to create legal conditions for gender equality in the labor sector. The equality principle of the GDR constitution finally created the basis for the almost unrestricted inclusion of women in the employment sector and their professional qualifications. The GDR constitution of October 7, 1949 says:

Article 7: “Men and women have equal rights. All laws and regulations that oppose equal rights for women are repealed. "

Article 18 “... man and woman ... have the right to equal pay for the same work. The woman enjoys special protection in the employment relationship. By law of the republic institutions are created which guarantee that women can combine their duties as citizens and workers with their duties as women and mothers ... "

Due to the shortage of male workers, there was a particularly shortage of skilled workers and workers for heavy physical work in the post-war period. In addition, jobs that were dominated by “female” jobs, for example in administration or the textile industry, were severely decimated after 1945, so that women were increasingly employed in typically “male” professions. For this it was necessary to counter the traditional ideas and prejudices regarding the employment of women and to qualify women accordingly.

1950s

Postage stamp GDR 1953, five-year plan , woman at the column wheel

From 1949 to 1957, the proportion of women in the labor force rose again, although the proportion of women in the working-age population had fallen due to the first major wave of refugees since the founding of the GDR and the return of men from captivity. In this phase of the beginning of the planned economy (first five-year plan 1951–1955) it was primarily about the reconstruction of industry and thus about the controlled use of women in economically relevant branches such as construction, electrical industry, precision mechanics and mechanical engineering.

  • Woman at the teleprinter

  • Harvester

In addition to improving working conditions, an appeal was also made to women's sense of responsibility on a “moral” level. The professional activity was presented as an inner need of all people and as an immanent part of personality development. In addition, during this time work was particularly carried out on the ideological foundation for the employment of women, and labor force participation was declared the sole measure of gender equality. In practical terms, the lack of or inadequate childcare facilities in particular made it difficult for women to combine family and work. The most important innovation in the area of ​​legislation on women and family policy during this period was the adoption of the law on mother and child protection and women's rights in 1950 .

1960s

The movement of refugees to West Germany, especially young and qualified people, which continued until the Wall was built in 1961, led to an aging population and a labor shortage in the GDR. In the period from 1949 to 1961, 2.7 million people left the GDR, which corresponded to 14% of the original population. As a result of these developments, women's employment became indispensable for the continued existence of the GDR. In the period before 1958, it was mainly single women who had to work due to economic constraints, but the main focus of the government was now on married women and mothers who had previously been financially secure through their spouses. The law on the abolition of food cards of May 28, 1958 led to a sharp rise in food prices. In addition, a non-working wife was not taken into account in the income tax system of the GDR, so that married women were now financially dependent on working.

Due to the increasing mechanization and automation, the qualification of the female workforce became more and more important. In this context, from the end of the 1950s, the close connection between employment and family became the focus of women's policy. For example, since the early 1960s, the government-controlled media emphasized the superiority of collective crèche education over family education in order to dispel the concerns of working mothers about institutionalized educational institutions. Efforts to improve service and childcare facilities remained at a relatively modest level at that time, so that a large number of working mothers were or were only able to work part-time. In order to motivate women to take part in qualification measures, the gender equality concept was ideologically modified. Whereas in the previous years the employment of women was propagated as the only sufficient means of gender equality, now the qualifications acquired by women and their professional position determined the degree of their equality.

In the past two decades, due to the economic situation, it was primarily a matter of women’s labor policy, but with the adoption of the GDR's first family code in 1965, an independent family policy began.

In this context, marriage and family were seen as a unit and declared to be an elementary and alternative form of the “socialist way of life”. With regard to the relationships between the spouses, it was formulated that the spouse should support taking up employment, participating in further training or taking on social work (Section 10 (2)). At the formal and legal level, the GDR said goodbye to housewife marriage.

The function of the family as a socialization authority came back to the fore again. In order to implement the newly formulated family model, child benefit was paid out for large families for the first time . In addition to the expansion of childcare facilities, additional laundries were set up to relieve the burden on households and more technical household appliances were produced. With the law passed in 1965 on the unified education system and further qualification measures for training and further education, women should be able to acquire prerequisites for, in particular, technical professions and medium-sized and managerial jobs, with working mothers being granted special rights.

1970s

In the 1970s, due to the decline in the birth rate , the reduction in the number of marriages and the increase in the number of divorces in the GDR, the main focus of the state and party leadership was directed towards the ideal of a small family with two to three children, which was already enshrined in the 1965 Family Code . In order to create incentives for (as early as possible) marriages and births, the SED government decided in 1972 to introduce the interest-free " marriage loan " of 5,000 marks , which was granted if the couples were younger than 26 years old at the time of the marriage married for the first time. This loan could be “reduced” by the birth of children, that is, the amount to be repaid was reduced in steps of 1,000 / 1,500 / 2,500 marks per child and was thus completely waived with the birth of the third child. In addition, further measures were taken to make it easier for women to combine family and work.

Since 1972, an allowance of 1,000 marks has been paid for the birth of each child, maternity and weekly leave was extended to 18 weeks, and single mothers and large families were given special rights, in particular financial support for looking after sick children and preferential treatment of living space and crèche places. In 1972, however, the law on the interruption of pregnancy also legalized abortion - regardless of the government's goal of increasing the birth rate. There was also the free delivery of contraceptives to socially insured girls and women aged 16 and over. The contraceptive pill had been available in the GDR since 1965 .

1976 was on the IX. Because of the ongoing conflict between birth promotion on the one hand and the economically necessary full-time employment of women and mothers on the other, a second social package was passed at the SED party congress , which was supplemented in the 1980s. Even if single mothers were increasingly encouraged for reasons of population policy, the GDR ideal of a two-to-three-child family with fully working spouses remained in the foreground, and so was the reaction to the increased age at marriage and the growing number of second marriages, the “marriage loan” is increased to 7,000 marks and the group of beneficiaries is expanded. The other social measures were essentially time-based regulations with financial compensation. For example, by means of the “compatibility rule”, women were granted parental leave, initially from the birth of the second child, with full wages paid for one year. Child benefit was increased, maternity protection extended and paid leave to care for sick children was introduced.

1980s

From 1986, the paid “baby year” could already be used for the first child and, in addition, for the birth of the third child, it could be extended by half a year. Fathers could now also take advantage of the paid “baby year”. In addition, the 40-hour week for fully employed women with two children without a wage reduction, the paid monthly “ housework day ” for fully employed unmarried women without children from the age of 40 and an increase in the basic leave based on the number of children were introduced. All these measures should serve to make it easier for working mothers to reconcile work and family in order to counteract the increasing tendency to part-time work among women and to motivate them instead to full employment. In addition, there was increased state propaganda, which portrayed full-time work as a moral duty, emphasized its identity-forming factor and also declared equal working hours to be an essential criterion of gender equality.

All these legal changes led to a societal and socio-political privilege of working mothers. Their now officially recognized dual responsibility was expressed in the often overused linguistic formula of “working woman and mother”. Since the political support measures were aimed exclusively at working women with children, the term “mother politics” became popular.

The introduction of the paid “baby year” on the one hand defused the time conflict of women and they now enjoyed a comparatively higher reputation as mothers who ensured social survival. On the other hand, however, due to the foreseeable one-year break from work and the additional financial costs (the companies had to pay part of the "compatibility rule" themselves), women became an "economic risk factor" for the companies and therefore often less demanding tasks than their male colleagues with comparable competence.

After 1990

In the Kohl III cabinet (March 1987 to January 1991) there was a ministry for 'Youth, Family, Women and Health'. In the Kohl IV cabinet (until November 1994), the first all-German cabinet, there were significantly more ministries: one for health, one for 'women and youth' (Minister: Angela Merkel ) and one for 'family and senior citizens'. From 1994 the last two were again a ministry (Minister: Claudia Nolte (* 1966 in Rostock)).

After the federal election on September 27, 1998 , Gerhard Schröder formed a red-green coalition; the first federal government with the participation of the Greens. The Federal Ministry of Family Affairs received Christine Bergmann (* 1939 in Dresden). In the Second Schröder cabinet received Renate Schmidt this ministry.

So for twelve years - from 1991 to 2002 - there were women ministers for women (politics) who had lived in the GDR until reunification.

See also

literature

in order of appearance

  • Inge Hieblinger: Women in our state. Some problems of promoting women under the conditions of the scientific and technical revolution in the GDR. State Publishing House of the GDR, Berlin 1967.
  • Walter Ulbricht : Women - co-builders of socialism. From speeches and essays. Published by the federal executive committee of the Democratic Women's Association of Germany with the support of the Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the SED. Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1968.
  • Scientific advisory board “The woman in socialist society” at the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (ed.): On the social position of women in the GDR . Verlag für die Frau, Leipzig 1978.
  • Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Ed.): To the equality of women in both German states . Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn 1979.
  • Gisela Helwig: wife and family in both German states . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-8046-8605-2 .
  • Irene Böhme: The one over there. 7 chapter GDR . Rotbuch-Verlag, Berlin, 2nd, expanded edition. 1982, ISBN 3-88022-265-7 , including Chapter 6: Die Frau und der Sozialismus , pp. 82-107.
  • Gabriele Gast : Art. Women . In: Hartmut Zimmermann (eds.): DDR Handbook , Vol. 1: A - L . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne, 3rd, revised and expanded edition. 1985, pp. 443–449.
  • Barbara Hille: Family and Socialization in the GDR . Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1985, ISBN 3-8100-0270-4 .
  • Petra Koch, Hans Günther Knöbel: Family policy in the GDR in the area of ​​tension between family and women's work . Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, Pfaffenweiler 1986, ISBN 3-89085-105-3 .
  • Friedrich Ebert Foundation (ed.): Women in the GDR. On the way to equality? Verlag Neue Gesellschaft, Bonn, 2nd edition 1987.
  • Romina Schmitter: Women on the way to equality in Germany . Klett, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-12-490450-8 .
  • Andrea Schmidt-Niemeyer: Women between petticoat and workbench ... Gender relations in post-war German society: an analysis based on exemplary depictions of couples (focus 1945–1960) . Diss., University of Heidelberg 2001.
  • Anna Kaminsky: Women in the GDR . Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-913-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/eherg_1/BJNR014210976.html
  2. ↑ verfassungen.de: Law on mother and child protection and women's rights of September 27, 1950
  3. ↑ Almost forgotten - the women's peace movement (accessed April 1, 2013)
  4. ^ A b c Anna Kaminsky: Women in the GDR . Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 2016, p. 117.
  5. ↑ Irene Böhme: The one over there. 7 chapter GDR . Rotbuch-Verlag, Berlin, 2nd, expanded edition. 1982, p. 97.
  6. ↑ Gabriele Gast: Art. Women . In: Hartmut Zimmermann (Ed.): GDR manual . Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, Cologne, 3rd, revised and expanded edition. 1985, vol. 1, pp. 443–449, here p. 449.
  7. ↑ Constitution of the USSR of December 5, 1936, Article 122.
  8. ↑ Das Kapital , Volume 1, Book 1, Section IV, Chap. 13 / 3a (as of March 1953).
  9. ^ Anna Kaminsky: Women in the GDR . Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 2016, p. 93.
  10. ↑ Statistical Yearbook of the GDR 1987, p. 16.
  11. ↑ Irene Dölling : Gender contract and gender arrangements in the new federal states. In: Kulturation. Online Journal for Culture, Science and Politics, No. 13, 2/2009, Volume 32, ISSN  1610-8329 . Retrieved November 28, 2009 .
  12. ^ Anna Kaminsky: Women in the GDR . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, pp. 160–166.
  13. ^ Anna Kaminsky: Women in the GDR . Ch.links Verlag, Berlin 2016, p. 118.
  14. ↑ Text of the Family Code