Women - men - gender. - Bibliothek der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

“A Conditioned Optimism”
In conversation with Anke Fuchs, Chairperson of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
For the past 60 years, it is
enshrined in the German Basic Law
that, “Men and women are equal.”
But is this, indeed, a reality in all
fi elds today?
I would like to take you back in
time. You were a young lawyer,
married and had two children. And
you continued working full time.
Was that diffi cult?
Mothers, like yourself, were
vilifi ed as callous and uncaring
at the time?
You not only had a full time job,
you were also working in a purely
man’s world in the executive of
German metalworkers’ union,
IG Metall?
FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG
WOMEN MEN GENDER
On a daily basis, it has yet to become a reality. As a matter of fact, we
have indeed achieved a lot at the socio-political level through the introduction
of quotas, education and vocational training. But as far as
everyday life is concerned, the struggle for equality at the work place
and for reconciling family and job continues and is even today not an
or ganized struggle.
At the birth of my second child, my father-in-law wrote me a letter that
now surely the job would have to take a back seat. And my mother gave
my husband a dressing down, saying, “You’re obliging Anke to go to
work.” However, both my husband and I were keen that I continue
working. At the beginning, I spent more than half my salary on child
care. The fact of the matter is, of course, that I certainly had an exciting
job and a good salary. It would have been different altogether had I been
working part-time somewhere.
This brings to mind a small anecdote. Whenever we were invited to coffee,
my children would wolf down enormous helpings of cake because
they never got any at home. The reason being we never had the German
traditional afternoon-tea-time at home. People then tut-tutted, saying
children of working mothers were to be pitied.
I learnt a lot during my stint with IG Metall but it was also a very diffi -
cult time for me. In fact, it was so diffi cult, that I sometimes thought I
would not be able to go through with it. You may well ask why? Well, I
was just 30, married to a civil servant and had two children. On top of
that, all the men over 50 were constantly wondering what this young
woman was doing there. They clearly felt that she should have been
looking after her children. The goal of the workers’ movement was obviously
that the man should earn enough so that his wife could remain
with the children. That was the time when we succeeded in eliminating
‘light wage jobs’. Despite this, women did not want to stay at home.
They wanted to earn their own money, even those women, who earned
very little. The men found this attitude diffi cult to understand.
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