Women in the FRG

• Due to WW2, women became the larger proportion of the electorate post-war. However, this didn't lead to significant representation in government. Political life tended to be conservative and women were not encourage to get involved expect in clerical and hospitality duties.
• In 1972, women compromised only 6% of Bundestag representatives and by 1987, it was still only 15%.
• Women lacked noticeable political outlets - the CDU/CSU favoured male-dominated business interests while the SPD gained its support from its traditional base in male-dominated trade unions. It wasn't until the 1980s, with the emergence of the Green Party, that women found more widespread opportunities for involvement. Here, feminists pressurised the Green Party to include abortion reform as a key political commitment and as a result women's rights were brought to people's attention.
• The Basic Law implemented in 1949 stated that men and women were equal. However, the emphasis was on male employment, especially during the immediate post-war period. Women's war work was seen as temporary and they were encouraged to relinquish their jobs as men returned. This caused tension in Germany - the Trummelfrauen (rubble women) had often kept their families together and literally helped rebuild the country. Many refused to give up their jobs.
• The shortage of labour during the economic miracle saw an increase in the numbers of employed women, from 44% in 1950 to 50% by 1970.
• In a 1963 poll, 59% of male and female respondents said they would have supported a law legally banning mothers with children under 10 from working. In December 1961, the conservative federal minister for family and youth affairs, Franz-Josef Wuermeling, said in a press release that mothers having to go out to work was at best a 'forced evil' and the natural role of the woman was a full-time mother.
• Few women were in managerial roles. In the FRG, women tended to be a majority in the caring professions - in the 1970s, they provided 75% of the workforce in hospitals but only 4% of physicians and half the schoolteachers but less than 20% of school principals. Even by the 1980s, less than 5% of university professors were women.
• Equal pay was a myth. In the 1970s, women earned on average 65-78% of men's salaries even when they did the same job. In 1980, equality officers were appointed within the provision of the National Office for Women's Affairs and issues of unequal treatment were addressed, especially in areas where the federal government might have some control, such as in public sector employment.
• Many men were missing or remained prisoners of war until as late as 1955, when they were released by Russians. There was a large responsibility on women to help rebuild the country, while they also maintained their family responsibilities. This meant husbands often returned almost strangers as their wives gad undergone experiences their husbands could hardly envisage, such as the bombing. Therefore, many relationships broke down.
• The divorce rate increased from 49000 in 1960 to 123000 in 1990. Divorce was given on usual grounds of infidelity or physical abuse, but it wasn't until 1977 that a no-guilt divorce law was passed that granted divorces for marriages that had broken down irreconcilably. Within this, the question of alimony was addressed in terms of economic necessity, irrespective of guilt. The partner who took the leading role in rearing the children should be paid alimony to help establish an independent income.
• Article 218 of the 1949 Basic Law criminalised abortion. However, feminist groups estimated that by 1971 as many as 1 million abortions were taking place yearly, many in insanitary conditions with an unknown number of attendant deaths and serious injuries. More wealthy people could afford to have illegal abortions in sterile clinics by professional practitioners whereas poorer people used backstreet methods.
• The CDU/CSU was opposed to abortion on religious and moral grounds and no abortion law was attempted until the SPD government of Willy Brandt in 1971. This would have legalised abortion within the first 3 months if a doctor gave permission. Although it passed both houses, the Federal Constitutional Court declared it illegal.
• Brandt's abortion law was replaced in 1976 by an Indication Law, which allowed for abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy based on 'social indicators' - for example the potential mother's social circumstances or psychological and/or medical condition. Feminists thought this law was far too restricted when compared with other abortion laws in western countries.
• The work of feminists such as the US academic Betty Frieden, who spoke of the lack of opportunities for women and restrictions of family life, resonated with women in the FRG. The sexism of male radicals - who although advocated for radical social change, still expected women to stay at home - annoyed feminists. They began to demand full equality, noting the reality of stereotyping women as wives and mothers and unequal employment opportunities.
• Feminists began to publish radical magazines such as Emma, and some flaunted their sexual preferences in public. Feminists' goals varied and many who sought fairer treatment were nevertheless made uncomfortable by more radical ideas and over-assertive action.
• Until 1977, Civil Code decreed that women could only work if it didn't interfere with her role as a wife and mother.