Feminism in Former East Germany

There is a nascent women’s movement in Eastern Europe, different from that in the West. Where the women’s movement in the West was built in a milieu of relative economic plenty, feminism in the East is being built in a milieu of massive unemployment and the loss of abortion rights, day care, and other social entitlements.

In the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) women began meeting in their homes to discuss feminism almost ten years before the “Wende,” the political transformation of fall 1989. Some groups were formed under the auspices of the church, including lesbian groups, and in opposition proposals made in 1982 to draft women into the army. Others, like “Women against Violence” in Weimar, were concerned with rape and other aspects of violence. Some tried to open alternative day care centers and were jailed, their children harassed.

The problems women faced in coping with the burdens of work and family, the contrast between ideology and reality, and contact with West German women and literature—all contributed to these developments. There was the official women’s group, as in all “socialist” countries, the Democratic Women’s Organization of Germany (DFD), which transmitted the party line defining women’s activities in terms of cooking and knitting classes.

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