Women in Society

To continue my more cultural related musings, this post is dedicated to the perception of women in German society. Like the smoking issue, this has been something which has slowly crept on me throughout my time living here and it only gets more noticeable the more I explore of the society around me.

Again this may be specific to my region, I don't know how far it stretches and if anyone has any experiences of other Bundeslaender in Germany it would be great to hear them!

For a society so advanced technologically as the Germans it seems strange that some aspects of their culture can be so traditional, especially in terms of gender roles. They have extremely set roles (again speaking generally of the average population, there are of course notable and wonderful exceptions) in terms of what the man and what the woman in a relationship, and in society as a whole, is responsible for. These crop up in a number of ways and result in many throwaway comments which aren't actually as women friendly as they pretend to be.

There are two main areas which I've noticed especially : children/childcare, and in the working world.

As far as my experiences have been, chatting with mothers here and working in two major schools in the town, the mother in a family is expected to not only give up her work in order to look after the children, but to then continue to not work until the children are past 14/15 years old in order to pick them up from school at 1pm. Even past that age they are expected to be home to cook the lunchtime meal which here is the main meal of the day. Outside the school gates at 12.30/1pm will be only mothers. School here finishes early and the younger ones can't go home on their own or cook for themselves and as it's the middle of the day and the father is working, it falls to the mother to fulfil that role.

Having spoken to women who do work, they said that they feel a lot of pressure from the society around them. Their choice to work has attracted negative attention as other mothers declare they are "bad" mothers for not dedicating 100% of their time to the children and consequently the children are viewed as worse off and disadvantaged. There is a thing called the "Ganztagsschule" here which is very similar to the school day that we have in Britain in that it lasts until 3-4pm with an hour for lunch in the middle. The children in this class are then open to being perceived in a negative light for not only having mothers who aren't able to pick them up at 1pm but also for not then receiving a main meal of the day cooked by their mother. Often this is bound to casual racism over the presence of children of foreigners whose culture is much more supportive of an active working mother and for whom it is more natural to have their child in school till the end of the day to allow them to return to work.

In professional environments too the 'glass ceiling' is more than evident and when asked to explain this phenomenon it's always related back to the role of the mother as principal child carer, stating that women can only reach so far up the career ladder before they decide to have children. When that happens they effectively can progress no further as they are reduced significantly in terms of hours they work and responsibility they are given. This isn't necessarily meant in a negative way at all, in fact in terms of accommodating a mother in the workplace Germany is fantastic and there is a lot of respect for the mother figure, it just appears to come at a cost. It's simply the expectation of the society that the mother will want to fulfil this preconceived role and it is this expectation which pressurises some women into following this path and giving up the life they were leading: career or family, very rarely both at the same time.

There is a prominent politician in Germany at the moment who used to be the Families minster and was promoted by Angela Merkel to Defence Minister not so long ago. Many have interpreted this move as an attempt to train her up as Merkel's successor and in terms of results she is efficient and a credit to the government. So far so good. If she has proven success in one cabinet position, why can't she be as successful in another more demanding role? When she was promoted there was outrage in the German press. The problem? She has 7 kids. Nothing more, just the fact she has children. Surely that shouldn't matter when accessing the capability of someone in a new role? As Families minister she was acceptable, because it was 'only' families (which in itself is an attitude which is problematic!) but defence minister apparently is a role too far for a woman with 7 children. I wouldn't have expected this from a country with a female Kanzlerin. But then Merkel has no children.

This kind of brings me on to the working world where these gender roles are much more subtly reinforced. In German society it is commonplace to get virtually all of your bread from the bakery every morning  and they are everywhere on every street. You will also only ever see women working there, cooking the bread on site and serving the customers. I once asked a German friend why and they said that it was because only women are deemed to be able to bake anything worth eating which was a compliment on their skills but does also assign the traditional stays at home and cooks for the family role. It is the same in the school canteen which is only run by women and almost every day I am reminded that they are mothers of children at the school, therefore it's ok for them to work there in the kitchen and it's ok for me to eat there.

Cleaning is also another profession which is more than predominantly women and whilst that may also be the case in England you will see male cleaners or janitors in school in the same way female engineers, plumbers or craftsmen exist. Here the roles are distinctly separate with much more prejudice and less acceptance of a woman wanting to train in these practical courses.

I don't really know what conclusions to draw from my experiences. I am naturally drawn to interpreting these instances as being restrictive of women in  society, if not in practical execution at least in perpetuating negative stereotypes and creating an atmosphere of pressure and expectation. However, I do understand how they can be seen as supportive of women, particularly mothers in allowing them and giving them room to be with their children and care for them. It just surprised me how traditional the attitudes remain in such a forward society, especially in comparison to the extreme consciousness of British society to gender equality, which doesn't appear to be a topic here at all, or at least nowhere near on the same level.

This is also based on my own experiences and what I've personally seen and heard which in terms of the scale of the whole of Germany renders little exposure and like I said above could be unique to this area or my particular situation. I hope I haven't offended anyone, that certainly wasn't my intention and if anyone has any experiences they'd like to share then please do comment underneath, thank you!