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Women, Labour Märket and Gender: Policies in the Two Germanies and Sweden, 1945-89
Rolf Torstendahl
Introduction
"Finally it can be stated that female industrial workers in the GDR ob-
tained new chances and space primarily in the fields, where it was part of
the state policy and economic necessity", says Annegret Schiile in an analysis of industrial work as a possibility for emancipation in the GDR.1 Her
formulation of the problem is appropriate not only for the GDR but seems
to have a much wider validity. It is hard to find examples of a consistent
gender policy that were not to a large extent directed by a state policy which
took not only womens emancipation into consideration but also economic
interests and diverse other political aims, which were merged into a whole.
However it can be questioned if it is not to ask too much of any policy, to demand that it should consistently further only one specific idea as part
of an ideological formation or structure. As is stated by Deborah Stone,
policy-making is not only about solving public problems, but about how
groups are formed, split and re-formed to achieve public purposes.2 Policies are the outcomes of a series of discussions and considerations where
ideological formulations form one part and costs, material resources and
1 A. Schiile, "Industriearbeit als Emanzipationschance? Arbeiterinnen im Buro-
maschinenwerk Sömmerda und in der Baumwollspinnerei Leipzig", in G.-F. Budde (ed.),
Frauen arbeiten. Weibliche Erwerbstätigkeit in Ost- und Westdeutschland nach 1945, pp-100-120,
quot. p. 117. 2 Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making, 2nd ed., New York
& London, 1997 (W. W. Norton), p. 27.
219
their availability another and practical constraints in the form of generally
accepted norms in society still another. The mixture of will to change,
consideration of means and acceptance of a tradition makes politics into
the art of what is possible. This has certainly applied also to gender poli
tics and perhaps tradition played a more prominent part in gender politics
and the will to change a less prominent one than in some other fields, as
seems to be implied by some researchers. Under all circumstances a defi-
cient will to change can easily be concealed by appeal to a lack of resources.
Comparing policies in three states
Policy-making is a complicated field, especially if implementation is in-
cluded as it is here. We have no ambitions to cover all the aspects of pol-
icy-making. One fundamental sequence is, however, of vital importance
here: the passage from statements of norms in relation to the existing so
ciety, i.e. occasional ideological statements, to ideologies accepted in wider
circles such as parties or other organisations and further to party policy
and state policy, the latter including the transformation of ideological policy into administrative programmes for implementation in society.
The model that we use in regard to policy-making will have the follow-
ing form:
occasional ideological statements -> consistent ideologies-»-party stand-points ->• state policy
norms among men/women in general
where the arrow indicates a "may influence"-relation. It is also obvious
that the normative system among men and women in general has a direct
relation to several of the items in the upper row, so that it may be influ-
enced by them and also may influence some of them. One must observe that the simple one-way arrow matrix then has to be complemented with
another where arrows go in both directions and where the lower row is
connected with the upper one through double arrows for every moment.
One important reason for not drawing a model of that kind is that it
would be unintelligible.
We use here the verb "may" to indicate that the relation is not one of a
sufficient condition (if A then B), but rather a causal connection where in-
220
tentions are involved. "A may influence B" would then mean that A is
(part of) a cause for B, working together with some other conditions
which are difflcult to specify. However, the "may influence"-relation in the
matters of concern here is also of a character that must have been observed
by the politicians concerned, and their actions and measures taken must be
related to expectations according to this model.
The relations—too complicated to be visualised in the simple model—
between the normative system in society in general (or rather among men
and women in general, for prevailing norms may not be the same in the two
sexes) and the policy-making process are of fundamental importance for the
question of policy-making regarding womens participation in the labour
märket. It has been shown in several of the contributions to this volume
that there were frequent feed-back loops between policy formulations on one or the other level or even between ideological statements and the norms
which prevailed, so that propaganda through different media were of vital
importance for the process. The norms behind the policy that was spon-
sored by party or state were not immediately accepted in all strata of society.
There are reasons to doubt that the interplay between general social
norms and state policy was the same in the three countries, even though
the feed-back loops may have been the same. If state policy changes only
under the pressure from a massive majority in the electorate, this is some-
thing different from the case when a change of state policy is undertaken
with the aim of influencing the prevailing normative system in society.
These differences and even other may be found in the discussions on the gendered structure of labour.
The analysis within this project of state policy in relation to the gender
system has made use of discussions of the following types of questions:
1 efforts to regulate the labour märket in the private sector in favour of women
2 regulation of state employment of women
3 regulation of male employment to influence gender relations
4 family support
5 demographic considerations for a policy of family size
6 efforts to influence roles and division of work in the household
7 efforts to influence male ideals and the male role.
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This does not mean that a consistent comparative factor analysis has been made of these factors but rather that they were used differently to clarify what was characteristic for the debate and the formation of the state policy in each of the countries. The questions mentioned above then constitute a framework rather than a list of factors. Within the ela-boration of these questions the differences between the three states are examined.
A new ideology for womens participation in the labour märket?
As is mentioned by Gunilla-Friederike Budde in her contribution to this volume the constitution of the GDR from 1949 with its explicit clause no. 18, that similar pay should always be given for similar work, set a standard for those who strove for womens participation in the labour märket.3 In West Germany the constitution of 1949 offered another key to womens mobilisation through its clause forbidding discrimination.4 Being one of many changes in the two German states after the war, it would seem that the cause of womens participation in the labour märket was one of the
3 Budde in this volume. See also G.-F. Budde, "Einleitung: Zwei Welten? Frauener-
werbsarbeit im deutsch-deutschen Vergleich", in G-F. Budde (ed.) op. cit. pp. 7-18, esp. p. 8.
The regulation was preceded by a statute in 1946 from the Soviet military administration.
This is often taken as the origin though it has been recently shown that it may be questioned
if it was really of the same content. (See C. v. Oertzen and A. Riezschel "Comparing the Post-War Germanies: Breadwinner Ideology and Womens Employment in the Divided
nation, 1948-1970", in International Review of Social History, vol. 42, 1997, Supplement 5,
pp. 175-196. 4 Ines Reich-Hilweg, Männer u nd Frauen sind gleichberechtigt. Der Gleichberechtigungs-
grundsatz (Art. 3 Abs. 2 GG) in der parlamentarischen Auseinandersetzung 1948—i%y und in der
Rechtsprechung des Bundesverfassungsgerichts 1953-J975, Frankfurt/Main, 1979; Vera Slupik, Die Entscheidung des des Grundgesetzesfur Paritåt in Geschlechterverhältnis. Zur Bedeutung von
Art. 3 Abs. 2 und 3 GG in Recht und Wirklichkeit, Berlin, 1988; Ingrid Langer, "In letzter Konsequenz ... Uranbergwerk. Die Gleichberechtigung im Grundgesetz und im
Biirgerlichenb Gesetzbuch", in Angela Delille &c Andrea Grohn (eds./ Perlonzeit. Wie die
Frauen ihr Wirtschaftwunder erlebten, Berlin: Elfantenpress, 1985, pp. 72-81; Barbara Böttger,
Das Recht auf Gleichheit und Differenz. Elisabeth Selbert und der Kampf der Frauen um Art. 3.2 Grundgesetz, Miinster: Westfälisches Dapfboot, 1990. (I want to thank Wiebke Kolbe for
making me aware of these books and artides.)
222
changes that was caused by the war and the consecutive ideological and
political reorganisation of the two states. However, it has been pointed out
in recent research that the links to the past were considerable, not only in
the sense that women had in fact been part of the labour märket earlier
and especially during the war, but also in the sense that the debate was not
new and the positions, both in favour ofwomens right to work and to be-
come independent and against such ideas, had been proclaimed and devel-
oped earlier. However, German models for organisations and ideological
formations could be sought only in the period before 1933.
Thus, in several respects the situation was a new one in the two Ger
man states and with the new situation followed revised ideological posi
tions, new policies and more or less new ways for implementing such pol-
icies. The importance of 1945 cannot be neglected, though it would be false to say that all arguments, policies and habits that came after 1945
were new inventions. In Sweden, on the other hand, continuity is domi
nant. The debate of the thirties, going on up to the outbreak of war, was
continued after the war. The war years (when Sweden as a neutral country
was not directly affected by war damages, though defence costs and the
loss of trade hollowed out the economy of the country) were a period
when social reform projects were given a lower priority than before and
after, but they meant in no way a new start. Social Democrats, who had
formed a broad coalition with other parties during the war years, decided
to govern alone and to continue the reform work that they had started be
fore the war, now with higher ambitions and according to a new complete
programme called the post-war programme of the labour movement.
However, this programme did not envisage a reform of womens participa-
tion in the labour märket or a reformed family or gender policy. In this re-
spect a change came only in the 1960S.5
Another difference which must be noted between Sweden and the two German states is that some of the actors in the issue of womens rights and
womens roles and family policy remained the same in Sweden as before
the war, among them not least Alva Myrdal, while almost all of those who
5 Ann-Sofie Ohlander, "Det osynliga barnet? Kampen om den socialdemokratiska
familjepolitiken", in K. Misgeld, K. Molin and K. Amark (eds.), Socialdemokratins samhälle.
SAP och Sverige under 100 år, Stockholm: Tiden, 1988, pp. 170-190, esp. 182-184.
223
had been active in the German debate earlier had left the political scene
after the war. Thus, even though a certain continuity existed in values and fundamen
tal social problems in the German scene both in the East and in the West, the year 1945 formed a rupture in politics and ideology-formation, which gave to many questions a new start, among them the issue of womens par-ticipation in the labour märket. In Sweden this was not the case. There continuity was dominant in this question as in other questions of social reform.
It seems that the GDR was the only one of the three states which had from its very start in 1949 a sort of gender policy. Equality between men and women was state policy (with unclear implications), which was hardly the case in Sweden or the FRG. It is also to be noted, as is underlined by Gunilla Budde in her contribution to this volume, that in the GDR of the nineteen-fifties and sixties there never existed a womens policy, only a part of labour märket policy directed toward women. Women were re-garded as part of the labour force in the first hand and they could and should contribute as usefully as possible to the national economy.
In Sweden and the FRG there emerged strong womens movements which urged the leadership of the states to adopt a policy toward women.6
In the FRG this policy was in the first hand protective and patronising in the fifties and sixties and women lacked an effective spokesperson in the political leadership. In Sweden there were several prominent female political figures, both in Social Democracy and in the opposition, and first among them was Alva Myrdal, who was not only politically active but also concentrated on questions of womens rights and womens roles. Among other well-known and influential women in the top layer of the Social Democratic party were Ulla Lindström and Inga Thorsson who also repre-sented the continuity in the party from the thirties into the post-war soci-ety when they had a great impact on the policy of the party not only regard-ing womens policy but also concerning a wide range of other questions.
6 Marie Theres Knäpper, Feminismus, Autonomie, Subjektivität. Tendenzen und Wider-
spruche in der neuen Frauenbewegung, Bochum: Germinal, 1984; Maud Eduards, Kvinno
representation och kvinnomakt, Stockholm, 1980; Yvonne Hirdman, The Swedish Welfare State
and the Gender Systern, Uppsala: Maktutredningen, 1987; Kjell Ostberg, Efter rösträtten.
Kvinnors utrymme efter det demokratiska genombrottet, Stockholm: Symposion, 1997.
224
Yet, even with their position at the party centre and the pressure from the
well-established womens organisation within the Social Democratic party,
a traditional working-class gender conservatism dominated the policy of
the party—and the state—in the initial phase after World War II.
Sweden låter developed a state policy toward women. As shown by
Christina Florin and Bengt Nilsson there was a rapid development of the
ideological situation in Sweden. Equality in the traditional formål sense of
equal rights was soon regarded as not enough. Equality asked for imple-
mentation and a really equal share for women in economic respects and in
power in society. This second, strong programme in the second half of the
sixties became the stance of the radical women when the state through
several partial reforms adopted the prudent first programme of equal
rights. It is to be noted that neither the one nor the other programme was
in the first hand based on a labour märket ideology. Both programmes
comprised the situation of women in society in general. Both had conse-
quences for womens participation in the labour märket, but this was not a
first-hand objective. This does not mean that the role of women in the
labour märket was neglected. This question was the concern of specific committees and a council within the trade union central organisation, LO. Professional women had a long tradition of defending and extending their
rights in the labour märket, and continuity was strong when this attitude
spread to other groups of women in the labour märket.7 Thus, it is only
logical that the state came to be engaged in a policy towards women when
Social Democrats had secured power and the activity of women to guard
and increase their rights on the labour märket had won some ground
among the women of their core voters.
The FRG was from the very beginning cautious about interfering in
economic matters. The equal rights that were part of the state policy
according to the constitution referred to formål rights and had no direct implication for the standing of women in the labour märket, their pay-
ment or their possibilities to make a career. The FRG state continued to maintain this formål position up to the reunion in 1989 (formally con-
cluded in 1990), though pressed to introduce a prohibition of discrimina-
7 Östberg 1997; Yvonne Hirdman, Med kluven tunga. LO och genusordningen, Stockholm:
Atlas, 1998.
15* 225
tion through the EEC regulation 76/207 from 1976. The West German
state thus acted slowly and reluctantly in questions relating to womens
place in the labour märket and in society in general. However, it must be
observed that affirmative action was discussed in society and some meas-
ures in this direction were taken on regional and local levels. Plans for the
promotion of women (Frauenförderpläne) were introduced in order to in-
crease the number of women in such areas of the labour märket where they
were underrepresented.8
Thus, only the GDR had an ideology of womens rights with direct im-
plications for the labour märket—in principle. The implementation was,
however, less consistent with the initial declarations, especially in the sev-
enties and eighties. Swedens state policy came to be labour-market
oriented only secondarily, and in the FRG the state took care not to influ-
ence the labour märket through policy measures in favour of women and it
maintained its neutrality combining it with a claim to guard the formål
equality of women.
Ideology formation versus policy and implementation
The ideology of the family as an "anti-structure to society" and as an insti
tution free from the state's intrusion and excepted from its impact was a
fundamental feature of the FRG society. Wiebke Kolbe shows that this
ideology—in itself created in reaction against Nazi family policies—was
fundamental for the state policy in the FRG for a long time. It gave
ground for the notion of the crisis of the family, for this crisis could only
be conceived in relation to the traditional, nuclear family with one bread-
winner. New forms of cohabitation were not accepted as families and mat-
rimony was regarded as the basis of the family. Even without children two
persons united through matrimony were regarded as a family, while the
cohabitation of a man and a woman outside wedlock, even with children,
was not recognised as a family.
8 Christine Homann-Dennhardt, "Gleichberechtigung via Rechtsnorm? Zur Frage eines
Antidiskriminierungsgesetzes in der Bundesrepublik", in Uta Gerhardt 8c Yvonne Schiitze
(eds.), Frauensituation. Veränderungen in den letzten zwanzig Jahren, Frankfurt/Main: Suhr-
kamp, 1988, pp. 166-188. (Wiebke Kolbe made me aware of the facts and the literature).
226
The development analysed by Kolbe demonstrates that there was a
close connection between commonly accepted ideology and state policy.
The new trends in family life, which transformed lifestyles in most Euro-
pean countries in the nineteen-sixties to the eighties had their impact also
on German society. However, when a new legislation was introduced, they
were legally transformed into something that was acceptable to the family
ideology. This occurred clearly in the case of the discourse on childrens
well-being which was used, in the FRG, to buttress the central role of the
mothers in upholding the family and devoting their undivided time to the
family. Consequently, the role of the mother for the children was secured
by the institution through state policy of a maternity allowance, payable
only to mothers who devoted their time exclusively to their family and
were not gainfully employed. In the 1980S the discussion in the FRG on gender relations in society
had become widespread and intense and had produced results in many
local communities and regions though not on the federal level. When the
federal parliament, in 1986, decided on a new programme for children it
was no longer called a maternity allowance but an educational allowance
and was directed not only to mothers but also to fathers, though with no
obligation for fathers really to use the possibility opened to them.
In the FRG the process of changing state policy in matters relating to women and family was true to the model of a gradual change from ideas
among men and women in society to party politics and to parliamentary
decisions and government actions. This was not the case in Sweden. As
shown in the contribution by Christina Florin and Bengt Nilsson party
politicians came in at an early stage—Social Democrats and Liberals in the first hand—but, as underlined by the authors, bureaucratic initiatives
were also frequent. In this respect Swedish bureaucracies—primarily the
Labour Märket Administration (AMS)—acted in an advanced way in the
sixties, a way which came to be more frequent in the seventies and eighties in all types of questions; this occurred also in several other countries.9
In the fifties and sixties, however, the rule was to leave the initiative to the government, if a new policy was to be introduced. When, in the sixties,
9 R. Torstendahl, Bureaucratisation in Northwestern Europé: Domination and Governance,
London: Routledge, 1991, esp. pp. 150-165.
15 22 7
young women in public service, as Anna-Greta Leijon, Gun Kuylen-
stierna, Maj-Britt Sandlund and Ingeborg Jönsson, took different initia-
tives to promote the case of women and advance the idea of gender equal-
ity, they did so with the tacit assent of their administrative superiors,
above all Bertil Olsson, the head of AMS. But it is important also that
Olsson had a very close relation to the Social Democratic government and
had privileges in dealing with the labour märket problems in his own way.
Several of the female bureaucrats who acted to promote a specific policy
were also well-known members of the party—Anna-Greta Leijon, a fu-
ture minister.
It should also be noted that AMS was a very specific administration. As
observed by Bo Rothstein, AMS was created in a specific way with Olsson
as its first head. He was entrusted with special powers to recruit his per-
sonnel. A favourable attitude to the goals of the new administration was
more important than bureaucratic merits and several of the new public
servants came from trade union employment.10 In spite of Olssons good
relations to the government he also had the ear of politicians from differ
ent political quarters. It is important that this informal and innovative en-
vironment was the setting for the activities of the young female bureau
crats who launched their ideas for a new gender equality policy (with im-
plications for women and family). Bureaucrats taking the initiative for a new policy was not common at
the time. Låter, when initiatives more often came from bureaucratic bod-
ies, they most often tried to negotiate a solution acceptable for all involved
parties (within a sort of network) before it was sold to the government. This was not the case with the gender equality policy. The bureaucrats in
volved were not content with taking an initiative but they also propagated
openly for their ideas in society. This means that they were trying to form
an ideological conviction among the broad layers of society for their ideas,
and they used two different channels for their campaigns. In the first place they used the ordinary media where they contributed under their own
names, in the second place they joined forces with persons of the same
convictions in the question of gender equality even though these came
from different political parties. The group 222, a vital but loose organisa-
10 Bo Rothstein, Den socialdemokratiska staten, Lund:Arkiv, 1986, pp. 106-134.
228
tion in this connection, comprised persons of several political attitudes but
most of them had central positions in the media world of Sweden.
These were extraordinary methods for the initiation of a state policy.
Civil servants of some of the most important governmental administra
tions were in this manner able to take initiatives for the carrying through
of gender equality in Sweden. They were organised in specific branches of
the administrative giant, the AMS, and were given a free hand to engage
in propaganda and policy-making in this respect. Of course, this must
have happened with the knowledge and acceptance of their administrative
superiors and the political leadership, but they preceded political action in
the field. The bureaucratic activities were started in the latter half of the
sixties. Only in 1972 did the Social Democrats make their Party Congress
decision of 1964 on equality between men and women the basis for a gender equality programme with clear policy implications and make gender
equality a party goal. The Social Democratic government immediately
afterwards appointed its Advisory Council on Equality (Jämställdhets-
delegationen) and declared that "the state must take an active part in the
work of changing womens position and improving gender equality".
The bureaucratically manipulated initiative was thus successful. Propa
ganda through books and newspapers, radio programmes, and even films,
made the central ideas known to a broad Swedish public (even if it is im-
possible to guess how many were convinced by the arguments). When the
Social Democratic party took up the idea for implementation in 1972, it
took the political lead in womens equality questions which had earlier
been at least partly with the Liberals. Finally, the government transformed
vital parts of the programme into legislation on parental leave and related
questions. The change in the Swedish party situation in relation to family policy is
analysed by Jonas Hinnfors in his contribution to this volume. Among other
things he shows that an equality policy with labour märket implications had effects in the party right-left scale. Individual rights, including the rights of women in a legal structure, had been a liberal emphasis, but the new family
equality programme of the Social Democrats asked for public economic intervention on a scale which was disliked out of liberal principles.
Thus, in Sweden it is not evident that a change in public opinion pre
ceded state policy in the question of gender equality with consequences for
229
the labour märket. The process is more complex, the role of the bureau-
cracy is irregular and crucial, public investigations with representatives for
politicians, bureaucrats and interest organisations paved the way, and
ideology formation among the general public was parallel to the party and
government decisions.
From policy implementation to gender traditions and general norms in society
Gunilla Budde in her contribution to this volume shows that there was a
wide gap between state policy and policy implementation in the GDR. In
many respects it will seem that the gender division in society as a whole
was mainly the same in the 1980S as it had been just after the war in spite
of the very clear policy declarations in favour of gender equality that were
central to the East German state. Perhaps it is also a question of regression
when the SED party launched its "mum policy" (as it was known in the
GDR) which made it possible to maintain and reinforce male breadwin-
ner ideals in the GDR.
The latter example also illustrates another important angle from which
implementation must be viewed. It is no easy task to change society
through state policy and the extent to which this is effected is difficult to
measure. It will seem that policy measures that follow the demands of the
dominant groups in society and which confirm the existing normative
system are more easily implemented than measures which challenge the norms of many citizens. The GDR leadership seems to have gradually
taken the easier way rather than the more difficult. It will also seem that
their policy measures from the early phase of the GDR state did not effec-
tively change the normative system into the desired direction. Gender tra
ditions were strong and were revived when a possibility was given.
One of the reasons for the relative failure of the early equality pro-
gramme of the GDR state may have been that it was very radical and wide, if it was to be taken seriously. Both in the FRG and in Sweden pro
grammes, at least at the start, were more modest or, in the FRG, very modest, and therefore the challenge to the existing normative structure
was negligible or at least hardly provocative. Låter, in the 1970S, Swedish
230
state policy was sharpened but, then, the public had been prepared
through propaganda and through earlier measures taken.
It will seem that propaganda may be an important means to change the
normative sytem in society in general in favour of a policy which is desired
to be implemented. However, the examples of the GDR and Sweden give
different lessons. The GDR state used both newspapers and radio to pro-
mote its views, and in this respect there is a similarity to Sweden where
these media were also used to make the general public favourable to new
norms and values and acquainted to the implications of such norms and
values in daily life as is shown by Roger Klinth in his contribution above.
It may be tempting to see a difference in the effects of this propaganda in
the two states, and to explain the difference by the authority behind the
programmes and artides advancing the propaganda. As Klinth shows, in Sweden there was always an individual person who was responsible for a
radio (and låter TV) programme and newspaper artides were always
signed by the author. A debate was encouraged. In the GDR it seems that
propaganda had a more anonymous form with the state as the bogus
author, a fact that hardly encouraged debate and engagement.
A change in the division of labour and mens roles
It seems obvious that one of the factors that facilitated a change in the
gendered division of labour in the decades following World War II was
the need for labour in an expanding industry. In the years immediately
after the war no such great change was visible, and in West Germany,
though not in Sweden, the first years after 1945 were years of considerable
unemployment. Only in the early 1950S did unemployment give way to scarcity of labour in industry in the Federal Republic of Germany.
As has been shown by Christine von Oertzen and Almut Rietzschel in
different connections, the attitudes to part-time work can be related to
this situation. They show that in 1948, one of the unemployment years, part-time, normally half-day, work was regarded as an evil which had to be accepted for war widows who were the only supporters of their families.
Only as long as they had this function were they accepted in the labour
märket, and soon preference was given to providing them social welfare
support instead of employment. Around 1953/54 full employment was
231
reached and women began to ask for employment, often half-day employ-
ment. A new debate about the meaning of work for women arose. If mar-
ried women were employed outside the household, should their income be
regarded as independent of that of their husbands? In the FRG the con-
servative state government changed policy several times in order to solve
the problem of the social need of labour and the preservation of traditional
norms. Individualism, which was the initial starting-point leading to a
system of taxation according to two breadwinners per family where both
men and women were employed, had to give way to a traditionalism,
where the womans income was taxed as an extra surplus on her husbands
income if her income exceeded a low taxation minimum. Men were then
regarded as the normal supporters of their families and women s income as
an irregularity that was hit by hard taxation.11
The change in attitudes between 1948 and 1954, which meant a change
from total negativism to acceptance even though fundamental values were
the same, can certainly be related to the demand for labour. In fact, mar-
ried women were the most attractive group for an expansion of the social
manpower. The alternative in all three countries under concern was immi
gration, and the costs of housing, schooling and providing for the needs of
immigrant groups were considerably higher than including housewives in
the work-force. As is shown by Veronica Beechey and Tessa Parker in the
case of Britain, womens part-time work was used also as a fundamental
means to obtain flexibility in the industries where women were employed,
while in the case of men overtime and short-time were the main regulators
for changes in demand.12 Thus, it was by no means exceptional when GDR high officials discussed female participation in production in eco-
nomic terms, though they tended to regard all day-care for children etc. as
extra costs for female workers.13
11 C. v. Oertzen and A. Rietzschel, "Comparing the Post-War Germanies: Breadwinner Ideology and Womens Employment in the Divided nation, 1948-1970", in InternationalRe-
view of SocialHistory, vol. 42,1997, Supplement, pp. 175-196; idem, "Das "Kuckucksei" Teil-
zeitarbeit. Die Politik der Gewerkschaften in deutsch-deutschen Vergleich", in G.-F. Budde
(ed.), Frauen arbeiten, 1997, pp. 212—251. 12 V. Beechey & Tessa Perkins, A Matter of Hours. Women, Part-time Work and the Labour
Märket, Oxford 1987 (Polity), esp. p. 76. 13 Oertzen & Rietzschel in IRSH 1997, Suppl., p. 184-5.
232
What is specific in the Swedish case is the growth of an official equality
programme for families which included a new role for males. The emanci
pation of men, as the term was in the 1960S and 1970S, meant that men
had to be freed from the traditional role expectations. As shown by Klinth,
considerable effort was made by individual actors in politics to convince
Swedish men that they needed another conception of their tasks in society
than the traditionally inherited one. Of course, it is impossible to measure
the acceptance of the message about the new male role but it is notewor-
thy that the use of the social aid system for families could be used equally
by men and women and a change in attitude certainly took place. For the
aims of this investigation it is most important, however, to see that the
state used indirect means—propaganda through its agencies for the use of
the family programme in the first hand—to change attitudes rather than
rigid and compulsory policy measures to force men into new roles.
In the other two countries even less effort was made to change the male
role during the period under consideration here. In the FRG individual
and sometimes organised propaganda for a change of male attitudes can
be noted, but the state did not engage itself in this goal.
Conclusion: Policies and the change of a gendered society
There is one important similarity in the carrying through of a policy
aimed at changing old gender divisions of labour in the three countries
under study here. In all three countries the state has in one way or other
acted to reläte legislation closely to a wide-spread ideological conception
in society. This has been carried out in different ways, but obviously it has
been deemed important that the distance between prevailing ideological
convictions and political practice should never be vast.
This means that the ideological value of gender relations was great. In
many other questions governments dared to take decisions in order to
form an opinion or even to show that existing convictions were badly
founded. In many economic matters, school and education matters, agri-
cultural matters, and matters concerning communications, governments
did not make public opinion a touchstone for the feasibility of carrying
through reforms. But in gender relations they did.
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This does not mean, however, that official policies—beside these there
were party policies of a more or less determined equality content—were
the same in the three countries, or that they used the same methods to re
läte state policy to prevailing ideology. On the contrary, it has been shown
here that the FRG state was least innovative in this area. In the FRG the
state tended to follow changes in public opinion rather than try to change
it. The GDR state acted in the opposite way. Its policy was determined by
the government in the first place and the official state policy was then
propagated to the public in order to make ideology conform to policy
rather than the reverse. In Sweden the state acted both ways. Civil ser-
vants were authorised to propagate certain policy standpoints without an
official state policy to reläte them to. When the opinion was established,
party (the Social Democrats) and state were moved to make this policy
official and the basis for legislation.
It seems that the question of gender roles and labour märket was a very
typical example of Deborah Stones idea that policy-making is a question
of forming and reforming groups and spreading convictions. This is what
happened in all three countries, Sweden, the FRG and the GDR. It is also
apparent that one cannot conclude from the differences in political forms
between the three states what would be their adopted policy and which
means would be used to implement it. Especially not the latter. Most
energy was devoted to ideology and bringing state policy and ideology
into harmony. The ways of doing this were dissimilar and may be said to
correspond to what might be expected from the political system. Activities
and initiatives through individuals and groups were of utmost importance
for this process. In spite of all the energy that was spent on the forming of a new ideol
ogy it seems that old convictions had a firm grip on large parts of the pop-ulation in all three countries. Patriarchalism was traditional and strong
and could not be extirpated in just a few years. The role of men had to be
changed at the same time, for gender relations are mutual. The effort to
create a new conception of mens roles and to make men accept them was much weaker and came låter, if it came at all. It is visible in Sweden both as ideology and as a weak state policy; one may doubt that it existed in the GDR; the change may have been quite strong in the FRG in some parts of
society, while the state and its policy were almost unaffected by such ideas.
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Thus the strong ideological movement to change womens roles in society and to make it possible for them to take part in the labour märket accord-ing to their wish led to state action and legislation in some respects though no strong groups propagated a new male ideal and little state support was given to reforming mens roles and conditions in society.
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