INA Merkel is the author of the Manifesto for an Independent
Women's Movement adopted by the participants in the festival that launched the Independent Federation of Women on
December 3 at the Volksbühne in Berlin. At the culmination of this meeting, she was designated one of the representatives of this federation, and in this capacity she took part in the preparatory commissions for the round table between the government and the opposition movements. In between these various meetings and her courses at the Humboldt University, where she is a teacher, she was good enough to answer the questions posed by Cahiers du féminisme.
The following interview was given to Anne-Marie Granger in
Berlin on January 16, 1990.
he association for which you
T are a spokesperson has taken the name "Independent
Federation of Women." What do you mean by "independent"?
For us, this means two things. First of all independent from any party. That is something fundamental in our eyes. The only women's association that existed up until now, the DD, was completely subordinated to the party, to the SED. But this also means that each of the groups that make up this federation is independent of the other groups and free to develop its own policy. Because of our history, there is a strong tendency among us in the
GDR to expect everything to come from above, to operate in accordance with a very centralized model. This tendency, of course, also exists among women. We want to break with that. None of us wants to become a leader of a centralized organization that dictates to others what they have to do.
For us, this respect for the autonomy of every group is not contradictory to a desire to engage in common work, to coordinate our activities. We are now working out a common minimum program for all these groups, which will be the platform of the federation, and we have set up a coordinating council made up of representatives of the various groups.
This council regularly elects spokespersons who can take positions publicly in the name of the women's movement. We pay a lot of attention to assuring that the political spectrum represented in the coordinating council is reflected in the
8 choice of spokespersons.
• What are your primary demands?
The first demand put forward is for involvement in all political decisions. In particular, we want a "women's delegate" at all levels of decision making, with a right of veto over measures concerning women. This right would make it possible to open a broad public debate when a decision seems to go against the interests of women.
We also want to get an equality law that would give every woman the right to sue if she thought there was discrimination - for example if it turned out that an enterprise favored hiring men because of so-called female absenteeism, that is, maternity leaves and this is happening more and more often). It is necessary also to take a new look at our system of labor contracts. They do formally guarantee "equal pay for equal work," but women rarely turn up in the same jobs as men, and there is no definition of what is "equal work." The result is that women are always more poorly paid. We demand that women's wages be adjusted immediately to bring them up to the level of men.
Another of our leading demands is for a shorter workweek. We don't even have a 40 hour week; the workweek is about 42 hours and 45 minutes, and we only get 18 days paid leave a year! In my opinion, there is nothing unrealistic about this demand. Studies by German sociologists have shown that today 30 percent of worktime is wasted time. People don't work because of a lack of motivation. Why not use this slack to cut the workweek? This would be good for everyone, and would increase the motivation to work.
a matriarchy in East Germany, because it is above all the men who are taking off for the West. For women, it is much harder to find work in West Germany. But they stay also because here there are social provisions that are not unimportant for them -very cheap day-care centers, rents incomparably lower than in the West. • From the standpoint of public services, East Germany has nothing to envy other countries for.
It is very important, of course, to have enough day-care centers, kindergartens, primary schools. But if you have children, it is not only in order to have them looked after somewhere, to always turn them over to someone else! This is why our movement is very sensitive to the demand for increasing free time, for us and our children, and for men, who should be able to pay more attention to their children. Among us, almost all women have children, including the intellectuals. And, as feminists, their thinking is not based only on their own situation but also on the future they want to build for their children.
The environment is another one of our major concerns. All the inhabitants of the
GDR are very sensitive to this question, because the extent of pollution in this country is intolerable. There are whole areas that should be declared uninhabitable. Places like Bieterfeld or Leipzig are so polluted that the people there cong all the time. And for babies, you had better not use tap water! So we say that there has to be a program for radically restructuring society in order to stop the destruction of our environment. We don't want to make our children pay the price for a policy that for decades has totally ignored these questions. We want to build a future for them where the environment will no longer represent a constant threat, where they can still swim in the sea and the streams and breathe air that deserves the name!
• As a representative of the women's movement, you are now participating in the preparatory commissions for the round table, alongside the opposition organizations. What sort of relations do you have with them?
All the opposition groups that have arisen in recent months know now that they have to take us into consideration, and
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EAST GERMANY decision"
March 12, 1990 • #180 International Viewpoint they are aware that they can no longer dismiss the "women's question" with a wave of the hand. No one wants to attack us publicly any longer or say that all this is unimportant. But this does not mean that these groups automatically pick up the questions that we have raised! In fact, we always find ourselves faced with the same old problem — the structures of these organizations are dominated by men. Engaging in politics means adapting to this male model. And this is what we are no longer willing to do!
One of the ways of changing this situation in my opinion, is establishing quotas at all levels. I think that this should be made an essential criterion for judging the various opposition groups. The problem is that the women themselves are often against quotas, because they are afraid of being elected only on that basis, as women and not for their own capacities and qualities (I think you have the same debate). But you don't have to stay there. Being elected as a woman also means having the chance to develop your capacities; that can be a starting point for engaging in politics and gaining recognition.
However, my feeling is that we are not yet at a point where we can force through quotas. Neues Forum, for example, has finally declared against quotas in its own organization. And for the coming elections, I am afraid that the number of women in parliament, which is now a third, will drop considerably.
these elections, and fasticipate in
• Do you intend to so in what form?
There is a debate now at the round table over the new electoral law, which will decide who has the right to run in these elections — only political parties or also "citizens movements"? ' For our part, we are favorable to the second solution. We consider our movement as a sort of movement that goes beyond parties, bringing together women of various viewpoints, who often belong political organizations. We think that it should be able to be represented as such in parliament, and be able to play an important role there. But a good part of the members of the round table want to restrict participation in the elections to political parties, and broad movements may This could abruptly debate in our movement that up until now we have taken up only at a national meeting of the coordinating committee. Should we form a women's or feminist party? A group of women in Jena has advocated this project from the beginning. Personally, I think that this would not be a good thing, especially because it would have consequences for our form of organization. It would impel us to adopt a centralized structure, which most of us reject. Undoubtedly, we will decide to stay in the extra-parliamentary opposition, and on this basis make criticisms, push for public debate and develop our demands.
Besides, the various opposition parties have offered us a place on their slates — to be their "token women," in my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, there are only two possibilities: either we stay in the extra-parliamentary opposition, or we form a women's fraction in the parliament. We might consider a common front with the New Forum or the United Left. But even in that case, we would insist on having our own program, our own slate
All these questions will be discussed at our national coordinating committee meeting on January 20. We also have to round out a catalogue of demands that we will submit to the parties running in the • How do you envisage the future?
In the manifesto that all the women's groups agreed on in December, there is a phrase that clearly says what we want; it is a socialist society. This has not aroused any particular debate. It was a position found just about everywhere in the democratic movement at the time. But the atmosphere in the country is no longer the same. There are a lot of discussions around this question. We can no longer do without a debate over what we mean by "socialism." Content has to be given back
Today, the demand for a "greater Germany" is more and more getting the upper hand, for one simple reason — people see
EAST GERMANY the wealth and consumer possibilities in West Germany; they want to be able to enjoy them and live like those in the West. They think that everything is going well over there, and they say simply: Why not do like them? More and more people and organizations are patterning themselves on the Western model. People are drafting laws that try to copy what exists in West Germany. But if they would look more closely, they would see that not everything is going so well in West Germany.