LL-L "History" 2009.11.11 (01) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 11 November 2009- Volume 01
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From: Jonny <jonny.meibohm at arcor.de>
Subject: LL-L "History" 2009.11.10 (02) [EN]

 Dear Lowlanners,

Mark (B.) wrote:

Otherwise, the nutshell versions says that women from the former DDR have
surpassed their western sisters in their occupations in the West. The DDR
had 92% of women in the work force before reuniting with the West, which
made them less susceptible to the guilt of trying to combine children with a
career that the westerner feels.

I fear you can't compare a socialistic system like that of the GDR with a
western one - in reality it often were just "occupations" but not very
productive employments. Which doesn't mean that they hadn't been busy, but
just in a different way.
This was valid for men as well as for women.

Allerbest!

Jonny Meibohm
Lower Saxony, Germany

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
 Subject: History

Quite so, Jonny-o!

I can confirm this on the basis of what I observed regarding my East German
cousins and their circles. The way I see it, a job that in the West would
been held by one person was shared by several persons in the East. So an
individual's productivity was low irrespective of his or her motivation.
Motivation tended to be low as well because there was little if any
incentive to exert oneself. Advancement, such as promotion, was often likely
to put you into a more prominent and thus more vulnerable position, and many
such promotions had more to do with your political connections and
reputation than with your work skills. People earned meager livings, but the
vast majority did. Therefore it was the standard. There was little available
to amass in the way of material goods, anyway. For those that had no
ambitions beyond this, those that did not die to leave the country and did
not care about politics it was comfortable in a certain way and less
stressful, as long as you kept your thoughts completely to yourself and thus
your nose clean. (Even your supposed best friends could work for the secret
police and even your own children might inadvertently if not deliberately
divulge your private opinions, much like it had been during the Nazi
period.)

As soon as the Wall came down, my early-middle-aged cousins, their spouses
and most of their friends lost their jobs. Not only had the system collapsed
that had raised, trained and supported them, but they were now considered
unemployable because they lacked the attitude, skills and training necessary
to survive in a capitalist system and they were considered too old for
retraining and "reprogramming." Try and imagine what it was like for them!
Talking about the rug being pulled from under you ...! Their children were
not considered lost causes and received suitable training and education.

As far as I can tell, all this applied to both men and women.

I observed a similar thing in Mainland China. There were still echoes of the
Cultural Revolution when I arrived, where most people shared even the most
menial jobs and pretty much sat or stood around all day long. Things started
to change rapidly midway through my stay, and suddenly competition for jobs
and material goods arose accompanied by an increase in crime (real crime,
not political). Where there had been little or no gender bias before women
started to complain about employment and advancement discrimination.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
Seattle, USA

•

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