Eigentlich ist das mit den Geschlechterverhältnissen hier in Deutschland doch schon ganz ordentlich, oder? Also so im Vergleich zu anderen Ländern. Tja, denkste – der Blick von außen ist dann doch erhellend. Deswegen folgt hier ein (anonymisierter) Rant einer Bekannten von mir, die seit vielen Jahren in den USA lebt, dort eine erfolgreiche Professorin ist, und jetzt für ein Jahr wieder nach Deutschland zurückgekehrt ist. Ihre Erfahrungen damit, wie tief eingegraben überkommene Geschlechterrollen hierzulande sind – selbst oder gerade in einem akademischen Kontext:
Before I moved back to Germany I did not consider myself a feminist, just a woman, who expects to be treated equally. That’s all. After a year back in Germany I feel like a radical feminist activist.
The main reason I could not see myself living in Germany again permanently is because of gender roles. Overall I see men here a lot more equally involved in household chores, the care of the children, it is not uncommon for men to take paternity leave; yet even many of those men still boss their female partners around telling them how to do what when or ordering for them in the restaurant. I conducted interviews here with Germans about their identity, in an attempt to understand, how people in Germany define Germanness and themselves as Germans. One man (married to an accomplished female doctor) responded to the question “wer sind Sie und wie würden Sie sich beschreiben” with the following “Ich bin Chef. Ich bin der Chef bei der Arbeit. Chef meines Hauses und Chef meiner Familie.” And that is the attitude I saw in many places.
A surprising number of well-educated (Ph.D., MD, etc.) women gave up their careers and stay at home without ever reentering their profession and many other women opted not to have children because they believe motherhood and careerhood are incompatible. Those women in my social circle, who believed that motherhood and a career should be possible, work and/or live in other countries. While boys and girls appear to be treated and raised similarly and you cannot tell the difference between the boys‘ and the girls‘ section in stores, somewhere along the lines something changes and it is especially pronounced in the work-place, an old boys club.
At the junior research award ceremony at the local university 44 of 56 awards went to men across disciplines. When I pointed that out to the male next to me at the awards luncheon he was really surprised and had not even noticed.
Most of the boards I had to deal with this year where exclusively or at least primarily made up of males. If there were women on the board, it was typically for “female” roles such as K‑12 education or art.
More than once when I was introduced as the director of the program, the men (and some women) responded with different versions of “I expected an older male.” Well, I am a younger woman, deal with it, jerk!
In a few situations the Prof. Dr. MaleImportance expected me to address him with full title and the formal address, while I was addressed with the informal as Frau Idontreallyneedtoknowyourname. I don’t really care about my degrees, but if you insist on yours, you have to give me the same respect.
The men I interacted with here in my function as the director of an American educational program appeared to fall into three categories: (1) those who could not accept a female director and never respected me as such, (2) those who just started hitting on me or any other female in the room, and (3) the few that acted like I was used to from the US (primarily men in German-American settings).
At a dinner with a German university president and a US university president the US president asked the German president, if he had any female deans, the president switched the topic. Later I checked online and saw that only one of the colleges had a female dean and there was only one woman in the central administration – yes, you guessed it, the woman in charge of affirmative action. In the US I have a female department chair, a female dean, a female provost, and a female university president.
When our office moved location, the movers did not allow me to lift anything or touch tools because I am a woman. My male co-director was allowed to do so – of course. Both janitors at the apartment complex always felt the need to check up on me, make sure that I am okay, even letting themselves into my apartment to check on things (they do have permission) or rearranging things in my garage. I am confident they won’t do that to my male colleague, who is taking over my position next year.
One of my students completed an internship and in her building all the women were on the ground level (even the ones with completed doctorate degrees) and all the men on the second floor (even those without Ph.D.s) and several of the woman had to share offices, while none of the men had to do so. At an event during her internship all of the women had to set up the catered meal for the membership assembly while all the males listened to the signature lecture – again this was regardless of degree, title or position. She even had pictures in her final video about her internship that demonstrated this discrepancy though she very diplomatically did not comment on the pictures.
Several of my students reported that they had female instructors who allowed the du and the first name, while all of their male professors expected full title and Sie and some of them even addressed the students by first name but expected last name and title in return.
I supervised two female instructors and two male instructors. In over a decade of coordination or program administration I have never had the impression that I work more effectively with one gender over the other, but here I really struggled with the male instructors, while the female instructors were great.
Both female instructors stopped by this week to thank me for all the help and support and we had great conversations and a productive relationship throughout the year. The male instructor 1 from the one semester never even said hi to me, when he came to the office, even when he knew I was here. Even if he had to turn something in to me and knew I was here, he just gave it to my co-director (who technically is the Associate Director and I am the boss, but I changed the name, because I wanted an equal partnership). Of course he never answered my emails either. When the other male instructor 2 wanted a raise, he did not negotiate with me, the actual supervisor, but with my co-director, who does not have decision power. At the end of the other semester we had a big wave of severe sickness, which caused even very responsible students to have an unfinished paper by the deadline. They asked for an extension and the male instructor 2 did not really give an answer, so I talked with him and he gave me tons of attitude, because it is his course and he gets to decide and they should have known better. Of course some of that is true, but he is also employed by me and I see that my students are about to fail several of their courses because of severe illnesses across the program and the only courses I can somewhat have an influence on are the two taught by our staff, so of course I will try to work with him (and the female instructor, who readily agreed to make modifications). I was asking for two extra days, still a deadline before the official end of the semester, i.e. still within his employment period. After much discussion he finally agreed that he would let them turn it in late though he did not disclose whether that would result in deduction of points though he admitted that his syllabus said nothing about late assignments. He only agreed to the extension, if I collected all the papers, printed them, and personally delivered them to his office. Anything for you, arrogant ass! By the way all the instructors were younger than me with fewer degrees and I was the boss, which did not stop the male instructors from being jerks and only reporting to the co-director, who was a male with fewer degrees and lower rank than me.
And so this year I endured treatment from male jerks in the work-place, which I would never accept or tolerate in the US, but since I am only here for a year, I played along and accepted it as cultural differences so that the relations between the entities or individuals and our program could stay positive for cohorts to come.
Many of the stereotypes that many of my American friends have about men, do not hold true in Germany, which is why I believe that male/female behavior has more to do with cultural values and expectations of gender than the gender itself. While I notice a lot of great things about German men (they change diapers, see and clean up dirt and can perfectly well multi-task), I do not fit into the role system here. Several of the private sector leaders (all male, of course) I interacted with, seemed to at least be interested in discussing ideas for changing this gender inequality (none of the academic leaders even acknowledged it as a problem). But I really do not have an answer, because I believe this gender inequality is so ingrained in the cultural values that no Quotenregelung or anything will change it. If it ever changes, it will be a long process and I am not hopeful that things will change before I reach retirement age in 27 years.
A big kudos to the men in my German life, who have shown me that general trends do not apply to everyone (first and foremost of course my stay-at-home dad but also especially my co-director who was a true collaborative partner in directing this program).
I look forward to returning to a work environment, where I am treated comparatively equally and am respected by my male colleagues, my male supervisors, and the males I supervise as much or as little as by their female counterparts. If it weren’t for the gender issues in the work-place I would consider returning to Germany, but this is why I left in 1997 and why I will leave again. Viel Erfolg, Deutschland.
Aus gegebenem Anlass: Wie in meinen Spielregeln beschrieben, behalte ich es mir vor, beleidigende Kommentare zu löschen. Dies gilt hier, da es nicht um einen Text von mir, sondern um einen Gastbeitrag geht, in besonderer Weise.
Deswegen: Wer in höflicher Weise – dann gerne auch kontrovers – über die Erfahrungen meiner Bekannten diskutieren möchte, kann dies gerne tun. Wer diese pauschal in Zweifel zieht oder sonstwie sichtlich auf Provokation aus ist (aka „trollen“), wird in dieser Diskussion nicht freigeschaltet.
I recently returned to Germany myself (for personal reasons) and my experiences are very similar. I certainly wouldn’t live here if my husband and I had a choice. However, I’m in the fortunate position of working from home and almost entirely via the Internet (doing translations and various web/e‑commerce related things) so that I actually live in a nice little bubble, speaking English all day and basically living in a different time zone.
Over the past 12 months or so that I’ve been back I’ve had to listen to an interesting variety of statements and questions, such as „I think it’s great that your husband allows you to work“ (coming from a woman), „Why do you work? Aren’t you married?“ (from a male peer), „So, what are you cooking?“ (a man, asked at around lunch-time), „I don’t understand why you’re paying into a pension fund. You’re married, aren’t you?“ (from men, usually), etc. etc. Nobody in the US has ever asked me those questions. Germany–at least out where I live–still lives in a highly patriarchal world where men hang out with their buddies from some „Verein“ and women cook & look after children.
My mother-in-law stopped working when she had her first child, and my sister-in-law has never worked more than part-time (well, I guess at least she’s working). She was recently made redundant and, when asked how the job search was going, she responded by saying „Well, I’m looking but full-time is out of the question“. Her kids are grown up and she has no other commitments–but to her it’s an accepted fact that the husband should be the main breadwinner and that she should have dinner on the table by the time he gets home.
I’m not saying that the US has perfect gender equality; far from it. But I felt it certainly is better at handling women in the workplace, especially women in executive or techie positions. I guess the trick here is to power through and steamroll anyone who tries to get in your way. Anyone who gives me the „Why do you work?“ question these days, I respond by saying „Do you mean just because I’m married Im not allowed to have a career?“
I’m really impressed that obviously there is a lot of room for improvement here in Germany. And I am ashamed that my negative view regarding the „conservative“ States is false (at least regarding the issue discussed) and that it’s ways better compared to Germany with regards to gender equality in the professional environment. Thank you very much for this detailed view from the outside!
Bin in D aufgewachsen und kann das nicht nachvollziehen. Lebe seit nun bald 20 Jahren in den USA und bin regelmäßig über längere Zeitraeume in D. Muss gestehen, ueber die ersten drei Absaetze bin ich nicht hinaus gekommen. Ausgestiegen bin ich dann endgueltig, als die Autorin berichtete, sie (man) koenne nicht die Maedchen von der Jungs-Abteilung unterscheiden. Kann das und die meisten anderen Beispiele (bis dahin) nicht aus meiner Beobachtung bestaetigen.
Ich finde es hilfreich, Texte ganz zu lesen – und sie erst mal als „aha, so sieht jemand anderes das“ zu nehmen – bevor die darin enthaltenen Beobachtungen komplett in Frage gestellt werden. Es soll ja auch sowas wie blinde Flecken in der eigenen Wahrnehmung einerseits und das stilistische Mittel der Zuspitzung andererseits geben.
Das ist lustig, ich bin selbst noch im Ausland und Freunde von mir sind gerade (vor einem Jahr) zurueckgekehrt und wahnsinnig deprimiert darueber dass das tataechlich genauso ist in Deutschland wie beschrieben. Weil von der Frau dermasssen haeufig erwartet wird dahause zu bleiben hat sie jetzt gar keine Lust mehr ueberhaupt noch im Land zu bleiben.
Das mit der Maedchen/Jungs Abteilung ist uebrigens tatsaechlich weniger stark getrennt (ab einem gewissen Alter), zumindest sehe ich das so wenn ich hier drueben Geschenke fuer Kinder in D kaufen will.
Super interessanter Text. Mich würde interessieren in welcher Region Deutschlands die Autorin ihre Erfahrungen gesammelt hat. Ich lebe in Berlin und habe zumindest (auch wenn ich das als Mann viel viel schwerer selbst beurteilen kann, mangels eigenem Erleben) hier den Eindruck das eigentlich nie in Frage gestellt wird das eine Frau mit Kind arbeitet bzw. solche Vorwürfe in die Richtung absolut selten sind und schnell (auch „unter Männern“) Widerspruch erzeugen. Ebenso erscheint mir das Praktikumsbeispiel sehr krass, was nicht heißt das ich es in Frage stelle, sondern mich eher Frage wo so etwas tatsächlich gängige Praxis ist.
Soweit ich weiß, war das eher Süddeutschland.
ich denke, es geht nicht um „generell“ arbeiten – sondern um das Verhalten gegenüber einer definitiv Vorgesetzen und den Respekt, es einfach hinzunehmen. Und dieses verhalten kann ich durchaus nachvollziehen, z.T. aus eigener Erfahrung. Vielen Dank Till, dass Du hier die gelegenheit gibst, mal die Aussensicht lesen zu können. Ich habe mir z.B. auch schon Fragen anhören müssen, wie ich das denn so hinbekommen will, ( Angebot eines Führungsjobs 2 Zugstunden entfernt mit Wochenendpendeln) – mit meiner Familie. Die Frage hätte ein Mann nie im Vorstellungsgespräch zu hören bekommen… ab da wollte ich den Job allerdings auch nicht mehr, denn das zeigte mir die Einstellung des GF – nämlich auch, dass er lieber einen Mann gehabt hätte.
Wer wissen will, wie gelebter Sexismus aussieht, muss einfach nur mit seiner Freundin (anderer Nachname…) ein Haus bauen.
Selbst wenn die Frau den Bau koordinieren will, setzen sich grundsätzlich ALLE darüber hinweg und wollen zur Bestätigung mit dem Mann reden.
Außer die Küchenfirma und die Fliesenleger.
Wenn es darum geht, beim Tragen zu helfen, sähe ich es aber nicht so verkniffen wie die Autorin.
naja, klar. ihnen spricht ja auch niemand damit die kompetenz ab, ihre arme für was anderes gebrauchen zu können, als kochen und löckchen drehen.
nur dass ich leuten etwas abnehmen mag, heißt noch lange nicht, dass sich der aufgabe beraubte darüber freuen müssen.
vielen dank für den guten text.
.~.
I grew up in Eastern Germany and now live in the northwest. I am surprised and concerned about those differences and treatment. I personally never perceived men being such kind of jerks in the workplace and I am sure that if I married, nobody would expect me to stay at home or wonder why I am working, although I had kids. But as far as I can tell, culturally, a man would feel a little strange if his wife earned more money than he did. Probably for the simple reason that she is able to get the children and he would feel a bit „useless“ (let’s say). He wants to take high responsibility for his family.
I am not far in my career yet (doing my international Master degree in Physics which actually is dominated by men) but I don’t have the impression that I need to prove myself over men. From our female professor I heard that she made similar experiences like the author as she has 3 children.
I think this is regionally different. Neither at my current university nor back in Berlin any professor or lecturer that I met insists on his title, sometimes quickly offering the „Du“. South Germany has more the reputation of being old-fashioned in that topic (which I cannot prove nor disprove). Frankly, regarding this topic and some others aswell, I believe that my generation is much different from the one that now is ruling universities, politics etc. Time will change much here, even culturally.
Well done!
[Provokation eines Masku-Blogs muss hier nicht stehen, gelöscht. TW]
Ich fühle mich ganz komisch zu sagen, dass mir das noch nie, zu keinem Zeitpunkt, in keinem Angestelltenverhältnis oder als Freiberufler passiert ist. Möglicherweise liegt es an der Herkunft/Wohnort. Man kann es fast nicht mehr hören, aber da es normal in der DDR war, dass beide arbeiten, hat das meine Generation noch als Erbe in sich. Und ich mache mich auch nicht zum Opfer. Aber vielleicht hatte ich bisher auch nur Glück.
Ich sehe das ehrlich gesagt ganz genauso. Ich kenne in meinem Umkreis nicht eine Person, die so denkt oder sich fragt, warum Frau arbeiten geht wenn der Mann beruflich sehr erfolgreich ist. Ich muss jedoch ehrlich gestehen, solche „Stories“ aus Westdeutschland gehört zu haben…
Yes. The Usa, the land of freedom, where every thing is much more better than every where in the world. I suggest everyone to decide between two paths, changing the world for your believes or just run away to another country. For me, I would not like to live in such a country, which supports with my tax money international american terrorism with cia, nsa, etc. worldwide.
I mean, its seems to be okay for you, that you support with your tax money waterboarding in guantanamo for be handle as a equal person to men. Congratulation for this!
Instead of running away, my plan is to make Germany to a better place, hopefully you will do the best you can also with the Usa. Otherwise if you would like to change your world, you would probably not run away. I dont want to assume that Germany is up to handle men and women the same, but I think we are on a good way to it.
Probably it is the most important point for you to get handle equal, but in my opinion there are more important points, like human rights, not nuking every damn country with valuable resources to steal them. And actually I ‚d like that my kids can grow up in a kind of peace without the fear getting killed by a stranger, just because he thought its his right.
The Usa have alot own problems. Make it up to the point, its better running away to the Usa, instead of changing Germany don’t seems to me pretty smart. But hey, you can support guantanamo, and all the killed civilians in foreign countries with your tax money. Congratulations for this!
I don’t see how your comment has anything to do with the article. She neither said that the USA were perfect, nor did she praise the NRA. The only thing she did was to describe how differently she was treated in her workplace – for being a woman. If you want to complain about things going wrong in the US – and there certainly are quite a few things to complain about – you would probably do better channeling your anger towards people and articles dealing with (or neglecting) the problems you are talking about.
What you are trying to do here is defining the whole discussion about equal rights for men and women down by changing the topic. This is trolling.
I’d rather not give my tax money to a government agreeing on selling weapons to warlords whilst at the same time doing their best to shut out all refugees, by the way. Talking about Germany.
Hallo Zusammen!
Der Bericht ist echt deprimierend. Teils teile ich diese Sichtweise, teils möchste ich diese ergänzen. Richtig ist, dass Frauen noch immer suggeriert wird, dass Sie sich zwischen Beruf und Kind zu entscheiden hätte. Hauptgrund ist sicherlich die fehlende bzw. schlecht organisierte Kinderbetreuung, sei es durch den Staat (bzw. Kommunen) oder den Arbeitgeber. Hinzu kommen sicherlich auch die hohen Abgaben welche zu zahlen sind. Wer 50–60% von seinem Gehalt abgeben muss, ist die Finanzkraft genommen sich eine Betreung selbst zu organisieren. Unser, ach so angebeteter Staat, ist längst eine riesige Bevormundungsmeschinerie, welche seine Untertanen in Lebensläufe zwingt.
Selbiges gilt für unser Bildungssystem, welche nun wirklich zu 99% in staatlicher Hand ist und entsprechend starr und nach Plan organisiert ist. Entsprenchend „sicher“ und überlegen fühlen sich die Nutznießer dieses „Plans“. Ich befürchte, solange es keine alternativen Konzepte (Privatunis? Stiftungsunis? Auswahl nach Leistung nicht nach Geschlecht) gibt wird das auch nicht ändern.
Es spielt übrigens gar keine, aber auch über gar keine Rolle wo in Deutschland es war. Am Ende hat jeder selbst entschieden, wie er jener Frau begenet ist. Das interessiert nur Leute, welche auf andere zeigen wollen.
Im Übrigen ist Süddeutschland nicht gleich Süddeutschland, Bayrische Wald ist nicht gleich ein Regenbogenviertel in Stuttgart-West. Genauso wenig wie Delemenhorst gleich Schill-Hamburg ist.
Der Annahme, dass sich Frauen entscheiden müssen zwischen Kind und Karriere, liegt doch auch wieder zugrunde, dass es die Frau ist, die sich um die Kinder kümmern muß. Hierin liegt m.E. vielmehr die Ursache darin, dass wir es in Deutschland nicht hinbekommen. Es muß sich nämlich (vor allem auch) im Männerbild erheblich etwas ändern. Nur wenn selbstverständlich beide Elternteile in die Pflicht genommen werden und gleichermaßen behandelt werden, kommen wir der Lösung einen Schritt näher. So ist es eben immer die Frau, die erstmal dafür sorgen muß, dass die Kinder versorgt sind, bevor sie sich dann um ihrer Karriere kümmern kann. Das heißt nicht, dass die Schaffung der Infrasturktur nicht auch ein Teil der Lösung sein muß.
Mein Mann und ich leben das „klassische Familienmodell umgekehrt“, sprich er ist in Teilzeit und kümmert sich um die Kinder und ich arbeite voll. Für uns ist das das perfekte Modell. Aber: wir haben alle beide sehr mit unserem Umfeld zu kämpfen. Mein Mann wird nicht für voll genommen, wenn es um die Kinder geht (der Kindergarten ruft grundsätzlich bei mir an, wenn was ist) und im Job auch nicht mehr, weil er ja „nur“ Teilzeit arbeitet, und ich bin wahlweise mitleidigen Blicken ausgesetzt („Sie Arme, fällt es Ihnen nicht SEHR schwer, nicht bei ihren Kindern sein zu können“…) oder werde ausgegrenzt (Karrieremutter, das kriegt die nicht hin, etc). Bin von einem großen deutschen Unternehmen in ein Nordamerikanisches gewechselt und schwups, war das alles vorbei. Kann mich also dem Eindruck aus dem Bericht nur sehr anschließen.
Interessanter Aussenblick.
Der Text befasst sich ja im wesentlichen mit der Situation an einer Universität. Die Autorin deutet ja darauf hin, worin ein wesentlicher Unterschied zwischen ihrer US-Uni und der beschriebenen deutschen Universität liegt: „In the US I have a female department chair, a female dean, a female provost, and a female university president.“
Das ist auch in den USA leider bei weitem nicht die Regel und sicherlich auch stark fachabhängig. Die Filterbubble der Autorin – „primarily men in German-American settings“ an einer Universität – dürfte auch nicht gerade repräsentativ sein. Aber das nur zur Einordnung, es geht also im wesentlichen um die Situation in den Universitäten.
Die Autorin hat mit ihrer Kritik – soweit ich das mitbekomme – im wesentlichen vollkommen recht. Die Gründe für diese Kultur sehe ich im geringen Frauenanteil in leitenden Funktionen. Die USA sind hier weiter, aber auch hierzulande steigt der Anteil.