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Even if there are roses on Women's Day: There are only 223 women MPs in the Bundestag - and 486 men
Photo: Frederic Kern / imago images / Future Image
Every year around March 8th I get emails offering me bouquets of flowers "for power women", offering coaching for women or promoting books on International Women's Day.
And every year, from every email, I get a little more tired.
Women's Day is once a year.
But women also exist on all of the remaining 364 days.
So it would be more logical - and probably more sustainable - to tell their stories equally to the other days, to sell their books, to let them have their say as experts, to buy flowers.
Or, better yet, promote policies that really support women.
Even in 2021, women are still less represented than men in many areas of working life: there are 223 women and 486 men in the German Bundestag.
There are more Lord Mayors with the first name "Thomas" than women of any name in this office.
In 2018, of around 48,000 university professors, only 25 percent were women.
In the public service, where overall more women work than men, the proportion of women continues to decline the higher the salary group is.
There is also room for improvement in the media.
Although around 40 percent of managers at SPIEGEL are female, there are also a lot of "Thomas" and "Stefan" at the top management level - and only a few women.
Many regional media are firmly in male hands.
To this day it is made unnecessarily difficult for women
Lack of flexibility, the impossibility of combining family and work without complete exhaustion, encrusted structures in which men's power is the norm and everything else the exception, glass ceilings - these are just a few of the many factors that make it difficult for women to advance on an equal footing.
In other areas, women are great for it.
With old-age poverty, for example.
This is no coincidence either.
Women often work in industries in which comparatively low wages are paid, and it is still in the vast majority of cases women who take longer periods of childcare and then work part-time, for example because they look after children or perform other care tasks.
It is fascinating how much the pay gap between men and women widen in Germany when children come into play.
While new fathers advance up the career ladder, the careers of young mothers stagnate.
The pandemic as a burning glass
The corona pandemic acts like a burning glass.
She keeps a close eye on undesirable social developments and inequalities and lets them come to light all the more.
Current studies show that mothers carry the brunt of the burden when it comes to shouldering corona-related childcare.
This cemented an inequality that existed long before the pandemic.
Working women spend almost twice as many hours a day on care work as men.
Unpaid, of course.
Interesting too
Icon: Spiegel PlusIcon: Spiegel Plus Gender-appropriate language: Is that * now German? By Felix Bohr, Lisa Duhm, Silke Fokken and Dietmar Pieper
To this day it is the case in many heterosexual partnerships that women in particular juggle children, jobs and care times, while men take on the role of family breadwinners.
The unjust and outdated spouse splitting intensifies this effect.
Many women I know are burned out, tired, always stressed and full of guilt because they can't please anyone.
The solution: a 30-hour week for everyone
There is a solution that would provide relief: the 30-hour week for everyone - regardless of gender or children.
Parents have more time for their children, mothers have less part-time loss of earnings, and everyone has more free time.
Sounds radical?
It is.
But when, if not on Women's Struggle Day, is the time for radical political demands?
Bouquets of flowers do not help against glass ceilings or poverty in old age.
But another policy does.
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