Gendered citizenship and women’s relationship to systems of social care: Investigating the GDR’s Frauenparadies (1971-1989)
PhD Project
The PhD investigates the meaning of social care policies and social institutions in creating a specifically gendered citizenship for women in the GDR regime. Building upon Konrad Jarausch’s concept of the ‘welfare dictatorship’, I argue a specifically gendered citizenship for East German women was created by, and experienced through, the social care provision of the Erich Honecker era. I use the term ‘social care’ to describe the collection of reforms related to reproductive health, family and childcare implemented in the late socialist era under Party Chairman, Erich Honecker. The implementation of these reforms was the responsibility of the state women’s organisation, the Democratic Women’s League of Germany (DFD), therefore, I predominately analysis East German women’s social care provision through the lens of the DFD. The overarching argument is the DFD had a primary role in shaping East German women’s gendered citizenship in its propagation and implementation of the SED’s social care provision both domestically and internationally.
During her stay at the ZZF Anna McEwan researches in Dep. I: Communism and Society.
