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No. Basic needs like food, clothing etc. were fully covered. Any kind of electronics (e.g. a color TV) were hard to acquire. You had to wait 10 years to be able

No. Basic needs like food, clothing etc. were fully covered. Any kind of electronics (e.g. a color TV) were hard to acquire. You had to wait 10 years to be able to buy a new car. And housing was a big problem. Women in the GDR typically became pregnant at a very young age (18-21) because a family with a child had the right to get its own apartment.

severino 8y ago
Well, here in the west you also had the right to get your own apartment at that age. You only didn't have the bucks ;-)
jlg23 8y ago
> Women in the GDR typically became pregnant at a very young age (18-21) because a family with a child had the right to get its own apartment. This is one way to look at it. The other way: free, guaranteed child care (probably mandatory for most as well) for every kid just a few months old. You could easily have a kid and study or work - that was the norm, not the exception. Disclaimer: I'm the kid of a woman who got her PhD in medicine in east Germany. "Feminism" was a concept I only learned about when the wall fell. In the east, as far as I can see, it was a woman's duty to be productive for society, not about a "right to work while raising kids".
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Not sure how that came about.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Not sure how that came about. The liberation of women of all social classes in capitalism from the subservient role as an “instrument of production” in “bourgeois marriage” and/or coerced into a system of “prostitution both public and private” was called out as a natural consequence of Communism in the Communist Manifesto. So, it's quite easy to see why it would be something Communist states would want to demonstrate success at, and when the State directs work, it's not hard to control relative penetration in the workforce to suit the goals of the leadership.
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      Not only that, but feminist Marxism had already taken off by that point, and it's been a present (albeit relatively quiet) topic of discussion ever since Engels. I'm honestly surprised people (especially on HN) don't know about the ideological roots of the liberation of women in Marxism (or Communism generally). Liberation is a fundamental principle; the comment you're replying to makes it seem as though women in the workforce is antithetical to Communism, or something.
  - AnarchoYeasty 8y ago
    Feminism has been a crucial part of Communist ideology for just about ever. In America at the time of the revolution, some of the most influential communist leaders and thinkers were women. Our ideology is one of eliminating barriers that separate people, and that includes gender, sexual orientation, national identity, race, and economic status. Where Liberalism was the ideology of Capital, Socialism was about people.
  - bildung 8y ago
    > In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Equal rights were implemented by law since inception of East Germany in 1949. In West Germany, the husband could legally forbid his wife to work until 1977(!). Being gay was also legalized earlier than in West Germany.
    - stormking 8y ago
      > In West Germany, the husband could legally forbid his wife to work until 1977(!). That's a feminist myth. He could only cancel her contract and only if he could prove in a court of law that she abandoned her "home duties". It is also not known how often this law was actually enforced in reality, if at all. The other way around, husbands were legally required to provide for their family, that was their duty. So while I think that it's wrong to have fixed gender roles enforced by the state, please stop pretending that this was a one-way-street.
      - bildung 8y ago
        My source was Wikipedia. In either case it was a West German peculiarity and unheard of in East Germany.
rmetzler 8y ago
As far as I know - I was 9 years old when the wall fell - you had the right to get your own apartment as soon as you were married. Probably there was some kind of waiting list and several factors would determine were on that list you were.
- dfox 8y ago
  One should probably qualify for western audience that it was not a right to get appartment that you then owned but a right to rent an appartment which was typically owned by (and the rent was heavily subsidized by) your employer.
bildung 8y ago
To add to that: basic needs were also either free or heavily subsidized. Child care was completely free even for the smallest ones, free food in child care and school. Clothing for children was cheap, as were books etc. for kids. Apartments were subsidized (renting a modern apartment did cost less than 10% of montly income etc.). Health care was completely free, everything, including dentists etc. OTOH "luxuries" like color TV, computers etc. were pretty expensive. Despite ethics (equal rights of men and women was a big reason) one factor was macro economic ties to Russia; East Germany (as other countries) had to produce stuff for exporting into Russia, partly without the agreed-upon imports in return. Over time this created major imbalances and thus the need to import from Western Europe, which in turn meant a high need for foreign currency. To obtain foreign currency, domestic production had to be exported in higher amounts than anticipated, thus less output was there for local consumption and investments.

severino 8y ago

Well, here in the west you also had the right to get your own apartment at that age. You only didn't have the bucks ;-)

jlg23 8y ago

> Women in the GDR typically became pregnant at a very young age (18-21) because a family with a child had the right to get its own apartment. This is one way to look at it. The other way: free, guaranteed child care (probably mandatory for most as well) for every kid just a few months old. You could easily have a kid and study or work - that was the norm, not the exception. Disclaimer: I'm the kid of a woman who got her PhD in medicine in east Germany. "Feminism" was a concept I only learned about when the wall fell. In the east, as far as I can see, it was a woman's duty to be productive for society, not about a "right to work while raising kids".

maxxxxx 8y ago
In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Not sure how that came about.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Not sure how that came about. The liberation of women of all social classes in capitalism from the subservient role as an “instrument of production” in “bourgeois marriage” and/or coerced into a system of “prostitution both public and private” was called out as a natural consequence of Communism in the Communist Manifesto. So, it's quite easy to see why it would be something Communist states would want to demonstrate success at, and when the State directs work, it's not hard to control relative penetration in the workforce to suit the goals of the leadership.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    Not only that, but feminist Marxism had already taken off by that point, and it's been a present (albeit relatively quiet) topic of discussion ever since Engels. I'm honestly surprised people (especially on HN) don't know about the ideological roots of the liberation of women in Marxism (or Communism generally). Liberation is a fundamental principle; the comment you're replying to makes it seem as though women in the workforce is antithetical to Communism, or something.
- AnarchoYeasty 8y ago
  Feminism has been a crucial part of Communist ideology for just about ever. In America at the time of the revolution, some of the most influential communist leaders and thinkers were women. Our ideology is one of eliminating barriers that separate people, and that includes gender, sexual orientation, national identity, race, and economic status. Where Liberalism was the ideology of Capital, Socialism was about people.
- bildung 8y ago
  > In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Equal rights were implemented by law since inception of East Germany in 1949. In West Germany, the husband could legally forbid his wife to work until 1977(!). Being gay was also legalized earlier than in West Germany.
  - stormking 8y ago
    > In West Germany, the husband could legally forbid his wife to work until 1977(!). That's a feminist myth. He could only cancel her contract and only if he could prove in a court of law that she abandoned her "home duties". It is also not known how often this law was actually enforced in reality, if at all. The other way around, husbands were legally required to provide for their family, that was their duty. So while I think that it's wrong to have fixed gender roles enforced by the state, please stop pretending that this was a one-way-street.
    - bildung 8y ago
      My source was Wikipedia. In either case it was a West German peculiarity and unheard of in East Germany.

rmetzler 8y ago

As far as I know - I was 9 years old when the wall fell - you had the right to get your own apartment as soon as you were married. Probably there was some kind of waiting list and several factors would determine were on that list you were.

dfox 8y ago
One should probably qualify for western audience that it was not a right to get appartment that you then owned but a right to rent an appartment which was typically owned by (and the rent was heavily subsidized by) your employer.

bildung 8y ago

To add to that: basic needs were also either free or heavily subsidized. Child care was completely free even for the smallest ones, free food in child care and school. Clothing for children was cheap, as were books etc. for kids. Apartments were subsidized (renting a modern apartment did cost less than 10% of montly income etc.). Health care was completely free, everything, including dentists etc. OTOH "luxuries" like color TV, computers etc. were pretty expensive. Despite ethics (equal rights of men and women was a big reason) one factor was macro economic ties to Russia; East Germany (as other countries) had to produce stuff for exporting into Russia, partly without the agreed-upon imports in return. Over time this created major imbalances and thus the need to import from Western Europe, which in turn meant a high need for foreign currency. To obtain foreign currency, domestic production had to be exported in higher amounts than anticipated, thus less output was there for local consumption and investments.