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In Affluent Germany, Women Still Confront Traditional Bias
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In eastern Germany, which was a communist state until 1990, women were encouraged to work and an extensive child-care network helped them. Today, in the united country, working parents complain that child-care centers are scarce in the west and far more common in the east.
The derogatory words "raven mother" are heard mostly in western Germany. The term means one who abandons her young in the nest to go off and pursue a career. "It's a really ugly term. People say this about you behind your back," said Miriam Holzapfel, 33, a university graduate and mother of two in Hamburg who lost her job after she had a baby. "My friends in the east don't have this kind of social pressure."
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Jonik lives in a one-bedroom apartment in a working-class section of Hamburg, a rainy city on the North Sea where container ships and trucks line the harbor. She shares the home with her husband of 36 years, Wolfgang, a gardener who is out of work.
A small cat prowls the compact apartment, which is decorated with a collection of ceramic kittens. Colorful flowers and plants adorn a tiny balcony over a pleasant street south of the Elbe River.
Jonik left school at 16, trained to work in the restaurant business, then moved to Hamburg, looking for a job.
She chose not to have children. She had bills to pay, she said, and in her younger days it was even harder to hold a job and raise children. But with 1 p.m. school dismissals still the routine even for older children in Germany, she said, she continues to feel for working moms.
Over the years, Jonik said, an occasional stolen peek at a man's paycheck seemed to confirm suspicions women were not earning as much. But she became certain only last year, when employees formed a workers council, which was legally entitled to see all salaries.
"It was by no means fair," Jonik said, reading glasses hanging around her neck. "What less pay means is that you are of less value."
Klaus Ihns, 62, a thoughtful, bespectacled, warehouse man who heads the workers council, said he immediately spotted the problem. "Soon as I looked down the list, alarms went off," he said.
Speaking on a drizzly day near the company's busy loading docks -- where 18-wheelers arrive with car parts, toys and tea -- Ihns said many women, included Jonik, were classified as office workers even though they were doing manual work, which normally commands higher pay.
When he told the company, he said, nothing changed, so the council sued to get raises the women deserved. "They were doing absolutely the same work as men," he said.
