Angela Merkel – Pike & Hurricane

Gendered power relations: the toll of austerity

Merle Emrich — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 19:24:00 +0000

Angela Merkel is not only one of Germany’s longest serving chancellors – next to Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl – but also the country’s first female chancellor and arguably the world’s most powerful woman. And yet, one could say that she is far from being a symbol of female empowerment. Rather than challenging patriarchal structures, she fits into them while power positions and influence remain difficult if not impossible to reach for most other women, and the austerity policies continued or introduced by Merkel’s government are, to a great extent, placed on the shoulders of women, thus counteracting progress in the field of gender equality.

European austerity

The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) warned in a 2012 report that European austerity policies are an infringement on women’s rights and gender equality since they lead to a perpetuation of existing and a creation of new inequalities . In 2017, the then shadow equalities minister Sarah Champion (Labour) presented number showing that, since 2010, 86% of the burden of austerity policies had been placed on women’s shoulders. And while Theresa May claimed the Conservative party to be a stronger advocate for gender equality having produced the country’s only two female prime ministers, Mary-Ann Stephenson (co-director of the Women’s Budget Group) pointed out: “The chancellor’s [Philip Hammond] decision to continue with the decisions of his predecessor to cut social security for these low income families, at the same time as cutting taxes, is effectively a transfer from the purses of poorer women into the wallets of richer men.”

In Germany, austerity measures that prevailed in Europe after the 2008 financial crisis had already been implemented as of 2002. The neo-liberal reforms of the Agenda 2010, introduced by the Social Democrat/ Green party government preceding Merkel’s successive Christian Democrat-led governments that continued these austerity policies, increased the German economy’s resilience and competitiveness allowing Germany to recover quickly from the 2008 crisis. Yet, Oxfam highlights that at this policy approach shifted “the balance of power between capital and labour considerably in favour of capital.” It is a shift that comes at a high social cost, particularly for women and especially for those belonging to minority or marginalised groups.

Economy and human rights

Be it employment, the care and health system or general women’s rights, women are particularly affected by austerity measures. Not only are men’s jobs usually prioritised over women’s employment, but cuts in public sector job lead to women being more affected than men as women constituted by far more than half of public sector employees. Women are thus increasingly pushed into precarious employment situations with very low wages and little or no social security or protection of workers’ rights.

At the same time, women are forced to fill the gaps created by the state in the care and health system by cuts to public spending. As state funded care work decreases, especially in an aging society, care is reprivatized, and traditional gender roles are reinforced. Once occupied with unpaid care work, these women have less time for paid employment, free time activities and political engagement. On top, women’s voices are further marginalised by destroying gender equality institutions in stride with austerity measures that pose a struggle to organisations ranging from advocacy groups to service providers such as organisations supporting survivors of violence.

Yet, while austerity policies are a stumbling block in the way of the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality, as well as creating general economic imbalances within the Eurozone, among others the German government under Merkel’s lead holds on to their aim of a balanced budget. The social consequences of this goal will continue to be a burden that is dumped on women, especially single mothers, young women, women with disabilities, older women, migrant and refugee women, LGBTQI+ women, women belonging to ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, women in rural areas and those who live in poverty or extreme poverty.

“Discriminatory economic policies cannot be justified on the basis of the need to achieve macro-economic target and without regard to the human rights of women and gender equality”, Juan Pablo Boholavsky, and independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, argued in a report to the UN General Assembly. In a 2018 report, the OHCHR recommends a series of measures to improve gender equality. Among others the report called on governments to recognise unpaid care and domestic work as valuable work, invest in public services such as care services to redistribute care and domestic work “not just from women to men but from individuals to families to state-funded provisions”, and to strengthen women’s working rights and social security through targeted policies.

To be continued…

While the number of female leaders is growing, austerity policies – particularly when implemented by one of these female leaders such as German chancellor Merkel – highlight feminist, journalist and author Susan Faludi’s statement: “You can’t change the world for women by simply inserting female faces at the top of an unchanged system of social and economic power.” This is not to say, that no progress is being made – in Germany where reforms were undertaken introducing i.e. paid parental leave for fathers as well as mothers, or elsewhere. However, the gender pay gap, female under-representation in positions in politics as well as in business and austerity policies standing in the way of gender equality continue to be a considerable social issue.

by Merle Emrich

Photo Credits

Hands Fingers, Karl-Heinz Gutmann

Austerity isn’t working, wandererwandering, CC BY 2.0

Stew and Sympathy, Neil Moralee, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Merkel: The Neverending Story

Merle Emrich — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 12:56:42 +0000

On September 18, 2005, Angela Merkel (CDU: Christian Democratic Union) was elected German chancellor for the first time. Now, twelve years later, the German people have declared their trust in her once more despite controversial debates as for example over Merkel’s handling of the refugee crisis which splits the country, and despite critical voices within and outside the CDU calling for change.

But how can we explain Angela Merkel’s success? Is it popularity that keeps Merkel in power? Is it a sheer lack of acceptable alternatives? Or are there subtler underlying reasons that motivated so many to vote for her? And if so, where will we be able to find those reasons?

World Politics

If we look at current world politics we might be able to find reasons for Angela Merkel’s re-election there. Next to leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the German chancellor embodies a vision of stability, moderate policies and security. In the past, she has proved herself a manager of crises: be it the Euro crisis, holding up the dialogue with Russia, or her response to the refugee crisis (even though it has split the party and the people). These crises have strengthened Merkel’s position and her voters seem to believe that she is able to handle the present crises and those that will surely come in the near future. She offers equilibrium at a time of uncertainty.

With Brexit, an increased risk of terrorism and the conflict between the United States and North Korea, we live in times of instability and insecurity. Therefore many people prefer not to take any risks or to make ‘experiments’ on the national level by voting for change in government. They rather stick to what (or whom) they already know and consider to be at least acceptable.

Merkel and Schulz

The line between the CDU and the SPD (Social Democrats) is blurred. And the SPD having been the Christian Democrats’ junior partner during the last legislative period did not help either. Because SPD has been a part of the coalition government with CDU and directly involved in active decision-making processes for the last four years, they have difficulties criticising the CDU without criticising themselves. Therefore, it seems that the Social Democrats are not different enough from the Christian Democrats. Martin Schulz, who had been the President of the European Parliament for five years (2012-2017) and then became the SPD’s chancellor candidate in this year’s election, does not seem to differ much from Angela Merkel. Thus the election campaign does not polarise the people, and so the people keep voting for the CDU.

Refugees and security have been important topics during the election campaign, especially in the media and there is very little distinction in the Social Democrats’ and the Christian Democrats’ policy regarding those issues: both warn of a repetition of the 2015 refugee crisis, both want to strengthen the police force and plan of having more surveillance cameras in public places.

But not only have the two parties moved closer together politically, already during the 2013 election campaign the CDU had left the SPD standing without one of their goals – the minimum wage – by taking on the topic themselves. This year then Merkel managed to escape the pressure the CDU had been put under by the SPD and the opposition through making a vote on same-sex marriage possible in parliament before the election.

Coalition and Consensus

Angela Merkel’s strategy of using other parties’ political agenda to gain the support of the people is perhaps her greatest asset against the other parties.

And it was not only the minimum wage and same-sex marriage. When, after the catastrophe of Fukushima, she made a U-turn in the party’s energy policy by turning away from nuclear energy and promoting renewable energies, the chancellor left the Green Party without a cause and we saw them plummet in the polls.

Merkel appears to take the majority as her guideline. She lets other politicians lead the debates and then steps in when an opinion has formed among the people and there already is a rough consensus. She absorbs different positions in order to embody this consensus, and thus makes opposition highly difficult and forms a coalition – which is inevitable – with almost every other party possible.

In addition, she promises nothing that she cannot keep, or as the German news satire show “Heute show” put it: “We promise nothing. But that we keep.” Merkel does not offer a vision of the future but her voters know that the future is far too unpredictable to predict, anyway.

Angela Merkel and the CDU After the Elections

Now, after the election, the development of German politics and Merkel’s career as chancellor will certainly be interesting. Shortly after the results of the election had come in the SPD declared that they would be part of the opposition for the next four years which could have three possible results. Should the CDU/CSU not be able to form a coalition with another party there might be new elections which would likely lead to the Christian Democrats losing more votes and parties such as Die Linke (“The Left”), but also the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD, “Alternative for Germany”) gaining votes. Yet, this outcome is very unlikely. The other option would be a minority government. This, too, would be far from profiting Angela Merkel and the CDU since they would have to govern without a majority of seats in parliament.

The most likely outcome is a coalition of CDU/CSU, FDP (Free Democrats) and the Green Party. While this would provide a working government, it would still not be easy since the parties’ policies concerning certain issue areas such as pension and environment differ from one another in various points, even within the CDU and CSU (the CDU’s Bavarian sister party).

Never Ending Story?

But whatever the outcome of the coalition negotiations will be, fact is that Angela Merkel has been elected for the fourth time in a row. It is likely to be due partly to her adopting other parties’ aims and leaving them without that part of their agenda that sets them apart from the CDU.

Another cause is, to a certain extent, a great part of the German people feeling that security, stability, continuity and a certain degree of predictability are needed at the moment. Especially in comparison with other powerful leaders such as Trump, Putin and Erdogan, Merkel seems to embody those values and appears to many as the best candidate to manage our crises – present or future.

But as the German psychologist Stephan Grünewald pointed out: the standstill agreement of “I make sure that you’ll be fine, but please no questions” won’t work forever. And the seemingly never ending story of Chancellor Merkel might come to an end as abrupt as the era of Kohl who had been chancellor for 16 years until the general election in 1998.

Now, she has four years time to prove Grünewald wrong, to be the competent crisis manager the people describe her as, and to maintain “a Germany in which we live well”.

By Merle Emrich

Photo Credit:

Angela Merkel, James Rea, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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