Negotiating equal rights in everyday life: expectations and experiences of rural women

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article presents insights from research conducted on the importance of socialist agriculture for rural women’s emancipation in the GDR. It is based on ethnographic data collected between 2016 and 2018, including interviews with members of former agricultural production cooperatives and archival research centring on the Oderbruch region (Brandenburg). The author analyses the realities of life and work for women in the socialist village between expectations, opportunities, and realities. The tension between media discourses on the ‘new’ socialist woman, institutional politics, social expectations and village communal practices is drawn out. Within this frame, this texts highlights the numerous ways in which rural women actively designed their relationship to broader transitions in the rural economy, such as the socialist land reform and collectivisation. It narrates how women embraced opportunities and met challenges to realise their own interests. The strategic management of social difference, gender expectations and policy resulted in support for the economic success of cooperative, at least since the 1970s. On the one hand, women's readiness to work in low-paid jobs that offered family compatible working hours and social security was used to improve the financial performance of the cooperative. On the other hand, specific instruments of gender policies were used to improve the economic performance of the cooperative. Women were installed as leading committee members and division managers – against the explicit wish of many male workers. The expertise of young academic females was strategically employed to incite a process of innovation within changing economic policies and demands.