Women in Science in Germany

Abstract

ArgumentScience is more sex-segregated in Germany than in other European countries or in the United States. Female students and faculty were admitted to German universities 30 to 50 years after they were admitted to universities elsewhere. This article analyzes why this was so. First, since the nineteenth century, science has enjoyed great prestige in Germany: German higher education was systematized at that time and has since then been run by the government. In addition, the early professionalization of science in Germany put in place demands for high levels of qualification and research, which made academic careers in science attractive to Germany’s social elites. Germany lacked a strong feminist movement. For many years women were excluded from the academic labor market. Even after women were admitted to universities, female representation in faculty positions was sporadic. Exclusionary strategies, often demanded by male academics, were implemented throughout the interwar years, culminating in the anti-feminist policies of the Nazi regime, and the expulsion and persecution of “non-Aryans.” After World War II this legacy of a conservative, often anti-feminist, faculty persisted. As a result, academic careers opened to women only after the tremendous expansion of universities in the 1970s. New feminist movements have finally motivated the government to introduce programs in the 1990s aimed at greater sexual equality.