The Equal Opportunities Officer provides information:

Reading - Ellen Händler and Uta Mitsching-Viertel: "Unerhörte Ostfrauen"

Unheard of - and yet formative: these are the East German women who have their say in this book. Back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, they successfully reconciled work and family life, rocked the baby and stood their ground at work. Unlike their counterparts in the West, they benefited from women's policy measures such as nationwide childcare, educational support or the household day - and with the fall of communism, it seemed to some as if they had fallen back into the Middle Ages in terms of equal rights. The women interviewed defend their experiences in East and West in an authentic, emotional and defiant manner. With disarming candour, they take stock of their personal lives, report on the lack of recognition and prejudices they encountered in the
prejudices they encountered in the West, about their new beginnings after reunification and about their head start
and the head start they brought to the West in terms of balancing work and family life.
The authors promise readers an interesting, exciting and entertaining read with a pinch of humour.
"A remarkable collection, a book that I wish many readers."
(Prof Dr Rita Süssmuth, former President of the Bundestag)

"The women portrayed by Uta Mitsching-Viertel and Ellen Händler convey an extremely multi-layered picture of their wishes, hopes and life experiences. It becomes very clear that women's biographies in the GDR were by no means uniform, and neither were their lives after reunification.
just as little. Nevertheless, anyone looking for similarities will easily find them: Regardless of whether East German women worked as civil engineers, cooks, gynaecologists or hairdressers, the high esteem for a qualified and meaningful career and extensive financial independence run through their stories, as do the many adversities they faced in managing family life.
in coping with family life in an everyday life largely characterised by a lack of provisions.
characterised by everyday life."
(Prof. em. Dr Uta Meier-Gräwe, Justus Liebig University Giessen)

Reading on 24 October 2019, 7.30 pm at the Radebeul Kultur-Bahnhof, Sidonienstraße 1c
Admission: €4.00, tickets available at the box office

The event is a collaboration between the equal opportunities officer from the district of
Meißen, Sylvia Wolf, and the Equal Opportunities Officer of Radebeul & Coswig, Katja Kulisch, to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall 30 years ago.

Katja Kulisch, Equal Opportunities Officer
Radebeul/Coswig town councils
Telephone: 0351 8311807