On Friday, representatives of the “Initiative #ParitätJetzt” will visit Bundestag President Bärbel Bas with an urgent request. They will hand the Social Democrat the “Manifesto for Parity in German parliaments“, for an equal number of women and men. The recent elections show how urgent this is.
Women have been blatantly underrepresented since the beginning of the Federal Republic. They make up more than 50 percent of the population, but until 1987 they made up less than ten percent of the members of the Bundestag. Only since 1998 has the proportion in parliament been around a third – and it is stagnating.
The situation is even worse in the state parliaments. In Saxony and Thuringia, and now also in Brandenburg, all have a female share of well under 30 percent. In the new legislative period, the number has fallen even further.
The male perspective dominates at all levels of German politics. And this has remained largely unchanged for decades. It seems that no one has read the passage in the Basic Law, which has made a clear demand since 1949: “Men and women have equal rights.”
No way. If it were otherwise, the reality of women’s lives – again, the majority of the population – would have the importance it deserves.
A change at all levels, from bottom to top
The solution has long been clear. It lies in a parity electoral law. What is needed are parliaments, at all levels from bottom to top, in which female and male representatives are equally represented. Only then will there be a chance of both developing and implementing an equal perspective.
The Brandenburg state parliament was already on this path. It had passed the “parity law” in February 2019. In future elections, the parties would be obliged to put forward an equal number of female and male candidates on their state lists, “quota state lists”, alternating between women and men.
A glimmer of hope – until the lawsuits came
Brandenburg would have been the first federal state with a so-called parity law for the state parliament. A glimmer of hope. In July 2019, Thuringia followed suit. But then parties with very low proportions of women complained.
The result: In July 2020, the Thuringian Constitutional Court upheld a lawsuit by the AfD and declared the parity law null and void; in October 2020, Brandenburg’s Constitutional Court overturned the local law following a lawsuit by the AfD, NPD and Pirate Party. Because the laws were essentially incompatible with the principle of freedom and equality of elections and it was contrary to the constitution to require parties to have an equal number of men and women on lists.
Brandenburg does not give up
In Thuringia, the legal representative of the then state government then filed a complaint with the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on behalf of 500 people. However, in January 2022, the court decided not to accept the complaint due to insufficient reasoning. Brandenburg is not giving up, however. A civil society alliance wants to appeal against the decision again at the Federal Constitutional Court.
Whether the highest German judges in Karlsruhe will deal with the cases remains to be seen. But one verdict has already been made: the country needs new feminists.
The “#ParityNow” initiative – supported by trade unions, associations and groups – is not waiting for that. A grand coalition of impatience that has grown even further with the recent elections.
At the head of the initiative comes the almost legendary predecessor Rita Süssmuth to Bärbel Bas – as a signal, even a beacon. Despite her 87 years, Süssmuth, the enlightened, liberal Christian Democrat, still sees herself as a champion of women’s causes. From her perspective, this says a lot about the state of this issue: it has always been a fight. And it is far from over this Friday.
