Feminism | Coalition plans: Women's policy for the few

One positive thing can be said about Friedrich Merz: While in 1997 he voted against a law intended to protect women from marital rape, the now-elected Chancellor has not yet taken any openly misogynistic measures. From a feminist perspective, little positive can be said about the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and SPD. While there are some positive surprises, the structural discrimination against women and queer people is largely ignored. The government is keen to do little to combat rampant antifeminism.

"The entire coalition agreement is problematic because a feminist perspective is consistently missing," says Janine Wissler, economic policy spokesperson for the Left Party in the Bundestag. "Women only appear when it comes to 'women's issues,' the rest is almost automatically addressed from a male perspective." Thus, the paper is characterized by a bourgeois definition of gender and family that threatens to further deepen inequalities. The focus is on women's economic viability, while their actual rights and realities are barely addressed.

Executive feminism helps only a few

Part of this reality is that women in Germany still earn less on average than men for the same work. The EU Pay Transparency Directive requires better documentation of pay and must be implemented in Germany by June 2026. However, so far, only a quarter of companies have prepared for this. And what is the coalition saying? It plans to first establish a commission to address this. To Wissler, this doesn't seem like "they want to pay much attention to the pay gap ."

According to the coalition agreement, for example, more women should work in leadership positions in the public sector. But leadership feminism only helps a few. The majority of women – such as workers, single parents, migrants, and women with disabilities – lack effective material support. The agreement contains no promising remedy for female poverty. Wissler points to the other side of the coin: The tax breaks to companies announced by SPD leader Lars Klingbeil are "gifts to shareholders; two-thirds of them are male. Over 70 percent of the billions in assets in Germany belong to men," explains the economic expert.

The maximum permissible working hours per day are to be extended, and overtime is to be given tax breaks. Most overtime hours can be attributed to full-time employed men, so there would be even more incentives for their extra work in the future. This means they have even less time to take on family and care responsibilities. "Women, whose overtime hours in part-time employment are much less likely to be recorded and paid, will then be even less able to extend their working hours," notes Wissler. "With this government, many women will remain in the part-time trap."

»Women only appear when it comes to 'women's issues'.«

Janine Wissler, spokesperson for economic policy of the Left Party in the Bundestag

This is also due to the fact that the coalition agreement lacks any convincing ideas for expanding and, above all, financing state-run childcare. On page 14, it states: "We want to help families better manage the daily balancing act between raising children, work, household chores, care, and even recreation. Therefore, we are considering an annual family budget for everyday helpers for families with young children and/or dependents with low and medium incomes."

But domestic helpers are usually women, too. And who is supposed to take care of their household chores, and who is supposed to look after their children? Moreover, they are usually poorly paid. If the coalition government does not make collectively agreed wages a condition here, it will only be promoting relief for a certain group of women, at the cost of further feminizing the low-wage sector.

In general, the coalition wants more people to work more. To "secure skilled workers," it also aims to "increase female labor force participation," for example, in the IT sector. Neither Angela Merkel nor the "traffic light" coalition has achieved this: the share of women in paid employment in this sector increased by just two percent between 2003 and 2023. It does not specify how the new coalition intends to achieve what hasn't worked so far.

The abolition of paragraph 218 is not mentioned

When asked about the coalition agreement, 38-year-old Anna Korsch from the Fantifa Leipzig group said: "I feel powerless in the face of federal policy." Even though the government cites "equality" as a goal, one shouldn't be blinded. The introduction states that high achievers and their families should be supported. "I find that worrying and antisocial," says Anna Korsch, "because we know how outdated the CDU's image of the family is." This is generally limited to cis men and cis women. The topic of bodily autonomy is almost completely absent. The abolition of Paragraph 218, supported by the majority of the population, is not even mentioned.

Korsch is pleasantly surprised that the Self-Determination Act, which, for example, grants equal rights to trans people, is not to be touched according to the paper. But she isn't sure what will happen. The announced "evaluation" worries her: "Because some economic research firm will do that, and who knows what the results will be." Given the current political climate, Korsch worries that these issues could be dismissed as luxury problems. She points to Great Britain: In the debate about public toilets, trans women are framed as perverts or criminals, even though sexualized violence is in reality almost always perpetrated by cis men. "There, the safe space argument is misogynistically reversed." Trans associations are already warning that abolishing the right of self-determination would be illegal.

The anti-fascist criticizes the motto of "governing the AfD away"

The greatest current threat to feminist achievements is the rise of the extreme right. The coalition agreement promises little to no remedy. According to Korsch, it is positive that the federal program "Living Democracy" will be continued, "because it will also support many important projects here in Saxony, for example, for migrant Flinta people" – Flinta is an abbreviation for women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender people. At the same time, the list of safe countries of origin is to be expanded. Feminists fear that whether queer people are persecuted in these countries will play no role.

The CDU/CSU and SPD have also adopted other AfD demands: rejecting asylum seekers at the border, halting the admission program for Afghans, and completely suspending family reunification for those granted subsidiary protection. All of this harms women – especially those who are already largely disenfranchised.

The Leipzig anti-fascist therefore sharply criticizes the CDU/CSU and SPD's motto of "governing the AfD out of the way" by implementing the AfD's demands. "Politicians who think this way still haven't understood what's really going on among the population. Voters won't stop voting for the AfD, especially here: They're consistent Nazis."

Along with ethnic racism, misogyny is a core element of right-wing ideology. In places where the extreme right is strong, feminist projects are already being attacked, be it CSD (Christopher Street Day) parades or festivals like the one in Grünau two years ago. There, a man stormed the stage, knocked the artist to the ground, and beat her. According to the perpetrator's statement, lyrics by the queer-feminist rapper motivated him to commit the attack, according to a chronicle from Support , an organization for victims of right-wing violence. Such anti-feminist violence will continue to increase with the rise of the extreme right, and the coalition agreement fails to mention any effective countermeasures.

Less help for people in the Global South

Another issue, where the traffic light coalition was largely unsuccessful, is of no interest to the CDU/CSU and SPD: feminist foreign and development policy is missing from the coalition agreement. Lea Reisner, representing The Left in the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee, criticizes, for example, the planned reduction in the ODA quota, which indicates the share of official development assistance in gross national income. This will result in aid being cut precisely where it is needed most: for women and children in the Global South affected by hunger, violence, and climate disasters. Reisner calls this a "fatal signal" in an interview with "nd.DieWoche." Cuts in development cooperation are particularly to be rejected at this time because countries like the USA are withdrawing as donors.

"At first glance, a strong German foreign policy appears genderless, but it actually harms Flinta," says Reisner. Because that means an industry-friendly arms export policy. Reisner opposes the use of sexualized war crimes as a pretext for arms exports. Arms exports are, if at all, only acceptable if they are consistent with women's and human rights—that is, if they are aimed at conflict prevention.

With a bitter tone in her voice, the MP noted that the international convention against violence against women, the so-called Istanbul Convention, is mentioned in the same breath as—and only after—the care of war graves. This underscores the low priority the federal government gives to protecting women from violence.

Anna Korsch from Leipzig is almost pleasantly surprised that the coalition agreement even includes measures to protect against violence. However, like many feminists, she is skeptical about electronic ankle bracelets for violent offenders. Experience in other countries suggests that these could be of some use, but they are often only used in the most serious cases; they cannot replace prevention. Experts also fear that, in a racist climate like the current one, ankle bracelets could be used primarily against non-white men. The federal government has not planned permanent, sufficient, and nationwide funding for counseling centers and women's shelters. These facilities often suffer from unclear funding and tight budgets. In Saxony, for example, the first employees have already had to be laid off.

"For feminists, it's now about hibernation," Korsch concludes. The wind blowing from Berlin threatens to paralyze activism. Yet the movement certainly has potential, she says, pointing to the persistent fight to repeal Paragraph 218. In light of the global rollback, Reisner emphasizes the importance of international solidarity, especially under Flinta. Wissler sees it similarly: "More feminism can and must come from society, and for that to happen, there must be a mobilization of women, especially women in the workplace."