The Role of East German Women through the Lens of film

This thesis examines the contradictions between state gender ideology and the lived experiences of women in the German democratic Republic (GDR) through analysis of East German films produced during the 1970s. The GDR claimed to have resolved the question of women's equality via employment of women, state sponsored childcare and legal equality. These measures enabled the GDR to portray itself as progressive in comparison to western societies, especially the Federal Republic of Germany. However the everyday experiences of women demonstrate a much complexer reality. While socialist policies did integrate women into the workforce and expanded their participation in public life it did not eliminate embedded expectations around domestic labor and emotional responsibility alongside social norms that surrounded motherhood and femininity which continued to shape the daily lives of women and created tension between ideological claims of equality and the actual lived realities of women. Building upon existing scholarship this project explores the paradox that defined gender relations in the GDR. The state's attempt to create emancipation through labor produced a "double burden", where women were expected to fulfil productive and reproductive roles. Instead of removing gender inequality socialist policy tended to redistribute it by reinforcing traditional gender expectations while economic participation for women expanded. To scrutinize these tensions this thesis uses films produced by DEFA (Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft) the state run film studio. Through close analysis of three films: Der Dritte (1972), Die Legende von Paul und Paula (1973) and Alle Meine Mädchen (1979). This work argues that DEFA cinema exposes contradictions of socialist gender ideology by featuring women who engage in acts of everyday self assertion or Eigensinn within these constrained systems. Instead of displaying overt resistance these films show forms of agency through romantic desire, emotional expression, and solidarity among women. By considering film a cultural medium that reflects and shapes ideological conversations this thesis demonstrates how DEFA cinema preserved nuanced representations of women's experiences in the GDR. It argues that these films function as a cultural archive of these contradictions of socialist gender policy and offers insight into how women negotiated the space between the promise of equality and their realities of life under socialism.