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CHAPTER 4 East German Women Going West: Family, Children, and Partners in Life-Experience Literature ——————————————————————————————————— Christine Farhan Introduction “East German women are the losers of German unification” was a common slogan during the 1990s. This motto “conceals the fact that enormous and growing social differentiation exists among East German women” (Bütow, 1997; Dölling, 1998, p. 185). The idea behind the slogan was questioned by many publications, both scholarly and popular, that revealed that East German women showed strength in other ways. Using “a ‘quiet’ and individualized form of resistance, they retain with their ‘own ideas’ (Eigensinn ), certain orientations of action and values against the constraints or pressures of the adopted West German structures which affect their everyday life” (Dölling, 1998, p. 187). This chapter is interested in what memories were activated for self-representations that opposed the victims’ discourse and presented different concepts of agency (compare the chapter by Asztalos Morell in this volume ). Of concern is how former GDR (East German) family norms are handled and reacted to in this context. These include the role model of “working motherhood” (Kolinsky and Nickel, 2003, p. 20),1 the rejected role model of the housewife, the officially declared accomplishment of gender equality, and the affirmative collective “we” against a pejorative “me.” The analysis is based on four books2 containing former GDR women’s life stories published during the transition period from 1990 to 2004. I approach these texts as literature, asking how authentic information—in this case interviews—is turned into stories that arrange memories and opinions to represent strength and agency in a certain discursive context. The texts are not based on scientific surveys3 but are written for a broad audience of readers expecting both knowledge and entertainment. The books take quite different approaches to their subject. Often the editors’ selection of women is coincidental and not motivated by concern for intersectional aspects such as generation, social-educational background, and place of residence, when such information is given at all. Certain social groups, such as women from the countryside and women with less education, are neg- lected. On the other hand, some groups, such as well-educated, middleaged women often living in big cities and most often in Berlin, are highlighted. Some editors do not even account for their choice of interviewees ; others do and are more eager to present a good mixture of ordinary and extraordinary biographies. Summing up the specifics of these texts, I would locate them somewhere between autobiography and sociological studies, between subjectivity and generalizations, between literature and non-fiction.4 They reflect the enormous interest in the former GDR in the 1990s. Furthermore, during historical turning points, pure fiction often does not fully satisfy readers’ needs. Claims for authentic narratives grow stronger , and literature is more easily exploited for political goals and agitation. Culture is used as a means of political combat. The promise of authenticity , genuineness, and objectiveness becomes more important and generates elements of excitement and entertainment. The subtitle of one book expresses that clearly: “Women Tell Real Life Stories”(Frauen erzählen aus dem richtigen Leben) (Rellin, 2004). Real life obviously has a great deal of aesthetic attraction to readers and evokes certain expectations. Furthermore, the literary genre of life-experience literature had a certain historical context in the GDR. In the 1970s, when Maxie Wander published Guten Morgen, du Schöne (Good Morning, Beautiful) about women ’s everyday life in the GDR, her book was classified as rebellious (Mudry, 1991, p. 28) because it focused on the private sphere, an area that was not supposed to be a matter of public discourse in socialist society. In this respect Wander did not hew to socialist realism, the official theory of literature in the GDR, which focused on typical features in the construction of working-class heroes. The texts analyzed in the present chapter have rebellious elements too, not so much in relation to the old system as in opposition to the negative consequences of the transition into a Western society. For a short time after the fall of the Wall, some GDR women fervently attempted to build a movement for women’s liberation (Kahlau, 1990). But these efforts did not last long, and when they failed, writing life stories of various kinds became a kind of continuation of the feminist project by other means. By documenting their memories, these women enhanced female versions of truths in order to empower and to...

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