The outgoing Chancellor did not enforce the women’s quota in the CDU during her time as party leader.
(Photo: Reuters)
Now they are complaining again, the few prominent Christian Democrats: that the party needs more women at the top, that older female mentors have to support the younger female politicians. Too late – one would like to call out to them. If they had forced a real quota for women at an early stage, it would not only be men who are reaching for the lead.
The fact that the CDU has too few women in its ranks – and even less influential women – has been concealed for many years. Finally, the party appointed the first female chancellor of the republic, and below her also the first female defense minister and the first female European Commission president.
But it is obvious that the men were just waiting to finally have their turn again. Ambition and the pursuit of power are part of politics; Men do not voluntarily waive proportional representation in favor of women, just as North Rhine-Westphalia does in favor of Lower Saxony. In addition, men are more likely to form coalitions with other men than with women – especially if they have no power.
This also has consequences for women voters: the days when women voted more conservatively than men are long gone. Today they tend to tend towards social and less radical parties – and especially those in which women politicians represent their interests. Most of the CDU matadors in the fight for the few remaining posts do not seem to be interested in this clientele, but assume that they will be able to win more voters again.
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The only means that helps: the quota
Therefore, the only means that will help in the long term – regardless of historical coincidences – to pave the way for enough women is the quota. With a view to the economy, Angela Merkel understood this in the course of her chancellorship: Her initial hope that corporations would also bring more women to the top out of self-interest became the insight that it would not work without coercion.
She did not implement this knowledge in her party when she could. And the theoretically very powerful women’s union has not dared to ask the question of power and demand the quota on the bend and break. Instead, she was put off until 2025, then a quota should be voted on. Now the Christian Democrats have to live with the result. The powerful men will presumably negotiate the reorganization of the former People’s Party among themselves.
More: In the new Dax 40, men are now more dominant at the top of the group than before