The Promised Land?: Feminist Writing in the German Democratic Republic

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From the 1960s on, women writers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), including Christa Wolf, Irmtraud Morgner, Sarah Kirsch, Brigitte Reimann, Charlotte Worgitzky, Lia Pirskawetz, and Maya Wiens, produced a large, interesting body of writing on women's issues. The Promised Land? is the first book to interrogate the work of these writers as a group for their feminist ideas, ideas that are original, often upbeat, and mostly different from those of the Western feminist movement. In the GDR, a state that existed from 1949 to 1990, women had not only equal rights and good jobs, but also lavish maternity leave and generous childcare benefits designed to make work compatible with motherhood. The ideas presented by the writers discussed here include women as the subject of desire, femininity as a politically progressive model, remaking of the image of woman, and liberating women's speech. By studying these ideas through the lenses of cultural studies, feminist theory, and literary criticism, this book draws comparisons between the situation of women in the GDR and the United States, and between the GDR and Western feminism, and asks whether the GDR really was the "promised land" for women.