Dismantling the “Teutonic Mother Cult”
Hey guys! My name is Rachel Achs and I’m a new member of the Rhodes Project staff. I’ll be introducing myself soon, but I wanted to start off by posting this article:
On October 3, the New York Times reported that Deutsche Telekom is having trouble meeting its newly introduced gender quota. This comes after an announcement in March that the company—the third-largest in Germany—plans to raise the percentage of management positions held by women from 12 to 30 percent by 2015. Deutsche Telekom is the first big company to respond to pressure from the German government, which has indicated that if the number of women in board rooms does not increase, it might enact quotas similar to those in other European countries, particularly Norway—which has mandated that at least 40 percent of board seats in public corporations go to women.
Deutsche Telekom’s efforts to meet its quota have included increased recruitment of female university graduates and women with management experience from outside the telecommunications industry, as well as increased opportunities for parental leave and part-time work. But despite the addition of two women to the company’s Executive Committee, the number of senior executives in its German operations is still only 13 percent.
The Times takes many stabs at answering the question of why Deutsche Telekom seems to be struggling to meet its goal: from a dearth of female candidates for internal promotion, to a reluctance of senior employees—male or female—to shift to part-time work schedules, thereby provoking a cultural shift that might make senior level positions more family-friendly career prospects. However, the difficulty is more acute in Germany than in other countries where the company operates. About halfway through its report, the Times suggests that German culture and national character may be the real root of Deutsche Telekom’s problem:
After kindergarten, half-day schools remain the norm, and only 14 percent of German mothers with one child resume full-time work. Once they are mothers, many women find careers scuttled by an infrastructure that perpetuates a Teutonic “mother cult” that was taken to an extreme in the Third Reich but that Germany has not fully shed.
This made me raise an eyebrow.
It’s not that I don’t know what the NYT is referring to—the celebration of German families and motherhood was part of the Nazi Party’s extremely racist platform on the perpetuation of bloodlines. Apparently, we are to understand that a big component of the work-life problem in Germany is a remnant of the Third Reich’s volk ideology, which has infiltrated the German societal system enough to keep men and women convinced that a mother’s primary place is in the home, looking after her (blonde, lederhosened) children. But I feel like the Times owes its readers more explanation of this cartoonish phrase, held out as the fascist cherry atop Germany’s particular brand of the patriarchy. (Incidentally, I also feel that “Teutonic Mothercult” would be an extremely excellent name for a heavy metal band.) When I read this article, my reaction was not “Oh, right, the Teutonic mother cult—I totally know what you are talking about and have heard that phrase used lots of times,” but rather, “Why didn’t the editors include a citation to a work of scholarship here?” A short investigation reveals the reason that they didn’t: the Times actually invented this terminology only a few months ago. There are 44 hits for “Teutonic mother cult” on Google, all of which link back to the NYT, which first coined the phrase in an article about German parenting this August. Here, the Times reports that the percentage of German mothers who work full time lags far behind European counterparts. The government structures that support this difference, says the Times, citing half-day school programs and a taxation system that rewards unequal pay within families, is a remnant of a “Teutonic Mother Cult infamously celebrated by the Nazis.” More modern members of the cult, the story observes, express disapproval of mothers who opt for nannies or day-care, rather than remaining by their children’s sides.
It is amusing that the Times, perhaps riding on the coattails of “Tiger Mother’s” success at earning meme-status, seems to have invented a catchy phrase for another culture’s women-and-families issue (which—like “Tiger Mom”—will undoubtedly help steer those of us wishing to discuss women’s issues towards reducing truth to stereotype). But jokes aside, the newspaper’s observations about the problems with which German women, in particular, seem to be confronted, are interesting. Achieving a successful balance between work and family life is a universal struggle, but the Times’ research on German women demonstrates that the degree to which this struggle is, in particular, a women’s issue is determined socio-culturally rather than biologically. That is, if German women, in particular, feel pressure to bow out of the professional sphere because of a centuries-spanning cultural phenomenon (De Teutonic Materkult), this means culture rather than biology is the culprit—and that the ways women view work and family can be changed over time. The current variation in views from nation to nation also suggests that the methods by which we might remedy these views where they are hindering progress towards gender equality would do well to vary. Getting women into the board room is a different problem in Germany then it is in England, but neither problem will be successfully solved unless the means we use to achieve solutions are aware of the particularities of each culture in which we are operating.
I hope Deustche Telekom is able to overcome its difficulties and meet its quota. I suspect its ultimate test will lie in tailoring its message so that it is communicated within, rather than around, the German cultural vernacular. The company cannot simply impose a European mandate on women with “Teutonic” ideals. Instead, it is going to have to come up with a German solution to a German problem. Luckily, the best people for this task (German people) are assigned to it. It is heartening to know that the company has succeeded in significantly raising the number of women in entry-level positions (which will increase its pool of viable candidates for promotion later), and that it is encouraging male as well as female executives to make use of flexible work schedules in order to balance family and work life. If the company does succeed in meeting its quota, a valuable lesson will be learned, not just from its introduction of progressive and female-friendly career opportunities, but from whatever adaptive and creative means it uses encourage Germany, in particular, to dismantle its “mother cult.”
—Rachel
