The Reluctant Feminist: Angela Merkel and the Modernization of Gender Politics in Germany

Academic studies regarding the impact of various forms of gender representation focus largely on quantitative evidence that women in power can make a difference, downplaying qualitative case studies that can establish causal links between women's participation in government and better policies for women. Analyzing policy changes initiated by Germany’s first female Chancellor since 2005, the paper argues that despite her CDU-affiliation, Angela Merkel has contributed more to gender equality in Germany than all previous chancellors, even though she refuses to label herself a feminist. The author explores three factors shaping Merkel's reluctance to embrace the (western dominated) feminist label, e.g., her socialization under a diametrically opposed GDR gender regime, her preference for data-driven policy learning, her aversion towards “ideological” framing, coupled with a tendency to pursue mixed motives, respectively. The paper concludes with recent examples geared towards leveling the global gender playing-field, attesting to her willingness to embrace transformational representation.

The adoption of female suffrage across multiple western nations in the early 1900s was accompanied by the expectation that women's ability to vote would eventually lead to their direct involvement in governance.It was further assumed that by boosting more of their own kind into positions of power, female suffrage could and would make a significant difference in the laws and policies being adopted, thus allowing women to shape their own lives (cf.Cress in this volume).The last 100 years have unfortunate ly supplied much evidence to the contrary, leading countless scholars to investigate women's irregular paths to power, the institutional barriers they face, the stereotypical role expectations that hinder their progress, and new mechanisms seeking to equalize their participation in politics (in Germany: Davidson-Schmich 2016; Kolinsky 1991;Roll 2005;Scholz 2007;Clemens 2006). 1 These studies, in turn, have led us to theorize about different types of representation in an effort to explain when, where and how more women in politics might generate better, far-reaching policies for women.Female suffrage may be a necessary condition, but it is clearly not a sufficient one in fostering gender equality.The 100th anniversary of women's right to vote in Germany (cf.Abels 2011) provides a unique opportunity to re-assess the metrics scholars use to determine whether the politicians female voters help to elect do, in fact, adopt policies enhancing the balanced participation of women and men in public life (Carless 1998;Geissel 2000).While many comparativists focus on the quantitative dimensions, known as descriptive representation (the number of women in powerful positions), few present direct evidence that female leadership has, or has not (Beckett 2006) induced qualitative reforms, labeled substantive representation.Finding empirical measures for the latter is a lot harder, insofar as many policies can take years simply to produce a level playing field, much less equitable societal outcomes.The ability to introduce gender-sensitive policies moreover depends on a wide array of structural factors, e.g.shifting party coalitions or economic crises, that cannot be held constant in real-world settings.Case studies often provide the best opportunity for establishing causal links between the presence of women in politics and adoption of better policies for women (von Wahl 2011;Wiliarty 2010;Yoder 2011).Based on a much longer study of Germany's first female Chancellor (Mushaben 2017) this brief essay analyzes the extent to which Angela Merkel has used her pow er to advance gender equality since 2005.In other words: Can one woman really make a difference?I argue that despite her Christian-Democratic affiliation, Merkel has indeed done more to foster equality than all previous German chancellors combined, although she refuses to label herself a feminist.Of course, there is no way to prove that her sex alone accounts for major policy changes; curiously, no one ever raises this question in relation to male leaders, sughttps://doi.org/10.3224/feminapolitica.v27i2.07gesting a double standard even on the part of gender scholars.But if we are serious about recognizing intersectionality, we cannot deny that gender is a core variable in most decision-making contexts (Lombardo/Agustin 2011).Re-elected for the fourth time in 2017, Merkel has faced different coalition configurations, complicated by serious personality conflicts among her Cabinet members.Her many years in office nevertheless provide a solid foundation for observing not only changing laws but also medium-term policy outcomes.The fact that this Chancellor may have had "non-feminist" motives for introducing gender-sensitive policies does not detract from the real, everyday improvements engendered by these reforms.I first explore key reasons hindering Merkel's public identification with feminism, which critics erroneously use to downplay her contributions to gender equality.One needs to recall that Merkel spent the first 35 years of her life under an eastern gender regime that differed significantly from the postwar Kinder-Küche-Kirche paradigm shaping West Germany through 1989.Given the long-standing conflicts among different schools of western feminism (liberal, socialist, radical-autonomous, womanist) over the years (Mushaben 1989), she would probably be "damned if she did, damned if she didn't" identify with one type over the other.I then outline legislative changes that can be ascribed to descriptive and substantive representation, respectively.I conclude with a few policies that I attribute to a third category of electoral impact, transformational representation.

Playing the Feminist Card at the Women20 Summit
Anticipating her role as president of the 2017 G-20 summit meeting, Angela Merkel tasked the Deutscher Frauenrat and the Verband Deutscher Unternehmerinnen in 2016 with organizing the Women20 (W20) Dialogue.Established under the Turkish presidency in 2015, the W20 became an official G20 "engagement group," lobbying for the inclusion of female economic empowerment world-wide. 2 The purported high-point in 2017 was a Berlin panel discussion on April 25, titled "Inspiring Women: Scaling up Women's Entrepreneurship."Participants included German Chancellor Merkel, Dutch Queen Máxima, Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, IMF director Christine Lagarde, Bank of America CEO Anne Finucane, "first daughter" Ivanka Trump, Kenian high-tech entrepreneur Juliana Rotich und Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, CEO of Trumpf GmbH.Wirtschaftswoche publisher Miriam Meckel moderated the discussion.Towards the end of the session, moderator Meckel asked the participants whether they considered themselves feminists.Lagarde immediately raised her hand; Trump encouraged the audience to applaud but was jeered when she finally waved hers as well.Merkel's hesitation led Meckel to ask her point-blank, "are you a feminist?"She replied hesitantly: Ehrlich gesagt, ähm, möchte ich (…).Also, die Geschichte des Feminismus ist eine, bei der es gibt Gemeinsamkeiten mit mir, und (...) auch solche wo ich sagen würde, es gibt auch Unterschiede.Und ich möchte mich nicht mit einem Titel schmücken, den ich gar nicht habe (…), denn Alice Schwarzer und so, die haben ganz schwere Kämpfe gekämpft, und jetzt komm' ich und setzte mich auf die Erfolge und sage, "ich bin Feministin.Das ist aber toll (…)."Ich habe keine Angst, wenn Sie finden, dass ich eine bin -dann stimmen Sie ab (...).Aber ich möchte mich nicht mit der Feder schmücken. 3  The clip went more or less viral, without anyone noticing that Leibinger-Kammüller also remained silent.This was not the first time that Merkel had publicly refused to embrace the feminist label, even though the "World's Most Powerful Women" eleven times over has faced a never-ending barrage of sexist tributes, ranging from endless hairdo montages, a Merkel Barbie-Doll, comic books and animated dance-videos, to a Blazer Watch and pants-suit jokes (Mushaben 2017;Schramm 2016).The evening-gown she wore to the Oslo Opera House in 2008 unleashed a wave of offensive cleavagecommentaries, e.g., the UK tabloid headlines, "Merkel's Weapons of Mass Distraction" and "Deutschland boober alles" (Der Spiegel, April 14, 2008).Pundits have called her everything from Kohl's Girl, Joan of Arc, the Iron Maiden, Father-Killer, Angie the Sleeper and the Black Widow Spider, to Maggie Merkel, die Trümmerfrau, Alice in Wunderland, Mrs. Cool, the Alpha-Kanzlerin, the Power-Physicist, Merkiavelli and that all-time French favorite, Madam Non (Mushaben 2017). 4She has graced countless magazine covers drawing on Terminator, Muslim, Nazi, Moth er Teresa and Mutti images.Although most labels seem to downplay her strength as a female leader, their gendered nature suggests just the opposite.Over time the Chancellor has learned that her best defense against sexist onslaughts is to combat them with humor.As Germany's first eastern female chancellor, Merkel's status as a double-outsider forced her to make up and play by her own leadership rules, ironically rendering her the embodiment of the feminist mantra, "the personal is the political."Her unusual socialization experiences have had a cumulative impact on her performance, but one can still discern instances in which one factor prevails over others.Whereas Merkel's east-to-west re-acculturation exerts influence over policy substance, her upbringing as a pastor's daughter in a "godless" state drives a strong commitment to human rights and freedom-of-movement norms.Gender influences, combined with her post-GDR antipathy towards confrontational, ideological positions factor into her leadership style (Eagly/Johannesen-Schmidt 2011;Glaesner 2009).The physicist, meanwhile, is clearly at work in matters of program design and evaluation.My study of Merkel's career trajectory since 1990 leads me to stress three factors shaping her reluctance to embrace the feminist label: a desire to position herself between the antithetical nature of eastern and western gender regimes from 1949 to 1989; her time-tested method of "learning by doing"; and her preference for pragmatic problem-solving over ideological party-principles.

A Tale of Two Feminisms
The Kohl government deliberately relegated "women's issues" to the back burner throughout the unification negotiations, despite impressive feminist mobilization in the east (Ritter 2007).Rather than import foreign workers, GDR leaders had responded to a dramatic postwar labor shortage by opening educational and occupational doors to its own women.More pro-natalist than egalitarian in nature, SED policies helped to reconcile work-and-family obligations for women after 1971, though they did nothing to redefine the gender division of labor (Kolinsky/Nickel 2003;Voth/Kootz 1990).GDR women had benefited from "emancipatory" policies that FRG feminists lacked, i.e., free contraception, legal abortion, generous leave policies, comprehensive childcare and access to non-traditional professions (Bergahn/Fritzsche 1991).Internally divided, western feminists were too busy critiquing patriarchy, and each other, to pursue pragmatic, single-issue coalitions (Mushaben 1989;Young 1999).Defeated in their efforts to secure legal abortion, and frustrated by cultural misunderstandings, both groups returned to their separate niches within a few years, with feelings of betrayal on both sides (Mushaben 1995;Miethe 2014;Rohnstock 1994;Unabhängiger Frauenverband 1990).Given her GDR socialization and her physics career, one can understand Merkel's hesitation to view women's paid employment and state-supported child-care as radically "feminist" demands.Nor she was looking to exchange one "ism" for another, after "35 years in the waiting room of democracy" (Grunenberg 2000).As the leader of united Germany, Merkel could not identify with one feminist school without alienating the other.Ironically, the EU-mandated reconciliation policies which she introduced after 2005 -deliberately blocked by her SPD predecessor -strongly resembled GDR policies eliminated by unification (Lang 2017).A political neophyte in 1990, Merkel's first two Cabinet portfolios covered areas conservatives had always loved to hate: women's rights and environmental protection.Socialized in a system in which over 90% had been working mothers, compared to only 60% among western Baby Boomers (Mushaben 1995;Winkler 1990, 108-113), the eastern physicist was pressured from all sides regarding reproductive rights.Few realized at the time that former Chancellor Kohl had already turned primary responsibility for abortion legislation over to the Justice and Health Ministries (Mushaben 1997).Recovering from a broken leg in 1992, which she characterized as "lucky break," Merkel found time to read about, discuss and grasp the conflicting gender expectations invoked by her appointment, even among CDU/CSU women: "Naturally ... it's not easy for many women in my own caucus who are older than I to accept my approach to women's policies ...Many had plowed through and struggled for 10, 15 years, then German unification came and suddenly I'm sitting in the armchair as the Women's Minister" (quoted in: Koelbl 1999, 52).Her W20 comments mirror her earlier reluctance to claim credit for what other women had achieved; they also reflect her desire to avoid ideological stances, based on her GDR upbringing and her physics-driven preference for data-based policies.

Evidence-based Learning
A second factor shaping Merkel's reluctance to identify as a feminist owes to her proclivity for "learning by doing," known to natural scientists as the trial-and-error approach.As a non-feminist Women's Minister, she initially "wanted nothing to do with quotas" which she saw as "degrading and defamatory."She changed her mind after observing the barriers women faced in her own party, voting for a CDU "quorum" in 1994.Merkel also initially rejected corporate boardroom quotas demanded by Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen in 2011.Forced to clean up the Euro-crisis mess created by unsupervised males dominating global finance, she reversed her position in 2014, accepting mandatory 30% targets after studies demonstrated that "voluntary" quotas had failed to increase women's presence on supervisory boards among major businesses and DAX firms.Studies cited in EU fact-sheets also showed that women's presence on corporate boards tends to increase company earnings (cf.European Commission 2016), a fact that would not have escaped a data-driven Chancellor.Although she refused to play the gender card during her first two election campaigns (Mushaben 2018;Merkle 2015;Scholz 2007), the Chancellor now admits to having been disadvantaged as a female politician (Koelbl 1999;Lau 2009).She perceived the self-serving, tough-guy behavior of western politicians in the Cabinet as "unpleasant."When she tried to outlaw sexual harassment at the workplace and to fill half of all civil service positions with women -as foreseen by the unification treaty -CSU Carl-Dieter Spranger told Merkel, "You know, girl, if I didn't find you so nice, I wouldn't vote for any of this rubbish" (quoted in : Lau 2009, 53).Despite her physics background, she noted that "many thought because I was a woman I didn't know what I was talking about (as Environmental Minister) (...) since I lacked a deep male voice and a big physique" (quoted in: Koelbl 1999, 55-56).In one case, she was pushed to tears over her proposed Ozone Law, but she turned it to her advantage: "They weren't used to me having an emotional outbreak since I didn't shout like the men (...) but it helped.I probably wouldn't have gotten a (Cabinet) majority without it" (quoted in: Koelbl 1999, 54-55).Her gendered learning experiences did not stop there.In 1998, conservative hardliners including Catholic Archbishop Meisner pushed her to marry her partner of seventeen years, Joachim Sauer, prior to becoming CDU General-Secretary.Former pastor Joachim Gauck faced few if any pressures regarding his unsanctified relationship with Daniela Schadt when he became Federal-President.Or consider Merkel's response to Gerhard Schröder, SPD Minister-President of Niedersachsen, who invited her to negotiate over nuclear waste storage, then immediately leaked their discussion.Figuring out the "constants" in male political behavior, she struck back in 1997, finding a way to pass the Nuclear Law without Länder consent.Schröder, she noted, "just can't stand it when a woman, in particular, manages to ruin his game.He's not very good at accepting failure" (quoted in: Koelbl 1999, 58).During the 2005 campaign, he tried to deny her the Chancellorship by using Doris Schröder-Köpf to declare that "a childless female leader" would be incapable of producing good family policies.Never mind the fact that the latter's status as Schröder's fourth wife suggested that he knew even less about stable family relations. 5Merkel's ability to observe first, follow the rules and strike later also served her well in eliminating core male rivals who comprised the so-called Andes Pact.A further example of learning-by-doing stems from Merkel's days as an unloved environmental minister.Although she initially backed the nuclear energy industry, the castor transport scandal (1994)(1995) taught her not to trust its routine safety pronouncements.Given her working knowledge of the industry's minimal insurance coverage (1%) in the event of a German melt-down (Hennicke/Welfens 2012), the former physicist was the only leader beyond Japanese prime minister Naoto Kan who could read the atomic tea leaves after Fukushima.Her decision to shut down of all atomic reactors by 2022 was data-driven but also tied to her recognition of the cost of "human error." Progressive Principles versus Pragmatic Problem-Solving Some feminist critics maintain that their first female Chancellor adopted certain gender-friendly policies largely to advance the electoral fortunes of her own party, but that is exactly what politicians are expected to do in democratic societies.They do not explain why she pursued such policies despite formidable resistance within the CDU/CSU caucus.Throughout the lackluster 2017 election campaign, the threetime Chancellor was singularly blamed not only for the rise of the AfD (due to her strong stance on asylum) but also for her "anti-democratic depoliticization" of many contentious issue debates.This raises the counter-question: Why did the SPD-Green government not adopt reforms that its own voters wanted, in order to shore up that coalition's re-election prospects?While the Greens indirectly welcomed Merkel's take-over of "their" issues (reflected in their willingness to join a Jamaica Coalition), the SPD remains deeply divided over its "stolen" identity after two Grand Coalitions.In fact, Chancellor Schröder personally blocked many of the equality initiatives championed by his female Cabinet members, 1998-2005.In addition to embracing Harz IV reforms which expanded the low-wage, female "precariat," Red-Green legalization of prostitution contributed to documented increases in "wellness-brothels," flat-rate sexploitation and human trafficking (Meyer et al. 2013).That government likewise failed to enact a bona-fide immigration law, much less EU-mandated anti-discrimination and reconciliation policies.Although the Greens count gender equality among their four core pillars, they did not mobilize grassroots support to counter Schröder's (or Schily's) vetoes; it is hard to justify the charge that Merkel stole their issues, given that these allegedly proequality parties had refused to act on their own principles for seven years.By contrast, Merkel's first Grand Coalition finally adopted the Allgemeine Gleichbehandlungsgesetz in 2006 and created a federal office to monitor discrimination.Her 2007 National Integration Plan, added to further migration and asylum reforms through 2013 (Mushaben 2017), included significant "implementation monitoring" mechanisms.Although she voted against the Ehe für Alle act in 2017, the Chancellor (having "done the math"), allowed CDU parliamentarians to vote their conscience, securing a clear majority for that bill.She has pushed the Union as a whole to break with the tradition of "Kinder, Küche, Kirche", going so far as to adopt a liberal trans sex ual-rights law (Davidson-Schmich 2017).She has also accorded "Chefsache" status to programs increasing female and ethnic minority presence in MINT/STEM fields.Though she does not deserve all of the credit, Merkel's leadership style has produced some amazing results, especially in comparison to the Kohl and Schröder legacies.

Revisiting the Metrics of Representation
Concentrating on women's numerical presence, descriptive representation is usually measured in parliamentary terms; it assumes that sex-based stereotypes and malenormed policies will wither away once they women reach critical-mass, roughly 30% (Dahlerup 1988).Women had already crossed that threshold before Merkel became Chancellor, but their share rose slightly from 31.8% ( 2005), to 33.4% ( 2009), then to 37% (2013).After the 2017 elections, their share of seats fell to 30.9%.The parties that rail the loudest against Merkel's policies evince the smallest female delegations, viz. the AfD (10 of 92 seats), the FDP (19 of 80) and the CSU (8 of 47).AfD and FDP gains, along with SPD losses, explain most of the decline (cf.Deutscher Bundestag 2017).Confined to legislative bodies, descriptive-data tell us little about potentially powerful women behind the scenes, raising the question: Has Merkel's staying-power since 2005 chipped away at gender imbalances within the executive branch (Annesley/Gains 2010)?Collectively derided as Girls' Camp, Merkel's inner circle includes savvy female politicians, powerful media moguls as well as discrete, reform-orient ed men.Women comprise nearly 50% of the Federal Chancellor's Office staff, half of whom were under 40 in 2008.The total number of women present in Merkel's first three Cabinets ranged from six to eight; she promised women 50% of the portfolios as of 2017.Ursula von der Leyen's appointment as Germany's first female defense minister in late 2013 is particularly noteworthy, as is Merkel's annual Girls' Day meeting with young women at the Chancellery.Increasing women's numerical strength is ultimately a function of "all things being equal," which they usually aren't, obliging us to consider Merkel polices that level the societal playing field.Substantive representation pertains to women's ability to reshape legislated policies, beyond the presumption that they are "natural" experts in health, education, welfare and family matters.While Merkel avoided gender themes during her first two campaigns, she declared in May 2013 that real equality will only be achieved "when both men and women change their roles and behaviors." 6Over three terms she has expanded paternal leave and child-care guarantees to such an extent that Germany is experiencing its first Baby Boom in decades; the current supply of midwives and care-places lags well behind the demand (Heine 2017).
Obviously, improved leave-and care-options do not constitute a primary reason for producing children, but they can affect the timing of such decisions, along with promotion prospects and pensions for women in paid employment.Of the 19 (out of 450) aides who gave birth during Schröder's last 35 months in office, few returned to work.There were 49 births during Merkel's first 32 months, most of whom resumed their posts under family leave options enacted in 2007 under a childless CDU chief.They included Hildegard Müller, the first State-Secretary to return to this office since 1949.The pool of eligibles for high administrative office has expanded accordingly.The general share of female employment has risen over 10% since 2005, and more women than ever before are living off their own wages across united Germany: from 64% in 2006, up to 72% in 2016 (Destatis 2016, 6ff).While her holistic, data-driven approach may not meet all the formal criteria associat ed with EU gender mainstreaming, Merkel's contributions to equality at home have certainly outpaced those of the Barroso and Juncker Commissions.Many women beyond Germany's borders have experienced less positive outcomes under austerity policies, however, leading us back to the W20/G20 summit.

Words vs. Deeds: Transformational Representation
Transformative representation, as I define it, seeks to establish strategic parameters for future changes, as opposed to responding to women's everyday survival needs.Justified or not, the 400 delegates attending the 2017 W20 summit expected a more pro-active response from a female Chancellor than they had from the Turkish and Chinese prime ministers hosting earlier G20 meetings.During the April 25 th panel discussion, Ivanka Trump declared that her father had "made everything possible" for her.In a gender-equal society, a woman would not need either her father's help or a $50 million trust fund to shape her own life.Nor would a real feminist directly exploit poor female workers in Chinese factories licensed to produce her clothing line (Harwell 2017).Self-proclaimed feminist Christine Lagarde became the first woman to head the IMF, having been appointed in the wake of a major sex scandal involving her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.Although Lagarde has reportedly introduced policies to enhance women's status within her own organization, her IMFausterity policies have had a devastating impact on less privileged women's lives across the Euro-zone (cf.Elomäki 2012; Rubery/Karamessini 2013), suggesting her limited "feminist" grasp of descriptive versus substantive representation.Reluctant to take credit for hard work of earlier movements, the German Chancellor delivered a speech at the gala G20 reception, then accepted the Final Communiqué of the 2017 W20-Dialog Process which, for the first time, has its own section in the larger G20 Final Communiqué.It recommends three specific programs: the #eSkills4Girls initiative, the Women Entrepreneurs Financing Initiative (We-Fi), and the formation of a Women's Business Leaders' task force.The Germany 2017 Implementation Plan moreover includes concrete "dashboards," timetables and indicators, based on a wide array of UN, OECD, ILO, IMF and World Bank statistical reports (see W20 Box).It further calls for W20 access to "mainstream" G20 negotiation tracks and "Sherpa meetings."Women20 Germany 2017 Communiqué (Excerpts) 26th April 2017, Berlin, Germany Putting Gender Equality at the Core of the G20 We, the representatives of the 2017 Women20 (W20) network, are convinced that the G20's goal of inclusive and sustainable economic growth in an interconnected world will not be achieved without the G20's commitment to women's economic empowerment by means of the following targets: (a) full property rights, legal capacity, right to self-determination for women and girls and their effective protection from violence; (b) full access to quality education for girls and women, with special attention on technical and vocational education, e-skills and lifelong learning opportunities; (c) full access on equal terms to productive and financial resources for women; (d) full access to labour markets and decent working conditions for men and women, implementing the G20 Job Quality Framework; (e) equal pay and pension rights for equal and equivalent work; (f) GDP measurement and fair redistribution of unpaid domestic and care work, including more investment in the provision of infrastructure and public services, and; (g) equitable representation of women in decision-making positions with that of men.G20 policies tend to be gender-blind, but they are not automatically gender-neutral in their outcome.Accordingly: 1.The W20 calls on the G20 member states to systematically integrate gender analysis and gender budgeting into all its agenda, growth strategy and policy frameworks (...).
2. The W20 urges the G20 to advance member state policies towards the '25 by 25' target set by G20 for reducing the gender labour participation gap, resulting in a 25 per cent improvement by 2025, by putting forward national plans of actions and monitoring its progress with support from the OECD and the ILO.
3. The W20 recommends that the G20 supports women entrepreneurs and female cooperatives to start up and scale their operations, build capacity, ensure their equal access to finance and markets, and accord them their fair share in global value chains.
4. The W20 calls on the G20 to swiftly bridge the widening digital gender divide and take inspiration from the 'Women's Initiative in Developing STEM Career (WINDS)' by setting up a comprehensive 5-year plan for gender-equal digital transformation, thereby partnering with 'EQUALS', an initiative implemented by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the GSM Association (GSMA) and UN Women.
5. The W20 calls on the G20's Presidencies to ensure access to the G20 negotiation tracks and G20 Sherpa meetings.
Source: http://www.w20-germany.org/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/W20_Communique_Final.pdfGranting women the right to vote, then electing more women to formulate and execute the law of the land, are only the first two steps in a long process Max Weber (1919) once defined as "the slow boring of hard boards."The feminist movement itself has undergone a long learning process, moving first from demands for equal treatment, to positive action, to gender mainstreaming, and then to factoring in diversity and intersectionality (Woodward 2012).Orthodox feminist theories are often at odds with political realities, which necessitate broader issue coalitions, partisan compromises and a heavy dose of pragmatism.Merkel's mixed motives for pursuing equality policies (e.g., in response to Germany's demographic deficit) has allowed her to pull together new stakeholder groups, who increasingly recognize the benefits of integrating women and minorities into the work-force.While corporations may initially view gender-sensitive policies in instrumental terms, these reforms develop a life of their own, leading to other transformations across society -as even GDR leaders had to recognize.I recall many personal discussions with German feminists during the 1970s and 1980s, who regularly insisted on the need for a Gesamtkonzept; the problem then arose as to which school of feminism would be able to impose its comprehensive approach on all of the others.This either/or thinking probably had its roots in the male-normed polarization of the late 1960s.The fall of the Wall re-incited this type of debate between western and eastern feminists, while (mostly western) men immediately set out to claim the best jobs, the biggest Treuhand subsidies and the tops jobs in eastern Länder governments (exception: Manfred Stolpe in Brandenburg).GDR-women were hit with mass unemployment, the loss of legal abortion and the elimination of full-time child-care facilities, while more privileged women argued over whose feminism was best.Having devoted my entire career to pursuing various forms of gender equality, I have come to the following conclusion: There is a proper place for feminist theorizing, conceptual reflection and strategic mobilization, but sometimes single-issue coalitions offer the shortest path to legislative success.The less time we spend worrying about labels, or about who really "qualifies" as a feminist, the more time we have to engage in critical policy analysis, to be shared with women who attain high office, so that they can induce data-driven structural change.My investigation of Merkel's policy performance since 2005 has persuaded me that a woman leader need not openly and regularly declare herself a feminist in order to make a difference.In this case, I concur with another surprising pragmatist from the east, Deng Xiao-ping, who noted in 1979, "it does not matter if the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." Notes 1 All but one of the books written about Angela Merkel auf deutsch to date have been compiled by journalists.The better ones include Heckel (2009), Lau (2009), Kornelius (2013), Müller-Vogg (2005) and Roll (2005). 2 For details, see the official German website, http://www.w20-germany.organd http://g20.org.