It was her last appearance at the summer press conference in front of the capital city press. Angela Merkel also commented on the suitability of women in management positions – and made a remarkable admission.
Shortly before the end of her 16-year term in office, Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) pointed out the particular suitability of women for leadership positions. “There is a tendency for women to long for efficiency,” said Merkel on Thursday at her summer press conference in Berlin. The Chancellor also admitted that she had long underestimated the resistance in the economy to the rise of women in management positions – this realization then triggered a political learning process in her.
“In 1990, when she went into politics, I imagined everything to be simpler, I have to say quite honestly,” admitted the Chancellor. At first she was a proponent of a voluntary commitment to accept women in top management – and then had to recognize that a large number of companies “completely unmoved” replied: “We have zero percent women in management positions, and that will be the case stay like that.”
Merkel supports minimum quotas for women in management positions
These experiences made her a supporter of mandatory minimum quotas for women in management positions, said Merkel. You had to realize that “pretty little works on its own” on this subject. The argument of opponents of the quota, according to which there is a lack of suitable women, she believes to be advanced: “Of course women are there and of course it works.”
Merkel sees progress in equality in society – for example in the large number of fathers who claim parental allowance to take time out to look after children. “The ‘winding volunteer service’ has become a highly accepted thing that many families enjoy, and so do many young fathers,” said the Chancellor. “It’s wonderful to see how things naturally change a little among the young families.”
As Chancellor, she “thought a lot about the fact that the advancement of women without changing male behavior patterns is inconceivable, especially when it comes to the division of tasks into family and work,” said Merkel. “Otherwise the women will be completely overwhelmed.”
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