Women warned of price of success

Press, 17 May 1984, Page 6

Women warned of price of success

NZPA Canberra Women have to be two or three times as good and pay a price three times as high as men if they want to succeed in a male-domin-ated world, says the former leader of the West German Green Party, Ms Petra Kelly. Speaking at a women’s studies symposium, in Cpu-

berra, Ms Kelly, a member of the Bundestag, or Parliament, said she and other women in similar positions expended a great deal of emotional and spiritual energy in the climb to the top, but that sacrifice had to be accepted. Most women in such positions were either divorced, separted or lived alone, she

said, because they recognised that they had to devote themselves singlemindedly to the task. Most recognised that there was “no way of going back to a so-called normal life” after reaching those positions, nor of filling the usual child-bearing and raising role. Ms Kelly said her original motivation in seeking a career had been for economic independence, but women were hampered because they had no-one to cook for them, wash and iron their clothes and get the breakfast before they went off to work.

Few men could go out and organise the rest of the world if it were not for the women at home — and if they went on strike, nothing would get done.

She noticed it when she watched the men walk into the Bundestag.

“When I see men enter Parliament each morning in their starched shirts, welldressed and well-fed, it makes me very sick sometimes.”