Federal election 2025: This is what the parties promise women

There are only a few weeks left until the new elections in Germany - we will elect a new government on February 23, 2025. And our democracy is under pressure. But what do the parties promise women? Who wants to take action against sexual violence? Who has issues of equality on their radar? And what understanding of the roles do the individual candidates for chancellor have? We looked at the election programs of the major parties from a women's perspective.

“We are strengthening the rights of women and ensuring a better balance between family and work,” writes the SPD in its election manifesto. That's why she wants to promote equality in all areas and combat anti-feminism and sexism. SPD candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz describes himself as a feminist and said in his first term that he wanted to work for equal rights. According to its election program, the SPD wants to continue to stick to this plan.

The Greens have dedicated an entire chapter to the topic of “women’s rights” and make it clear: “Our priority is to make life fairer and better for women.” Chancellor candidate Robert Habeck likes to put women in the foreground and maintains his image as a modern feminist . But according to its election program, the Left also sees itself as a “feminist party” and strives for “material equality between the sexes”.

The CDU/CSU has also made some plans in its election program on how it would like to promote women. However, the party's image of women is still rather conservative - and one person stands for this with his name: Union candidate Friedrich Merz. He is considered an anti-feminist and has repeatedly attracted attention with sexist statements throughout his long career as a politician. That's why activists are calling for a boycott of the candidate for chancellor using the hashtag “Women against Merz”.

The term “women” does not appear once in BSW’s election program. Although the party is named after and led by a woman, it takes no position on important women's policy issues. Female top candidates who don't care about women? Another one immediately comes to mind: AfD candidate for chancellor Alice Weidel. Your party wants to strengthen the traditional family, increase the birth rate and abolish the equal opportunities commissioner.

Abortion is generally prohibited in Germany, but it is only possible in certain exceptions. The parties disagree on the question of whether it should stay that way:

“We will decriminalize abortion and regulate it outside of criminal law,” writes the SPD in its election manifesto. “We want to make abortions part of basic medical care.” The Greens also want to abolish the abortion ban: “Self-determination over one’s own body is a fundamental right that must apply to everyone. This includes the right to access to safe and legal abortions.” The Left is of the same opinion: “Section 218 of the Criminal Code must be deleted without replacement,” it writes in its election manifesto. The party also wants all contraceptive methods to be paid for by health insurance companies and for free menstrual products to be available in all public facilities.

The FDP speaks neither for nor against the right to legal abortion. Instead, the party wants to focus on better helping unintentionally pregnant women by improving health care, making abortion pills easier to access and allowing abortion costs to be covered.

The Union wants to retain the regulation of abortions in the Criminal Code. “Paragraph 218 remains,” it says in the election manifesto. The AfD wants to restrict abortion and women's right to sexual self-determination. For example, the party wants to introduce that unwanted pregnant women are regularly shown ultrasound images of their child in order to influence them psychologically. The election manifesto also states: “We reject all efforts to declare abortion a human right.” The party also wants to abolish funding for organizations and measures that support abortion.

Some parties also want to focus more on women's health. The CDU's election program states: “We want to promote gender-specific medicine more strongly than before as an independent field of activity. This requires concepts and measures that better reach women in health education, promotion and care." The SPD also wants to "take greater account of the different health needs of women and men." Specifically, for the party this means: "For diseases such as endometriosis and We will develop targeted solutions for issues relating to birth and menopause.”

The Greens want the special characteristics of women to be taken into account more, especially in research, training and medical practice,” and the FDP also writes: “We want to improve women’s health through gender-specific care and optimal diagnoses. We are committed to more intensive research into diseases such as endometriosis, PCOS, lipedema, breast cancer and gender-specific differences between men and women in cardiovascular diseases.”

The fact that violence against women is a huge problem in our society also seems to have reached politics. The SPD has dedicated an entire chapter of its election program to the topic and wants to take action against femicides “preventively and repressively using all available means”. The Istanbul Convention for the Protection of Girls and Women should finally be fully implemented - a demand that can also be found in the Left's program. The SPD also wants to make “catcalling” a criminal offense, tighten the Violence Protection Act and expand women’s shelters.

The FDP only writes on this topic: "To combat domestic violence against women, we would like states and municipalities to finance women's shelter places as needed and for available women's shelter places to be displayed in real time through a nationwide online platform."

The CDU focuses primarily on punishment: it wants to increase the maximum penalty for stalking and “we are increasingly using electronic ankle bracelets so that perpetrators of violence against women keep their distance from their former partners.” The Greens are also calling for something similar.

On average, women earn 18 percent less than men. The SPD writes in its program: “We want to end the injustice that women still earn less than men, and therefore implement the EU Pay Transparency Directive into national law by 2026.” The Greens and the Left also want to implement the Pay Transparency Act and advocate for equality Get paid for work of equal value. There is nothing in the AfD's election program about the gender pay gap. But in the EU Parliament, the AfD has already voted against the adoption of the pay transparency directive. The AfD also rejects quota regulations.

The Greens, on the other hand, are “in favor of quotas for women on supervisory boards and boards of large companies.” They also want to improve employment opportunities for women “through equal wages and flexible working time models and through the right to return full-time.” The CDU also wants to strengthen women in the job and eliminate hurdles clear the way. In her election manifesto she writes: “Part-time women in particular are a group with great potential for the labor market. There needs to be better conditions for full-time or near-full-time work.”

It sounds similar with the SPD, which also wants to better exploit the potential of “women in involuntary part-time and mini-jobs”. The SPD also writes: “So that women and men can participate equally in working life, in care work and in leadership positions, we combat structural disadvantages.” The party wants to advocate for a fair distribution of care work and thus make everyday life easier for working mothers. In addition, women should be better protected from poverty in old age.

What is certain is that the AfD, as a partly right-wing extremist party, is unelectable for women. The stronger this party becomes, the more our hard-won reproductive rights will be restricted. The BSW also does not seem to be a party for women, as it does not offer women any support.

The CDU/CSU are at least aware of the problems that women have to struggle with in patriarchy. They have thought about all feminist issues and developed possible solutions. However, a party that denies women the right to a legal abortion is also fundamentally misogynistic and will not move us forward from a feminist perspective. The FDP wants to support women in the world of work, but remains rather vague on all feminist issues.

If you look at the election programs, only the Greens, SPD and Left can really be viewed as feminist parties. Of course, there are many other aspects that play a role in the voting decision. What is most important is that we go to the polls on February 23, 2025 and use our vote to prevent right-wing and anti-feminist forces from becoming even stronger.