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Comment by d--b | Hacker News Reader

Mmh… Someone told me in East Germany women were treated in a much fairer way than in West Germany (equal pay, equal oppertunity etc.) it didn’t really turn into a particularly rich country nor stable…

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The argument doesn't necessarily go the other way though. Not treated well associated with less stability does not necessarily imply that women being treated equally leads to a stable society. If East Germany had treated their women worse then maybe it would have been even more unstable?

Sure but then you can’t really compare iran and the us, cause there are so many other factors. Nor can you make an average of badly-treating societies for the same reason. At least East and West Germany started off the same place in 1945.

How they treated the ordinary person (man or woman) is the true canary.

The DDR achieved about half the GDP per capita of West Germany. That would be considered quite good in most of the world.

But they were the same country before... they had equal starting position, both had same people, and pretty much both were equally destroyed

West germany was a mark of "the best stuff" in many countries, and DDR had trabants...

They didn't really have the same starting point. The West had the Marshall Plan and the East had to reboot itself.

> But they were the same country before... they had equal starting position, both had same people, and pretty much both were equally destroyed

Not really. The fighting and destruction in the East was much worse, and the Soviets initial plan was punishment - lots of industry was simply dismantled and shipped to the Soviet Union. While the Western allies realised early on they'll need Germany against the Soviets, and started investing in it ( the Marshall plan).

> The DDR achieved about half the GDP per capita of West Germany. That would be considered quite good in most of the world.

Most of the world didn't start as part of united Germany and differ from the West mainly in the governing ideology and resources of the occupying power that dictated policy to it.

All communist countries promote equality between men and women, but magically their leadership circles almost(?) never include women.

There are correlation coefficients other than -1.0, 0.0, and 1.0.

Well DDR treated their women bad, and their men not any better at all! That's why it collapsed.

Equality in poverty, the Communist ethos (except for the elites of the ruling party, of course).

Despite being under constant attack, paying reparations and starting off much poorer than the western counterpart, the material conditions of workers were improved significantly in the DDR.

Worth reading “Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism” by Kristen Ghodsee.

Given how totally Germany was broken by WW2, it doesn’t really say much that material conditions were improved by the DDR.

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