“I won’t marry because I invest too much, and I don’t want to share. But I want my child to carry my name.”
These are the words of a modern german man.
Should we just accept this?
Women have always been treated unequally. Even though many modern countries claim to stand for gender equality, in practice, this is far from reality. I’ve seen firsthand how these so-called “equality laws” work. They are often just well-written declarations—a checklist that male-dominated systems use to say: “Done.”
The worst part is, it’s not only men who uphold this inequality. Women, too—often driven by emotion, cultural pressure, or lack of real options—end up participating in and perpetuating the same structures that limit them. Many women don’t even have the opportunity to stand for what they truly believe in.
Let’s go back to injustice. In today’s world, women are constantly placed in a lower position. Why today’s world? Because today’s world is driven by money. If society were driven by nurture, care, emotional intelligence—domains traditionally associated with women—then perhaps women would finally have a fair chance. But no, this is a world that rewards male-coded obligations and pursuits: profit, property, power.
When a woman has a child, she cannot do anything else but give herself fully to that child. Every study confirms that babies need their mothers more than their fathers, especially in the early stages. The mother feeds, nurtures, and soothes the child. And the father? He should provide for the mother—but rarely does so in the long term.
The woman, meanwhile, gives up her career, her dreams, her hobbies. The man doesn’t. He continues building—for himself, for his future. The woman can’t. She adapts her life around the child, and around the man. And this is what we call equality?
In Germany, women spend on average 52% more time than men on unpaid care work (BMFSFJ, 2020). This discrepancy is not merely about time—it’s about freedom, autonomy, and future security. In addition to this, women have less payed working hours than men. One in three women in EU says she cannot work because of caregiving responsibilities, compared to just one in ten men (BMFSFJ, 2020).
Germany claims to promote gender equality. But let’s take a closer look. One crucial policy stands out: Germany does not adequately support non-marital partnerships. A woman who is not married, working part-time (as most mothers do in Germany – the “breadwinner model” is still deeply rooted in them), often unknowingly gives up her future. She sacrifices her financial stability, career progression, and pension security. And what does she get in return? No legal protection, no shared assets, no security.
Meanwhile, the man keeps his full-time job, continues investing, buying property, and building wealth. He pays rent and living costs temporarily—but it ends. And the woman can easily end up with nothing.
This is systemic. Men are paid in cash and build equity. Women are paid in “care” and “love,” which don’t pay the rent. From the beginning, men build for their future. And despite all this, they want their child to carry their name. A woman carries the baby, gives birth, experiences deep physical and emotional changes—but the child gets his name, lives in his house, follows his rules. After twenty years, when the child is grown, the man can proudly say: That’s my daughter. His name lives on. His legacy is secure.
And the woman? Not so secure future.
Let’s take an example that shows just how deeply rooted this injustice is—an older couple, now in their eighties. When asked about pensions, the man responded, with disbelief in his voice: “She doesn’t have a pension at all. I have mine, I pay for everything.” He worked long hours, often away from home, building a career. She raised their two children alone, with no income, no partner in parenting, no time for herself. She had no career, no hobbies, no space of her own. The man still sees himself as the sole provider, but what he fails to see is that her entire life was spent providing—just not in ways the system counts.
This is not an isolated case. In Germany, women receive, on average, 49% less pension than men—one of the largest gender pension gaps in Europe (Destatis, 2023). That gap doesn’t come from laziness. It comes from structural policy: women step back from careers to raise children, support partners, run households—and then are abandoned legally and financially if and when the relationship ends.
Raising children is not a passive or secondary role. It is emotionally, mentally, and physically heavy. It requires constant negotiation, pleading, compromise. You don’t get weekends off. You don’t get a paycheck. As a mother, going to work feels like a holiday. At work, no one screams at you, no one demands your attention every second. At work, no one tests your emotional resilience.
In my case, it’s the same. My partner works a lot, and I’m the default parent. And he doesn’t ask if I have anything planned. First, he organizes his life around his job—and his hobbies, which are the same thing for him. Then, only then, I can try to make space for my own plans. That’s the price I pay for staying with such a man.
Yes, I could leave. And he would no longer have a daughter in his life. But she would no longer have a father either—and I don’t want that for her. I live inside this (non) compromise. I stay, because I care more about her emotional well being. But why should women always be the ones to sacrifice?
Let’s take this one step further. Imagine a couple living together for 20 years. They raise a child. They build a home. But the house is in his name—because it was easier, or because he had the job and the loan. Then they split. And she has no rights. Not unless she sues him.
She has to go to court, start a civil lawsuit, and try to prove she contributed. That his success, his house, his savings—weren’t just his. That she was there the whole time, holding everything else up. That her unpaid work made his paid work possible.
I think we shuld turn this a little bit around. What if she sues him for stealing? Let’s call this a theft.
Because that’s what it is. He didn’t just “earn” everything. He took it. While she gave up her time, her career, her plans, her money. What he has is not just his. He was building his future on her back, and in the case of separation, he walks away with everything—and she has nothing. And that is a theft that’s protected by law.
The system lets men get rich with women by their side, and then cut them off when it’s done. And if the woman wants justice, she has to fight, explain, beg, collect receipts. That’s not equality. That’s a setup.
In contrast, some countries automatically recognize long-term non-marital partnerships for legal purposes such as inheritance, even without a formal contract. If two people live together, raise a child, and share a household, the law treats them as a family. This offers protection to the caregiving partner, most often the woman, even if they never married. But in Germany, such a woman would have no legal claim—no right to inheritance, no shared property, no pension rights. Germany still ties all these protections to marriage, despite how many people live outside of it. Germany, despite modern branding, remains legally rooted in religious and conservative ideology. Its dominant parties—especially the CDU/CSU—continue to push the narrative that the only “real” family is a married one. This legal favoritism is not accidental; it reflects a deliberate political stance, influenced by decades of Christian democratic policy-making.
Germany may outwardly claim to support gender equality, but its legal system is still structured to support outdated model of family life. Women who raise children outside of marriage are punished by law for not entering a contract the state deems worthy of protection.
This is not neutrality—it’s ideology. And women are paying the price for it.
Men and women will never be the same, because we are different in how we function—especially when it comes to having and raising children. That’s biology. But who has more chances, more freedom, and an easier path in life isn’t decided by biology. It’s decided by the society we live in. Right now, the kind of work men usually do—paid jobs, careers, investments—is more supported and rewarded. The kind of work women often do—raising children, caring for others, running a household—is not. That could change. Maybe one day, society will value care work more than money-making. But until then, we need to protect and share the work both partners bring into a relationship—whether it’s income or unpaid care. It shouldn’t matter if they’re married or not. What matters is that they built something together, and both gave something up to do it.
The only real solution is this: Germany must legally recognize non-marital partnerships that function like a marriage and treat them as such in matters of property, care, and separation. Until that happens, Germany cannot honestly claim to represent gender equality.
