21. Gender in the 2021 Federal Election: Marginalised or Mainstreamed?

Gender presented itself as a cleavage issue during the 2021 campaign for the German Bundestag. On their respective electoral platforms, centre-left and left parties in particular signalled a substantive break with Angela Merkel’s strategy of ‘leading from behind’ on women’s rights. Gender, moreover, kept inserting itself into the campaigns in two implicit and unexpected ways: One, by way of the pandemic, forcing all parties to engage with gendered effects in terms of professional and household care work and a renewed gendered division of labour. And, two, by way of the Green Party, whose first-ever Chancellor Candidate selection was qua internal regulations infused with gender equality norms. As gender appeared mainstreamed, albeit to different degrees, on the centre-left spectrum, gender played a more marginal role in the centre-right and extreme right party spectrum, with the AfD rhetoric providing a notable exception in terms of employing a strong anti-gender agenda.