Women in Public Life in Austria

Abstract

This chapter examines some tentative answers to questions arising from data collected in Austria. Austrian public opinion, with a characteristic split between attitude and behavior, accepts the existence of working women and working mothers but envisages different stereotypes regarding working women and men. In the Austrian context highly educated men in top jobs tend also to be among the most conservative regarding female public participation. The handful of Austrian women who have obtained a top position in political life were able to overcome some handicaps and had to adjust to others as part of their personal and political reality. Public careers demand not only wholehearted allegiance and a clear subordination of private life to public exigencies, but also compliance to a mapped-out career structure. In a 'political family' situation women would be allowed to transfer emotional capital from the private sphere to the public sphere, where it would be officially recognized as valid through an act of political legitimation.