408 EMMANUEL DROIT AND WILFRIED RUDLOFF
of Gymnasium students in 1990.^57 The situation was quite diff erent at the
Realschulen, where female pupils had been in the majority since the early
postwar years. Indeed, it was not long before girls performed better than
the boys in earning diplomas or leaving certifi cates. As early as 1981,
21.9 percent of girls left school with an Abitur, compared to only 16.3
percent of boys.^58 For a time, however, there still seemed to be a gender
gap that had to be overcome at the university level. Even at the end of the
1980s, three in fi ve fi rst-year students at West German universities were
still male.^59
By contrast, East German women had profi ted much earlier from the
SED’s sponsorship of female education. Whereas it had not become a
matter of fact that boys and girls would be taught in the same classes
in West German Gymnasien until the 1960s,^60 coeducation had already
been introduced in the 1950s in the GDR with the establishment of the
Einheitsschule, which was a comprehensive school for all. Moreover, the
gender-based diff erences that had been part of the curriculum were elim-
inated with the Einheitsschule. Girls were already overrepresented at the
EOS level in the 1960s.^61 The percentage of female students at the univer-
sities grew from 27 to 48 percent just between 1965 and 1975, and from
31 to 57 percent for the technical colleges over the same period.^62 Ever
since this point, the expansion of academia has been weighted heavily
toward a high percentage of women.^63 Moreover, the GDR was more suc-
cessful than West Germany in winning over women for technical pro-
fessions. The so-called third university reform led to the dismantling of
the homogeneous male culture that had come to defi ne advanced and
university-level technical education.^64 When the planned quota for the
desired percentage of women at the engineering schools was not met de-
spite intensive propaganda campaigns, this defi cit mainly stemmed from
the rather stubborn notions still held by families and the often negative
experiences that women had in the production halls on instruction days.^65
In 1987, the percentage of women among students studying mathemat-
ics and natural sciences was about 31 percent in West Germany, but 51
percent in East Germany. The percentage of women among engineering
students was just 12 percent in West Germany, compared to 20 percent
in the technical sciences in the East.^66
Scientifi cation (Verwissenschaftlichung)
and New Demands on the Canon of Knowledge
In 1971, the introduction to the Materialien zum Bericht zur Lage der Na-
tion, a report on the state of the Federal Republic, determined that both