Pukhovskaya N.E. Elisabet Selbert: legal resolution of the women’s inequality problem

Abstract: The article concentrates of the professional and political life of Elisabet Selbert (1896–1986), substantially engaged in the resolution of the problem of women’s equality in post-war Germany. The educational level, professional and political party status of E. Selbert developed in her the interest to understand the female issue in German society. The active political and social significance of the frau at the end of the 1940s allowed Selbert not only to make the problem acute, but also to carry its resolution to a qualitative new level, offering legal reformation with the aim of asserting the equal rights of women in civic and private law. The contribution of Selbert consisted in, after having understood and felt the new context of the post-war era, her deciding to move away from theoretical substantiation of her novel ideas to their practical realisation. However the new political elite and new political culture, advocating democratic values, in practice demonstrated resistant conservatism in solving the problem of women’s equality. Selbert was one of the authors of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany and a member of the Parliamentary Council, and she had to undertake the enormous work of instigating comprehension and conviction in the political elite and fellow countrywomen of the necessity to resolve the problem of gender inequality. Intellectual and professional strategies, dialogue with various structures and representatives of German society in the framework of socio-elucidation work allowed Selbert to achieve significant legal changes in the Constitution of the FRG and family law.

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