ABSTRACT
The chancellor was the only representative of the party’s leadership who remained in the room for the whole of my speech and the ensuing discussion on work-family policies at the federal party convention in Nuremberg in 2001. Usually, when this topic is discussed, everyone leaves the room. [. . .] Family policy is nothing to write home about, but the modernized policy approach, that meets the wishes of young well-educated women (and men), paid dividends for the SPD. [. . .] The SPD was able to present itself as the more progressive and open-minded party in 2002 and 2005 which had developed substantial ideas. This changed completely with the arrival of Ursula von der Leyen1 in 2009: the issue [of work-family policy] was then almost completely taken away from us. The SPD could no longer use this issue to distinguish itself from the CDU.2
