1979: First Female State Secretary: Johanna Dohnal

Johanna Dohnal (born Dietz) was born on February 14, 1939 in Vienna. The trained industrial clerk was sensitised to women’s issues through the struggle for the legalisation of abortion. In 1973 she became Viennese municipal councillor, in 1978 she was involved in the founding of Vienna’s first women’s shelter.

In 1979, Chancellor Bruno Kreisky named her State Secretary of General Women’s Affairs. Under Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, she became Austria’s first Minister of Women’s Affairs in 1990. Johanna Dohnal was especially committed to attaining equal opportunities and the institutionalisation of childcare. She was able to anchor the principle of equal pay for equal work in the 1993 Equal Treatment Act. Her commitment to women’s quotas was met with particularly enormous resistance, even in her own party. Following her transfer, which took place at the request of Chancellor Vranitzky, Dohnal retired from politics in 1995, but continued to be engaged in peace, development and education work. She died on February 20, 2010.