Grete Schurz

Women into Graz City Hall!

„Give a woman a fish and you feed her for a day; teach a woman to fish and you feed her for a lifetime.“

When we talk about women’s issues in public today, about equality and gender discrimination in everyday life, the compatibility of work and family life, or sexist advertising, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that these are issues that were hardly on the public agenda just a few decades ago. And even today, there is still some work to be done in terms of implementation. Grete Schurz plays a particularly exemplary role when it comes to committed and passionate advocacy for women’s issues in Graz.

Schurz, who began studying psychology and sociology at the age of 40, was the initiator and chairwoman of the women’s shelter established in 1980, which heightened her awareness of the problems women face in everyday life. In 1986, she was appointed to the city council by the then mayor Alfred Stingl and took up the post of the first independent women’s representative. The tasks of this independent and non-partisan role are varied: providing information and support to women and girls in Graz in asserting their rights, creating an interface between citizens, administration and politics, raising awareness of women’s working and living conditions and striving to improve them, as well as chairing and managing the Graz Women’s Council.

During her term of office until 1994, Grete Schurz notched up several successes: Among other things, she succeeded in securing family discounts on public transport in Graz, well-lit underground car parks, preferential allocation of council flats to single mothers, and access for women to supposedly “typical male professions” such as police officer, tram driver and croupier. In 2010, she received the Ring of Honour of the City of Graz. Grete Schurz died in Graz on 8 November 2022. In 2023, a new square in the Reininghaus neighbourhood was named after her.