Anita Fetz was born in 1957 in Basel and grew up as the eldest of three sisters in a small business household. Her parents ran a radio and television shop, and living and working were closely intertwined both spatially and mentally. This background shaped her profoundly: a natural familiarity with economic responsibility, an entrepreneurial mindset, and the experience that women working for pay was entirely normal formed the foundation of her later political engagement.
She experienced the introduction of women’s suffrage in 1971 at the age of 14. Only on that voting Sunday did she realize that until then her mother and her grandmothers had had no political voice. Her outrage at this inequality, together with her father’s remark, “Don’t get upset, do something about it,” became a guiding principle in her life. She became the first person in her family to study at university, studying history and economics at the University of Basel. Entering the academic world initially represented a cultural shock, but the university also became a place of political awakening. She became active in student politics and in the new women’s movement, particularly in OFRA. There she organized campaigns, demonstrations, and political actions, learning how important networking, strategic thinking, and determination are.
In 1985 at the age of 27 she entered the National Council as the youngest member and as one of only a few women in the Federal Parliament. In a strongly male-dominated political culture, she advocated early on for women’s policy issues, including anti-discrimination legislation, maternity insurance, measures to promote equality in academia and the workplace, and reforms of family law. Many of these initiatives did not succeed at first, but they laid the groundwork for later legislative developments. She stepped down at the end of 1989. After the dissolution of POCH, she joined the Social Democratic Party (SP).
Alongside her political work, Anita Fetz built her own business consulting firm specializing in the advancement of women and organizational development. In the 2000s she returned to federal politics and represented the canton of Basel-Stadt in the Council of States from 2003 to 2019, becoming the first woman from her canton to hold this position. There she particularly shaped financial and economic policy dossiers and consistently linked them to equality issues, for example in relation to equal pay and the social security of women farmers.
Anita Fetz has looked back on five decades of developments in gender equality policy. She has spoken about strategies of political action, informal alliances and tactical approaches, as well as about resistance and social change. Her experiences have shown how long and demanding equality policy can be and how crucial perseverance, economic independence, and political skill are for achieving lasting change.