The article uses a multi-layered approach to analyse the situation of women in vocational and education training, embedding it systematically in the development of general education, the labour market and the family in Germany. It reconstructs the development in these four sectors of society with a special emphasis on the past 30 years. The analysis highlights the contradictions for women resulting from the uneven developments in these parts of society. The article then analyses the ways in which women try to realise the new opportunities gained through better education, against the limits of social structures and existing norms. In this context, both the intended and unintended effects of education reforms are discussed, as well as the ambiguous results of the deregulation of the labour market. Here the intersectionality of discrimination along the three axes of gender, race and class are seen.