Why are always woman weak?

Rating: 9/10 (6 February 2007)

It's actually a great film, and I liked it very much. Unfortunately it once again fortifies the cliché of strong men and a weak woman which is nothing but a toy, a prize for which said men fight. Her suicide is highly constructed - I mean during the whole film only cars from the stasi drive on that road, and then, just when she wants to kill herself, another one arrives out of nowhere? Now to the greatness - I gave a low vote because I myself always read the "bad" reviews first, and I intend this as a reply to the "don't believe the hype" review.
Every person I know who lived in eastern Germany so far has confirmed that the setting is highly realistic. Claiming that anyone in the east German leadership would indeed live by puritan standards is ridiculous. The "evil" guy in this film (the "minister") is not only minister of culture, but also a member of the ZK (the polit bureau), this is mentioned in the film at least twice. A ZK member had the power to invoke the Stasi at will for sure.
The change of character of the "hero" may be artificial, but this doesn't really matter (the same goes for the unrealistic suicide scene). His change sets the stage for a beautiful story, the important part (portray of the Stasi-State) remains untouched by these weaknesses. I still would have preferred if that change would not have occurred, and if the woman would not have killed herself, and the apparatus would just have worked smoothly like it did for 50 years. But this would have deprived the film of any chance to become widely accepted - it's a movie after all, not a documentation.
I simply fail to understand how anybody could find something Stasi-friendly in this film.