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Literature On The New Woman
The Collapse of the Weimar Republic (V13347)
University of Nottingham
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To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? Collapse of the Weimar Republic stance for women in WR. More often than not in an oppressed position in society male fear and so they subordinated women into the private sphere, of welfare AW challenged this. There was always a gendered sphere of women. This was a division between the social policy (male sphere) whereas welfare policy was beneficial for women in supporting themselves. Lecture notes Cannot understand the emergence of the new woman without thinking about the backdrop of WW1 Strong females during war as well as strong male Women used to be very prevalent in politics but this soon dwindles after the women become disillusioned with politics and forced out of this gendered sphere. Women also pushed out of the job market due to harsher restrictions on their capacity but also with the demobilisation of women in munitions factories after war. All this gives rise to the MYTH of the One of the most important things to remember that there was a huge discrepancy between the myth and the actualities of the in Germany. This myth the words of into a category which is focused on the youthful woman, so viewed as a temporary point of life. The New Woman is depicted as a low skilled worker, a secretary or typist. Gendered division of labour becomes very clear. Frevat world of the cinema attracted many working class girls to this kind of work, elegant customers crowded around the counter, making charming conversation with the assistant until one of them whisked her off to a marriage of happiness and Is it the reality that a large core of women viewed this image as desirable and the way forward for the Impact of Americanisation on the creation of the modern Americanised housewife. There was an emphasis on rationality, planning, keeping the house. Shift away from a time when you had servants to do your now there was domestic technology to help you instead. The fact that women now had American technology such as a Washing Machine did not mean they were to do less work, but rather to devote this free time to your children, their wellbeing, and the nutritional value of food. Women had reduced sexual use of contraception is or a feature of the higher classes. Lack of contraception led to a high demand for abortion in insecure due to desire to keep family size down in times of economic precariousness. The campaign for? Irony? Said to be the new woman but she was less free and more pigeon holed than before the war. There was nothing revolutionary in the rights for this new she was a feature of patriarchal society so the fresh title of was entirely misleading. U. Frevert, Women in German History The Discovery of the 13 WW1: The Father of emancipation? WW1 is often regarded as a catalyst in the modernisation of Germany. It is said to have speeded up the process which economic life and the structure of state and society evolved into a modern, democratic, Western European polity with parliament and political parties. Women said to have benefit from the modernising effects of they were incorporated into the modern labour market, and their work was given public recognition and praise. Also, middle class women proved their civic maturity and social responsibility. But the question is: did the war in fact make a major contribution to emancipation? Women were alongside men in the initial patriotism for war. Women of the educated bourgeoisie proved most susceptible to stories woven press and propaganda concerning the encirclement of Germany jealous neighbours and the need to strike for liberation in the name of (151) the nation. leaders of the bourgeoisie 1 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? movement surpassed themselves in emphatic declarations of loyalty and unconditional devotion to E. Gertrud Baumer, chair of the BDF from 1910, wrote in a political pamphlet in they may bring, whatever they take, these times represent the solemn peak of the lives of our and she expressed regret for all those who had died too soon to witness great day of their Having more or less consistently defended specific feminine interests for over 50 years, the movement was now keen to cast off constraints of separatism and particularist and to be absorbed this and momentous drawing together of all national energies into a powerful common Baumer to the German women in 1914. was like a nationalist union of It seemed, that under such a system women would no longer be measured the masculine yardstick, but could assert themselves, using their own unique talents and capabilities, and take part in the project which overrode questions of gender and The sense of national upheaval too gave women a sense of national identity. Although the political system failed to allow them to the course of events, they nevertheless felt, as Marie Bernays of the Federation of German Association expressed it, like with obligations towards the general (152) Due to the massive price rises under war due to food shortages, many bourgeois women, uncertain about their financial future fired their servants. This placed a considerable extra burden on housewives, for now they not only had all the tasks their maids used to in addition they spent countless hours fighting the war from their own kitchens. . As quality continued to deteriorate it took great culinary inventiveness to make a meal out of the meagre supplies that were available. In this context, particularly middle class women began to produce as much of their own food as they could, so as not to be dependent on the market. Wartime cookbooks in substitute ingredients and budget recipes were and women flocked to lectures and courses on how to bottle and preserve. Clothing, fabrics and shoes were also hard to come , so old, tattered articles of clothing and footwear had to be patched up or converted into something else. This was even the case for wealthy housewives who still had they still had to go out of their way to get simple supplies that were also dwindling in their quality. (153) Working class women suffered the most from wartime shortages. They were too poor to buy foodstuffs in bulk or on the black market and also did not have space for provisions and preserves. These women did show interest in the lectures, courses and demonstrations held everywhere on such themes as efficient housekeeping, substituting fruit puree for butter, eating fish and cheese instead of meat etc. BUT more often than not, advice conflicted with the real possibilities, which were determined constraints, not only money but also time. During the war it was even more crucial for the family to rely on income brought in from the mother. Many families were trying to continue without their father had been called up to as the breadwinners. Wartime supplementary payments to soldiers families fell a long way short of needs. E. In berlin, the family of a skilled worker with 4 children only received half of the earnings. Even if the father had not been called up, household income was bound to fall sharply. While industrial wages increased they did not keep pace with the rapid cost of living which tripled in this period. (154) Thus, many married women who before never had to work were not obliged to take a regular job, which drastically cut the time they had available for demanding household duties. It was hard for women to find a job initially. But in 1917, there was the launch of a vigorous campaign encouraging women to take jobs in essential industries and thus allow the men to go to the front. Some companies used social facilities, such as factory housing, as bait in an attempt to encourage women to fill vacancies their husbands left after conscription. Central and regional war authorities set up employment agencies whose aim was to mobilise female labour for the war economy. (155) She argues that the war did not cause females to shift the nature of their work to male rather this was a process already in process, in structural economic (and thus had affected male labour forced at a much earlier Instead, she argues that the number of women in employment went up for demographic reasons (156). Nonetheless, women everywhere now seemed to be doing jobs that were formerly The difference between work and work was no longer clear cut, and women obviously had neither physical or psychological problems taking the place of men who had been drafted into the army. Few jobs were from women. In formerly industries such as iron and steel, and mechanical engineering, the female labour force rose from in July 1914 to in 1916. In the electrical industry it leapt from from Expanding wartime industries provided new and better paid work for women who had been dismissed from 2 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? published a petition demanding that full suffrage be extended to women and stressing that they had earned this. This was a way in which the bourgeois movement hoped to come closer to its aim of humanising society through The BDF rejected the cease fire in 1918 and said that German women would all their energies into defending to the rather than accept the conditions of the armistice. During the war the BDF railed against the efforts of pacifist women to bring about peace. (162) Upon news of casualties caused the war, and as the situation got progressively worse, working class women at home turned to vociferous forms of protest. At the end of 1915 the first food riots occurred in council offices were stormed and food shops looted. (166) Women also joined in strikes (which as modern forms of conflict related to wage labour tended to be dominated men). They played a major role as strikes and organisers in the April 1917, in which people in Berlin alone took and also in the millionstrong strike actions of early 1918. (167) 14 Weimar Republic Politics and Employment Apart from a few exceptions, women did not have a seat on the revolutionary councils of 1918. When the General Congress of Workers and Soldiers councils convened in Berlin in 1918, among 496 delegates there were only 2 women: Danzig (USPD) and Noack (SPD). Nevertheless, women do seem to have been gripped the political unrest in the 1918 revolutionary months. They took part in political gatherings, joined parties, trade unions and professional associations, and immersed themselves in political life as they saw it. (168) women in particular, we keen to see the apparent chaos of the Councils superseded a parliamentary order, and lobbied as did the bourgeois for elections to a constitutional assembly to be held without delay. One of the first decisions of the Council of Emissaries of the People had been to grant women the rights to vote and to stand in elections, and the parties immediately realised the potential gains to be made. committees looked for suitable female candidates, distributed leaflets and made election speeches. The BDF joined with other organisations and committees from liberal and conservative parties to form a Committee for the Preparation of Women for the National Assembly, and set about educating the new female electorate. The high among women voters illustrated how successful these campaigns were, and how greatly the revolution had politicised women. Almost took advantage of the right they had just won, and in none of the elections during the next 14 years was female turn out so high. It was clear political crisis had been instrumental in thrusting women into the political process. (169) 49 nine or of those elected to the Weimar National Assembly were female. All parties had female delegates, quite a few of whom came from the BDF and the organised movement. They now had the chance to put into (169) practise the notion of policies that would help preserve and stabilise the family. They demanded that state help the family to meet its various obligations: upbringing, health care, feeding They confined themselves to social policy, education, health care, issues directly relating to women and the family. As a result, this restriction meant that the more comprehensive objective of the movement to humanise society, the economy and politics with spirit of and to bring the of feminine to bear in all spheres came unstuck in day to day parliamentary business. The Weimar Constitution did recognise sexual equality as a basic right and granted the same civil rights to men and women. But, the movement was adamant that men and women had interests that were fundamentally different, and that therefore the sexes were to be regarded not as equal in kind, but as equal in value. Hence it would be wrong to conceive of the tenet of equality as a rigid dogma. It referred rather, to the conditions of allowing the free development of the female character. Men wrongly interpreted the movement, they believed that since sexual equality had been achieved, they had reached their goal and so should retire. But activists reiterated they had only just it about equal rights (170) but from the world of men a world which mars the mark of both In Weimar Germany the practicality of the movement was limited to building on consolidating occupational and professional gains already won. The rather conservative line taken the movement earned them rebukes from the youth movement, which charged them with loss of their innovative and creative power. razor sharp edge with which they had once cut into male politics was now blunted, rendering them harmless and predictable factor in the political Parties did continue to woo the female vote and to accept the presence of a few women in elected but they kept them well away from politics. Male parliamentarians made no secret of their view that 4 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? important political decisions could not be taken women, and the bourgeois parties in particular became even more reluctant to give women candidates favourable positions on the list for elections to the Reichstag, land and local govt. Thus, the number of deputies fell: 37 women entered the Reichstag in 1920, and only 27 in 1924. (172). The type of created the Weimer cultural criticism was represented an interesting combination of modernity and tradition, of progress and reaction. The external appearance of young women after the war prompted some to ring in the of the liberated Hair in a bob, cigarettes, casual clothes: these were the trademarks of the modern woman, who took the principle of equality in the Weimar Constitution seriously, and played her part at work in public life with confidence. Women also seemed to want to assimilate male mores too, for the lifestyles of the sexes were converging. For instance, women now frequently went to work and earned their own money. The occupational census of 1925 found that there were more women in employment than in 1907. (176) Although the total number of women in employment had barely risen in 1907 to in1925) the impression created in the public mind was that these women were more clearly a part of than before the war. between myths and Many had actually been forced to leave their jobs as men returned to work in demobilisation. In the Weimar years, women were more oriented to male work, e. In 1907 of women were employed in agriculture, but 1925 the figure was only and 1933 Industry, craft and services were the sectors towards which the female labour increasingly tended. The spotlight for the did not fall on the industrial forces of women or the small band of female graduates, teachers, doctors and lawyers who made their way into male domains. Rather, the prototypes of female emancipation were the young clerical workers. modernity of the Weimar system appeared to acquire the shape of secretaries, shorthand typists and shop assistants. While it did represent to jump of female workers from in 1907 to this was not evenly focused for the stereotype of the New Objectivity woman. While some held that the feminisation of the white collar work was beginning of real emancipation of according to Croner, 1962, p. 20, more critical peoples highlighted the ambiguity of this superficial (177) Adorno, to whom female workers seemed as dependent overlooked the fact, however, that characteristic patterns of sexual division of labour and power had also emerged in this occupational women performed work that was subordinate, less independent, and worse paid than demands for business staff of the late 19 th C meant women were given the most routine and simply tasks, while men were employed in qualified positions such as accounting, administration, or management. Differences between male and female white collar work correlated with education and training. Men did a business apprenticeship while women learned the basics of typing and office organisation. Even more qualified women rarely managed to rise above the clerical level, for male white collar workers proved disinclined to blur sexual differences. (178) It was only in times of crisis such as the First World War that women had an opportunity to rise into positions of greater responsibility and replace men who were sent to war. Wage agreements for commercial white collar workers in Weimar Germany stipulated that pay for women should be lower across the board. The reason given was that men generally had higher clothing and living expenses than did women who could knit, sew, darn and cook. of the urban office culture turned out to be a projection of the men of the time who, either from fear or form an exaggerated sense of progress, painted a distorted picture of female modernity and ignored traditional structures in the world of work. There was no doubt that a occupation functioned as a temporary place of before marriage. A married woman was neither to serve behind a counter nor sit in an she was to look after her husband and children at home. is an In 1925, almost all white collar women workers were single, and under 25. (179) For a working class woman, the main attraction of white collar work lay in its social attributes. Although a factory worker would often earn more than a sales assistant or clerk, a post in commerce was far more presitigious. Even a job in retailing seemed highly desirable, for it opened the door to meeting a better class of customer, and forced women to be smartly dressed and and have good manners. One of the most favoured areas was clothing, where rich gentleman would become acquainted with the shop assistant. Such fantasies were a far cry from reality, but the media went out of their way to fire imaginations. For many girls, the 5 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? up in a stable family, and become inspired the popularised Eugenics movement of this period after the war. The decline in birth rate was a controversial issue: various philosophies interpreted it as either a favourable index of the of the sex or a national catastrophe. For conservatives and those with strong religious ideas, the distinction was that free sexuality was taking hold, and that all moral codes (188) were disintegrating. Liberals and Social Democrats however applauded systematic contraception as the first step to establishing a rational and individually satisfying way of life. (189) sexuality was founded on the notion of a woman who ran her household according to the principles of rational and economic management, raised her children in line with recommendations of educationalists, was an open and adaptable sexual partner for her husband, and, if necessary, could hold her own, as it were, at With more and more couples deciding to have fewer children, the institutional purposes of marriage was being modified: other needs were gaining in importance. Since, moreover, in principle women now also had access to the labour market and the opportunity to earn their own living, marriage was losing its (192) basis of economic necessity. (193) Mothers in Weimar Germany did not have an easy life. But conditions did domestic appliances such as washing machines, irons, cookers and vacuum cleaners found their way into middle class homes, while manuals and exhibitions on scientific household management informed housewives on how to save time and energy in the home. The rationalisation of trade and industry ran parallel with the discovery of the home as a workplace which like any other had an optimal organisation. Standardised mdoel homes and kitchens such as those designed the Weimar Bauhaus brought efficiency to the forefront of attention. Attendance at exhibitions such s New in Berlin in 1929 broke all records. and family journals sang the praises of the modern housewife who wielded a whole battery of domestic appliances in her practical and luxurious home. (194) After hyperinflation, many middle class families whose wealth had born the brunt of the monetary crisis, could not afford domestic help. Consequently, domestic chores were redistributed to wives and daughters. The time saved on cooking and cleaning with new Americanised technical appliances was now spent on shopping in a more organised manner, and purchasing food with higher nutritional value. Also, more emotional energy was invested in childcare. case study of technological and social change: the washing machine and the working in Hatmann and Banner, Consciousness raised (NY, 1974), pp. (195) Thus, technology did not lighten the load for mothers and it increased the range of their activities. Domestic mechanisation did not further the emancipation of women. It did not release them from housework and enable them to pursue other interests, but rather bound them more closely to the family, whose comfort and living standards benefited directly. Ideological blinkers were intended to fix sights firmly on their and to keep attractive alternatives out of view. Those preoccupied with social and demographic developments rate noted with concern that women were relishing even the limited independence their own jobs and money afforded, and formulated ideas that were scarcely compatible with the image of the dedicated mother ever willing to make sacrifices. The fear was of those such as highly qualified women and graduates who expressed a strong desire not to abandon a professional position once they married. (196) These women were called which caused controversy as this was a right seen as a male privilege. Conservative and campaigners against dual incomes were particularly vociferous as the world economic crisis began to make its mark. A married working woman, they insisted, should make way for an unemployed paterfamilias, there easing the labour market situation and strengthening the family. The Reich govt put the nail in the coffin in 1932 with the Law on the Legal position of Female Public Servants, under which the civil service was legally (197) bound to dismiss married female employees. Also, for many single mothers and widows, they viewed married women as unnecessary competition for wages. Hardly any associations had the courage to brand the discriminatory law as Instead, there was almost unanimous acceptance of responsibility for the Volksgemeinschaft, where individuals did not assert their interests, and the common weal was the yardstick for role and duties. (198) The Gellschaft was said to be revolved around the dominance of individuals working in competition for personal ambition. status was marginal, since their worth was measured in terms of In contrast to the Volksgemeinschaft which promoted women for the good of the it a own achievements, whether these be in the domestic or another 7 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? Housewives avidly cherished hopes of the new order. For too long their personal worth and labours had been undervalued and ignored in the social distribution of prestige. It is no coincidence that associations were among the first and most willing to embrace the national socialist Volksgemeinschaft. In the WR they campaigned for greater recognition for the of housewife. (199) In Weimar Germany, both the Federation of German Associations and the Social Democratic movement firmly believed that motherhood was a most important civil and one which like paid work had to be and valued in economic (200) It cannot be denied that to some degree the barrier between male and female domains became more fluid in the Weimar years, and that young women in particular were given the occasional chance to reap the benefits of what had been exclusively male occupations, social movements and leisure time activities. However, the limits of social, economic and political action had remained largely unchanged. To be sure, women now had greater employment opportunities: they could become judges, lawyers, doctors, university professors, they had the right to vote and be elected, and sexual stereotyping eroded from young people. Yet, the Republic was a long way from ensuring for rights, positions of power and influenced and rewards equal to those enjoyed men. To the same degree, the reaction of the movement to the partial integration and modernisation which the Weimar system offered was confused and contradictory. On the one hand it upheld the constitutional guarantee of full equality in political, family, occupational and moral on the other it insisted that the sexes were essentially different, and that women had a particular feminine cultural mission fulfil. The movement had no answer to the question of how the could resolve the conflict between modern occupational demands and traditional family ties. (203) R. Bader, Pacifism in the WR: Between Ideal and 13 (2001), pp. most fundamental pacifist convictions were those of the tiny group of absolutist pacifists, and because these stood little chance of general acceptance in the Weimar Republic, she found herself in a space of between ideal and Stocker was brought up in a religious but this led her to eventually reject her religion. Yet, she attributed her strong sense of charity and justice to her early influence (70) As she was a family of 8, the mother had little time to develop a close nurturing relationship with Helene. When complications related to the birth of the only son required her bed rest, mother passed essential household responsibilities to Helene. This responsibility, along with her tense relationship with her mother, prompted her to think about the constraints reproduction placed on women and their development as individuals. In 1907 Stocker joined with radical feminists Augspurg and (710 Heymann and others to found the German association of the International Women Suffrage Alliance (1903). With Bre and Schreiber, she founded the League for the Protection of Motherhood and Sexual Reform, BfMS in 1905. As an opponent of the sexual double standard and marriages of convenience, Stocker lived in a common law partnership with Brunold Springer until his death in 1931. The outbreak of war came as a complete shock to Stocker, but she immediately became involved in peace activism. Her focus on her which emphasised the reform of sexual values, voluntary and mutually respectful relationships between men and women, and improved conditions for single mothers and their became secondary to her activity in the peace movement at this time. For Stocker and other radical activists, WW1 was a catalyst for pacifist yet this led to the split of the suffrage movement. (72) As these women regrouped and discovered their common opposition to the war, the call went out from the Netherlands to organised an international protest. 1,126 delegates represented 12 countries at the International Congress of Women at the Hague, in May 1915. The congress was significant as it sent delegations to the govts of belligerent nations proposing the acceptance of the resolutions for peace. The resolutions called for universal suffrage, a renunciation of annexations at end, and so on. Its congress in 1919 in Zurich culminated in the foundation of the International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), whose program included the outlawry of war, general disarmament, and education. 8 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? not only in order to deny the stat cannon fodder for the next war, but because healthy children could not be raised under harsh wartime conditions. work with birth control had pacifist consequences if women refused to be a part of the demographic war effort. To those who attacked this position as unpatriotic, she answered that the hardships of the wartime economy made a militaristic population policy unreasonable and wasteful: excessive birth rate only leads to an unproductive fertility, a massive childhood and infant mortality, which leads to a waste of national wealth, without mentioning the physical and emotional detriment to the Laws that restricted personal reproductive decisions were suspect because they served militaristic aims allowing the state to create the population surpluses needed in war. (79) Among men or women, pacifists during the war were a tiny minority, but they represented for Stocker the new woman and the new man of her earlier thinking. (81) For women who attended the International Congress of Women at the Hague in 1915, feminism and pacifism were inseparable issues. This thinking differentiated them from the moderate movement, which did not make this equation. (88) radicalisation and accompanying marginalisation moderates and conservatives in the movement in the first decade of the century can be seen as an antecedent to the peace lack of influence on the German public. Her influence in the larger population at the end of the Weimar years was of little consequence. We may look back at her position at the forefront of her time with admiration, and yet recognise that the peace movement had little effect. Also, in the face of street fighting and putsch attempts, she continued to insist that violence was not the answer. She struggled with her own absolute pacifism in the face of growing social unrest and the threat of violence, as the WR moved closer to a confrontation with fascism. (89) Harvey, the Volk, Serving the Nation: Women in the Youth Movement and the Public Sphere in Weimar in Jones, And Retallack. In Weimar Germany the participation both women and young people in the process of mass politics was seen as problematic. For women, perceptions of the problem were bound up with the general debate over emancipation in Weimar Germany. Feminists saw low level of participation in female politics as the problem, and accordingly sought to make the emancipation of women proclaimed in the Weimar Constitution into a reality educating the mass of women to take up and use their new political rights. (201) Little work has been focused on the political activity of young women. This essay it studying young political behaviour, their attitudes towards politics and political participation. It examines how young women in the Bundische Jugend (202) viewed their role in the public sphere and formal politics. The Bunde (Leagues) were tightly structured organisations that came to dominate the youth movement as it evolved after 1918 away from the freer wandervogel traditions associated with the hiking groups of the period. Why study the Bunde? Gives an insight into the ideological stance of the activists and the responses of particular groups of class women to social and political change. The women in the BUnde also explicitly addressed the question of their political and public role as women and as members of the youth movement, and were prepared to enter into public debate on the issue. However, study of the Bunde has problems. Identifying trends in the Bundische Jugend is difficult. Also it is not a clear reflection of MASS politics as the Bunde was highly far from seeking to mobilise the youthful masses, they recruited selectively. The membership of the Bunde was socially and educationally privileged. Of study of women in the Bunde, she found them to be in social origin. Of her sample, only had no qualification beyond elementary school, (203) yet had qualifications of university entrance or above. pp. This essay seeks to explain how the young women in the various Bunde underwent a process of politicisation, defined broadly as the acquisition of a basic political awareness. Asking the question of to what extent these women can be regarded as actively political, (204) which is measured in their readiness to enter into debates with bourgeois feminism. The essay examines how those young women who were political in the final years of 10 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? WR, and how these women were shaped factors that were and how young perceptions of their political or public role may have been formed their experiences as young women growing up in WR. It is also assessing how far they saw themselves as having a special role to play in politics virtue of being female and belonging to the young generation. Historians have noted generational differences in voting patterns towards the end of the WR and have noted the existence of a gap dividing the bourgeois feminist movement in the WR from a younger generation of women. Grossman has portrayed a generational divide in social as well as political terms, arguing that young women in WR sought to escape the drudgery in which their mothers had been trapped and to grasp opportunities to play a wider role in society. Grossman suggests that fascism may have appealed to young women it in fact celebrated their competence, their ability to manage in a new and modern world, and indeed offered mass political activity and mobilisation as an escape from the restrictions of both wage labour and (205) Grossman, or Thoroughly Rationalised Female: A New Woman in Weimar in Friedlander, Cooker, and Women in Culture and Politics: A Century of Change, (1986) In this, she shares the view of other historians who have argued that National Socialism sought to mobilise young women not simply through a revalidation women shift politically to the of traditional domestic role, but also through its promise of a wider role extending into the public sphere and providing an outlet for young activis,. Mothers in the Fatherland: Women, the family and Nazi Politics (London, 1987), Research on young women in the Bunde has suggested that they were generally less politically minded than the men, but it has also stressed the varying levels of political interest in the different Bunde and has suggested that the interest shown women in the youth movement in the political and public affairs increased over the course of the WR. p. An indicator of their political awareness, is argued Harvey to be their readiness to engage with the bourgeois feminist movement. The feminist movement promoted a distinct set of ideas regarding role in public life, and young women who saw gender as relevant to role in public and the public sphere sooner or later had to engage with that set of ideas. has shown that the level of interest in feminism that respondents recalled having had in their youth was fairly high. However, she argues that the interest in feminism shown young women in the youth movement declined after 1919. (206) One Bund is evidence that there was a link between political and social change, politicisation and the growth of interest in feminism: The German Hiking League, DMWB. p. The journal of the DMWB from end of 1918 carried debates on politics and on the feminist movement. The debates were triggered the 1918 revolution and the granting of the vote to women. Tensions arose as the DMWB moved from the social conservatism and political abstentionism that had characterised it since 1914 toward a more active engagement with politics. The DWMB split in 1922 over the issue of whether to admit jewish the split gave the leaders of the DMWB in 1923 the opportunity to move away from classic youth movement concerns to forge links with the movement and with young feminist circles. (207) Subsequent issues of its journal were devoted to discussion of the place of women in public life, the significance of voting, the legal positon and rights of women, and girls education. The DMWB, however, failed to recruit new members on the basis of its new commitment to feminism and went into decline. The case of the DMWB shows that the ideas of the bourgeois feminist movement did have some impact on a section of young women in the youth movement in the early Weimar period. However, the DMWB was not typical of the youth movement at that time. In the early 1920s, feminist leaders lamented young mistrust of the feminist movement and apparent indifference to public affairs. p Therefore, the Federation of German Associations (BDF) and the German Women League (DStV) sought to promote a dialogue with young women in the Bunde. In the later 1920s, feminist efforts to promote the exchange of idea with the Bunde intensified and met with more positive interest in dialogue and debate than ever before. In 1929 both the BDF and DStV staged large public events that dealt with questions of political participation and citizenship and were aimed at young women, particularly those from the Bunde. (208) DStV arranged in 1929 a public meeting on the subject of Youth Movement and the addressed a representative of the youth movement and attended an estimated 1,500 young women. The efforts of these feminist groups seemed all the more urgent in view of the need to mobilise young women against the growing attempts to discriminate against women at work and to exclude them from public life. (209) 11 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? of larger, vaguer forms of womanly public engagement that were more specifically Bundisch and that focused on serving and preserving the nation and its cultural heritage. Weeks spent in the countryside helping with the harvest and living with peasants were conceived as helping to overcome the crisis in agriculture in East Germany. Or, camping expeditions to areas beyond the Reich were German minorities (215) lived, the aim of which was the boost the morale and stiffen the national resolve of the Germans living in areas of ethnic tension. Yet, this effort to express the ways in which women might engage in the national struggle alongside men while cultivating their feminine identity involved a difficult balancing girls have the great and satisfying task of ensuring, while preserving absolute discipline and strictness in their outlook and their actions as a Bund, that the German spirit and the gentle soul of woman junger Nation, Land Berlin, Bericht, 15 May The idea of special mission in the public sphere almost certainly exercised a particular attraction for young women in the Bunde in the midst of depression and political crisis. Many of the most active memeebrs were lost to radical particularly National Socialsim. In this light, the Bunde saw themselves becoming, despite (216) their identification with the national cause, increasingly irrelevant and marginal to the new national politics. Accordingly, the Bunde sought a new focus for action that would enable them, as youthful pioneers, to become more closely involved in the work of national redemption. (217) The ethos of service of others and to the nation women was activated a sense of national emergency during the crisis of the WR. It could also be because young women were aware that they were becoming marginalised in youth policy. They realised that the attempts the last govts of the WR to integrate youth into the national community focused primarily on young men. From this one can only conclude that those young women in the BUnde who asserted their right to a role in the public sphere did so all more vehemently in the face of their double marginalisation, first as Bundische Jugend in relation to mass politics and then as women in relation to patriarchal structures both within the youth movement and in society as a whole. (218) There was a distinctive and model in the but there were clearly connections between them. The ideology of the Bunde, coupled with the conditions of the dual crisis of the Republic in its final years, discouraged women in the Bunde from tackling political issues in concrete terms and encouraged them to conceive of their role in relation to politics and the public sphere in terms that were either very passive or overly ambitious. The consequence of this was to women either firmly rooted in the domestic sphere as guardians of the national soul, building the or in the public sphere, alongside their male comrades as saviors of the nation. Can the young common experience of the depression and their reaction to this show an expression of a collective However, generational typologies generally are limited for the concept of generation is difficult. On close examination, such typologies often turn out to fit only limited portions of a cohort, defined class. (219) One does not want to fall trap to confusing generational mentality for middleclass mentality and conceptions of a generation. A generational perspective may shed light on young political outlook and political participation in the final years of the WR, (220) but only if it focuses on the way the Depression polarised and fragmented any solidarity that might have existed among young women and produced responses that were diverse and not necessarily expressed in terms of generational consciousness. The women in the Bunde who demanded an active role in the public sphere alongside men can be seen as responding to their situation as young women in the crisis. That response may have been shared wider circles of young women outside the BUnde who were frustrated the narrowing of options open to them. However, it was only one out of a range of possible responses to the crisis, and the bundisch rhetoric about the integration of women into a common generational front could neither disguise the disunity among women and between the sexes within the Bunde nor politically mobilise young women en masse. (221) Conclusion was a bit R. Bridenthal Kinder, Kuche, Kirche (1973), what is vol and no? 13 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? It has been suggested that the authoritarianism of the German family contributed to the susceptibility of the population to the siren call of threats to the traditional structure of society and the family that made people fearful and desperate enough to see saviour in Hitler. Max Horkheimer. Schriften des Instituts fur Sozialforschung, vol. 5 (Paris, His call for women to return to hearth and home found a receptive audience. The Kinder, Kuche, Kirche issue in Nazi propaganda implied that women were deserting their homes, their children, and their morality, challenging authority flooding the labour market to such an extent that they protest for or Carl Gustav Jung in his pamphlet argued that emancipation was responsible for endangering not only the institution of marriage but also the whole spiritual balance between the masculine and feminine principles. Gustav Jung, Die Frau in Europa (Zurich, 1948, from the original of (148) The traditional view of liberal historians welcomes the women made during the years of the WR. E. Schoenbaum, economic liberation of thousands of women sales clerks... an ever increasing contingent of women doctors, lawyers, judges, and social workers . . . thousands of women in shops, offices, and professions in competition with men.. .. The campaign against the democratic republic was a repudiation of the equality of Schoenbaum, Social Revolution (New York, 1966), p. The bitter tone of the call for a return to the kitchen was directly related to unemployment created the depression. This paper proposes to reveal the irrationality of that response showing how much the notion of the German economic emancipation was a myth. The key to the whole puzzle of the new status of women and of their reaction to it may well lie in the phenomenon of economic modernisation. Usually held to be a progressive, liberating force for women, it appears on closer scrutiny to have been a retrogressive, constricting force, leading to a steady infantilisation of women relative to men. much vaunted increase of women in the German labour force was itself partly a statistical delusion. The first postwar census of 1925 showed of all women to be working, and increase of since 1907. Less remarked upon was the increase in the proportion of men working: to include of the total male population. Thus, while there was a somewhat larger relative increase in the proportion of women working, within the framework of a generally expanding work force, the change was not spectacular. Before the war, women made up of the after the war hardly a great leap forward. (149) presence was felt more because it had never really been accepted in the first place and because inflation and depression made jobs scarce and competitive. (150) In agriculture, the peasant woman was in a very oppressed position. A cross section of the Wurttemberg peasant economy showed the wife working an average of more hours a year than her husband and more than the hired help. Even before the war, the peasant wife had begun chaste the of her husband who seemed to care more for his cattle than his wife, treated her like a machine, and rarely appreciated her until she was dead. (152) As modern techniques began to penetrate agricultural life in the second half of the WR, they tended to displace the woman rather than give her a new and more prestigious role. When dairying and poultrying became big business they became Women were forced to turn for every household need to their husbands. This situation frustrated the woman and created a sense of dependence and frustration. Daughters therefore had no incentive to stay and become like their mothers. Many let for the city. Women had literally lost ground as heads of farms. In 1907 they were of independent heads of farm 1925 only 1933 only (153) of women worked in agriculture, but only were industrial workers. Another indication of the reduced role women played in the modernising sectors. Urban nonworking wives of industrial labourers became dependent on their husbands for the income needed to purchase essential items they might have once produced, such as food and clothing. They lost their economic indispensability. If women were forced to work for wages they did things such as piecework at home, working for the most exploitative rates of all. Additionally, much of the legislation designed to protect women was a sham. The 8 hour say did not account for work taken home at night underpaid women workers. Midday breaks were curtailed (154) because women preferred to leave earlier in the evening in order to prepare dinner for their family. 14 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? the media, they dreamed of marrying the boss rather than uniting against his exploitation of their labour and sex. Though they often worked hours for barely subsistence wages and had to look after families, they scrimped to buy the fashionable clothes and cosmetics their proletarian sisters churned out on the assembly line. (162) Once married she quit again we seen women leaving the economy as it modernises. In the fields of health, education the arts, graduates women did make some significant advances. Women were of social welfare huge number of female doctors, dentists, lawyers. This was an impressive set of gains, even if they did involve only of the total female working population However, when looked at another way progress in the professions was somewhat less spectacular. While of teachers were women, only headed schools, they were actually losing ground compared to before the war. Even before the war there had been a fear about the feminisation of education. Thus, after the revolution as states took over more of the educational burden, male influence in the schools increased. A court decision of 1922 put women teachers on a salary below men because (163) teachers were contributing to the material restoration of Germany training workmen, whereas women were only making Thus, education increased the number of female teachers, but derogated the position of women in education relative to the prewar period. Conclusion Postwar developments clearly did not provide an unmitigated (164) improvement for women and the traditional picture of their economic liberation must be seriously modified. Modernisation of techniques and concentration of ownership reshuffled jobs so that women as a group tended to fall further to the bottom Pressed more and more into unskilled work with lessened responsibility or out of the economy altogether, women lost status and relative independence and, quite probably, a sense of competence and Is it possible to say this process of of German women came to approximate them as helpless, clinging and objects projected onto the movie screens and encouraged the Kitsch of the Weimar period? for her abandonment of the family, suffering consequently from a sense of failure at home as well as at work where her socially induced feeling of inferiority was reinforced low pay and lack of advancement, it would not be surprising if the woman of the WR failed to embrace her supposed emancipation and even actively rejected it in politics, though a clear causal relationship may be difficult to prove. Compartive studies indicate that mdoernisation in this case reinforced sexism in general. (165) During the period of the WR, the harassed wife, the underpaid industrial worker, the dreamy exploited office and salesgirl, each has some reason to respond to a nostalgic appeal for a romanticised past of Kinder, Kuche, Kirche. To many women, modernisation meant they had come a long way in the wrong direction. (166) Boak, in Weimar European History Quaterly, Vol 20, no. 3 (1990) good for the German women are the freest in the world. They have full, unconditional equality with men, they can vote for and be elected to all political said German Socialist magazine, Die Gleichheit in Dec 1918, firmly but misguidedly equating political equality between men and women with total equality. Gleichhet, 29. 5 (6th December 1918), p. While some women viewed the vote in 1918 as the end of fight for emancipation, others saw it merely as the first step, a prerequisite to the attainment of total equality, the struggle for which could now be fought openly within the political arena. (369) Koonz has found that women in the Reich themselves as politicians first and women that political concerns were divided along sex lines with women primarily being concerned with cultural and social issues and that ideology, not femaleness, determined women politicians p. 665, 671, 16 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? Thonnessen highlights how the SPD movement returned to proletarian antifeminism after the war, with the party encouraging women to confine their political activities to the social sphere, in order to preserve all other spheres for men. The Emancipation of Women, Germany (London, concentration on social welfare work is seen Renate Pore as reinforcing traditional views of women and thus conflicting with and diverting energies from their goal of emancipation. A Conflict of Interest (London, (370) Purpose of the article is to examine participation at all levels, to put forward reasons for a decline in the women share of Reichstag seats and to see whether this decline was mirrored at state and local levels. It will be seen that the system of proportional representation used during the WR made chances of participating in political decision making bodies totally dependent on the goodwill of their parties, and the position given to them on the election lists. Crucial to these chances were the parties attitudes to their women members and to having women represent them. It will be seen that the parties of the left were more willing than the other parties to allow women to play an active role in politics and that in all parties there was a segregation into mens and womens political work, with men holding the positions of power and unwilling to relinquish them. Women were unable to demand more consideration in the places given them on the election lists because they lacked mass support from the female electorate and could not challenge the leadership because of their political inexperience and the restriction of their areas of interest to the social and cultural spheres, areas of low political prestige in which women did have some notable successes. (371) From the scant material available it appears that the number of women engaged in local politics steadily declined, but not uniformly, women often increasing their share of seats in towns with strong support for the SPD and KPD. (374) A survey carried out the German Female Citizens Association in 1929 casts light on some of the reasons for the fall in participation in local politics. Of the 239 women how took part in the survey, nearly half had served since 1919. When they gave up their seats, usually because of old age, they were replaced men, partly because of a lack of suitable younger women, and partly because their parties no longer felt it necessary to have women on their election lists to attract the female vote as the tendency grew for candidates to be chosen as representatives of economic interest groups. 1931, no woman to the right of the SPD held seat on the Land Councils. As Adele Schreiber had predicted after losing her SPD seat in the Reichstag elections of May 1924 (375), the further to the right the political pendulum swung, the fewer women politicians there would be. Where the parties of the left were strong, active female participation in the political decision making process was also relatively strong, as these were parties willing to allow women some chance of playing an active role in politics. But their benevolence was not sufficient to redress the steady decline in share of seats at the highest, most prestigious level, in the Reichstag, which March 1933 had fallen to Toward the end of the WR some contemporary observers claimed that women had exerted no influence on German political life. This is a rather negative but highlights the low esteem in which those areas in which women politicians managed to achieve success were held. Toni Sender, a USPD member of the Reichstag from noted that in the fields of the family, child care and social legislation German Republic had the most progressive and most elaborate The Reich Youth Welfare Law April the Law for the Prevention of Veneral Diseases, Jan Law for the Protection of Expectant Mothers July 1927 were all the work of women. (376) These laws were supported all women of the Reichstag, but more often than not ideological differences took precedence over the common bond of sex. Allegiances, p. 665, Women did not enter the National Assembly to further to interests of women, but of their party. Meetings of fellow female parliamentarians became less frequent as ideological differences became apparent. Parties disliked these meetings for they felt that first duty was to their parties and so saw the meetings as a breach of party discipline. Women in the Reichstag were only of delegates. No woman sat in the REichsrat, the upper house, nor any woman given a cabinet internationally they fell behind. In retain, where women had a smaller share of seats in the House of Commons than did German women in the Reichstag, Margaret Bondfield was appointed of Stat Jan 1924, becoming the first women Cabinet Minister in June 1929. In Denmark Nina Bang served as Education Minister from and elsewhere too, women reached positions of authority. Thus, few women relished in their positions in the Toni Sender wrote, office of deputy never 17 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? There was no female consciousness of a female ideology, rather they were politically divided. Adele Schrieber, The Sunday Times, 26th November 1922, independent woman candidate appealing to women on purely feminine grounds would not get a single (390) Eifert to terms with the In analysis of maternalist politics during the period when state welfare structures were being stablished, many historians focus on one factor which obviously determined the relationship between woman and the state: class. They argue that white middle class women, free of domestic drudgery and with the educational and financial resources to campaign for social welfare programmes and policies, claimed to instruct the conduct of working class women. In order to demonstrate the limits and inherently exploitative nature of maternalist politics, much emphasis has been placed on the construction of overall hostility to their sisters. (26) The essay aims to define the significance of maternalism, and to draw conclusions about the impact of movements on the formation of welfare stats as a means of gaining full citizenship. The case study examines the politics of Arbeiterwohlfahrt, a welfare association established in 1919 as part of the German Social Democratic Party. The Arbeiterwohlfahrt is key in analysing maternalist politics for many it was the first welfare organisation run and led predominantly women, working class women who adopted the concept of maternalism and tried to use their welfare association as a starting point for politics. The objective is to discover why, under the relatively encouraging political conditions described here, this welfare association had no chance to exercise any considerable influence in shaping the Weimar Welfare state. Thesis: the space in which Social Democratic welfare women could claim for their political activities was not restricted class and that their choice of maternalist politics clearly demonstrates the limitations of the existing concept of participation in democratic society, of citizenship. (27) Arbeiterwohlfahrt founded Social Democratic women in order to put their ongoing welfare activities on a solid footing. Despite their many years of experience, the SD women had at their disposal neither resources, nor qualified, skilled personnel, nor influential political allies within or outside the party. They set out to create new welfare programs aims at the children of families. They did not aspire to participate in the professionalization of welfare work, but viewed this as a means to gain political knowledge for future political careers. They hoped that they would be able to realise constitutional citizenship for women on a local, regional and state level. Not until there were enough women representing and acting on behalf of women in all bodies of the state, they believed, could the constitutional claim to equality be realised for women. Thus the women of Arbeiterwohlfahrt used maternalist rhetoric to challenge and change existing political structures and gender (28) divisions of labour. The Weimar Republic did not change the AW: of all AW workers were women. (29) SD women succeeded in establishing their welfare association under the difficult political and economic conditions of the early Weimar Republic. (30) The intention was to participate in the public welfare system and democratise the nascent state welfare system through its own participation. Since the SD had won a substantial number of seats on local councils at the beginning of the WR, the entry of AW members into the newly established municipal welfare administration seemed assured. They had a smooth transition due to their welfare experience into a political role responsibility for shaping the democratic state, and thus the realisation of their rights as citizens. (31) AW supported strike action but this was criticised Social Democrat politicians. They saw it as local associations acting without first consulting their national boards. (33) 1928 the national boards of the AW, agreed upon a set of guiding principles. These regulated the manner in which strikers were to be supported in the future. The most important stipulation was the one strictly forbidding any initiatives on the part of local associations. Community aid for strikes in this case was interpreted as a political act and therefore withdrawn from the jurisdiction of local AW associations. Yet community aid activities during strikes were indisguishable from the daily practice of voluntary welfare services run AW women: the collection and redistribution of food and clothing and arrangement of recreation trips for endangered children. It is of fundamental important to clarify how the very same activity came to be perceived and categorised in extremely different ways, and to identify who held the power of definition and redefinition. (34) 19 To what extent did the idea of the shape the life of women in the Weimar Republic? The AW set up soup kitchens for unemployed workers and their families. Party members criticised the use of soup kitchens families and demanded their exclusion. Their argument was: the father of the family is unemployed that is no reason to condemn the mother to idleness within the The Aw replied that the soup kitchens can in no way be compared to impersonal mass feedings that might threaten the survival of families we are the housewives of a community that shares both ideology and work are cooking for the members of one big In times of extreme hardship, the argument went, the overstrained family household could always be replaced without harm the family of the Social Democratic party. (35) Obviously it is not exclusion from the public sphere that prevents them from performing any action that is percieevd as political. On the contrary, it is their appearance and their ctivities which force their male comrades to redefine as private whatever space the women invade. Definigin and redefining space according to the gender of th activists entering those spaces was at the very centre of male defence strategies, and it proved an effective instrument for excluding women from the political arena. As the confrontations between political parties became militarised, AW women took on the task of caring for injured and imprisoned party memebrs and their families. In September 1932, AW national board felt compelled to give precise orders to all local AW associations on how to offer support in The national board emphasised that it was the exclusive responsibility of the party and the SDs to offer legal counselling to those arrested. At most, AW women were allowed to provide relief to families and make hospital visits. As the example of community aid during strikes has already illustrated, the party and combat unity were determined to exclude all AW associations and AW women from independent intervention into what they regarded as political actions and political confrontations. The attitude was marked an extremely deep distrust of Social Democratic women, whom they regarded as trying to cross the border erected between mere auxiliaries and politics, and to meddle in male business. (36) The relationship between social and welfare policy clearly reflects gender relations in German society, especially the hierarchy inherent to the gender division of labor. As long as housework and the living and working conditions of wives, who were responsible for feeding, clothing, and raising family members, were conceived of as private and inaccessible to political change, all initiatives in this field were, their very definition, nonpolitical. As a consequence, as we have seen, AW women were expected to be the homeworkers of a political movement and to accept the restriction of their activities to that of auxiliaries. From a male point of view, remaining within the boundaries of their realm was a sound precondition for integration into public life and the exercise of their citizenship rights. The challenge AW women faced during the Weimar Republic was thus indeed a complex one: to gain full access to a political system based on their inclusion in a subordinate and dependent segment of civil society cy, of course!) while at the same time changing the criteria of their inclusion. (38) In order to breakdown the bariers of political exclsuon for female, AW directorate initiated ongoing training courses for female staff. This was not enough, however, to break through the political isolation in which the welfare association and its staff found themselves. Local politicians proudly presented and praised the activities and the mmbers of the AW association during election campaign s and in times of crisis, but never did they consider sharing their paid positions or political functions. The only concession made to AW women was that they might apply for volunteer posts offered the public welfare office, such as investigating or supervising juveniles. (39) In 1926, Clara Reichstag deputy believed it was no accident that a large proportion of the female deputies had begun their political careers long before the First World War, at a time when women had still received support within the party. Of the fifteen women who represented the Soc
Literature On The New Woman
Module: The Collapse of the Weimar Republic (V13347)
University: University of Nottingham
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