19th-CENTURY ARGUMENTS THAT WOMEN’S
PROPER SPHERE INVOLVED Kinder, Küche, Kirche
SOCIOLOGICAL: That all progress of civilization
depends on a strict division of labor between the sexes
and devotion by women to child-rearing
NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL: That only the male brain is
suited for quantitative and abstract reasoning
MEDICAL: That adolescent girls would become barren
if asked to study as hard at school as boys
PSYCHOLOGICAL: That women are especially prone
to mental illness (“hysteria”)
Experts began to challenge all these arguments in the
1890s….
Rural family scene (1839): “Work” & “housework” are linked
The (bourgeois) Children’s Nursery, 1823
“The Sewing Room” (1823)
Gymnastics class for girls, around 1912
German parents did give daughters some freedom to choose
a suitor (courting in a Berlin park, around 1907)
THE SPREAD OF FAMILY PLANNING IN GERMANY
Total number of children born by women married in the years-Pre-1905
1905-09
1910-14
1915-19
In cities with over 100,000 people
Self-employed
3.30
2.40
1.98
1.61
White-collar
3.01
2.40
2.04
1.74
Blue-collar
4.03
3.16
2.64
2.18
Among the peasantry (villages with under 2,000)
Self-employed
5.42
4.64
4.10
3.52
Farmworker
6.18
5.38
4.87
4.26
Delegates to the Women’s Suffrage Congress in Munich, 1912
Only in 1908 did Prussia allow women to
enroll in universities
THE REALITY OF
WOMEN’S LABOR:
Women assemble
adding machines
at the German
General Electric
Factory, Berlin,
c. 1908
“Homeworkers” sew
garments at home
for extremely low
piece-rate wages
“Give Us Women’s Suffrage,”
SPD poster for the International
Women’s Congress of March
1914, organized by Clara Zetkin:
“Until now, prejudice and
reactionary attitudes have
denied full civic rights to women,
who as workers, mothers, and
citizens wholly fulfill their duty,
who must pay their taxes to the
state as well as the municipality.
Fighting for this natural human
right must be the firm,
unwavering intention of every
woman, every female worker.”
August Bebel, Woman and
Socialism (50th edn., 1910;
first published 1877)
“Thank you, dear wife. What’s
the news?” (SPD cartoon from
1892, in a house where the wife
can afford to stay at home)
PUZZLES FOR WOMEN’S HISTORIANS
What did the phrase “the New Woman” imply?
Did women make real progress toward economic
equality in the 1920s?
Did media images of women reflect their actual
behavior or male fantasies?
Why did the Center Party and DNVP succeed best at
attracting women voters?
Why did women’s voter participation and share of
elected delegates decline after 1919?
Did the leftist parties live up to their egalitarian
rhetoric in their actual treatment of women?
Why was the KPD the only party to campaign for the
legalization of abortion?
The conventional
image of the war
widow:
“Let me shed my tears
quietly;
I must strive for honor,
Must serve the
Fatherland”
(postcard from 1915)
Richard Ziegler,
“The Young Widow
(The Second Ego),”
1922.
The “New
Woman”
(with Bubbikopf)
according to the
glossy
magazines:
Der Junggeselle
[The Bachelor],
1922
George Grosz, “The Woman Killer” (1918)
Bruno Ziegler, “The Judgment of Paris” (1928)
Poster advertising
“The Red Mill”
in Berlin, 1924.
Germany did not
have women
bartenders before
the War.
In these postcards from the German General Electric Co.,
famous actresses use the newest household appliances
Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel and Morocco (1930)
“Provide for our
future– Vote for the
Center Party”
(campaign poster
from 1928)
“We hold fast to the Word of God!
Vote German Nationalist” (1930)
“Women,
Remember!
Rent hikes,
joblessness,
tariffs, hunger, tax
hikes, inflation.
No more rightist
governments.
Vote DDP!”
(campaign poster
from 1928)
“Mother! Think
of Me! Vote
Social
Democratic”
(SPD campaign
poster,
1919 & 1924)
“National Comrades,
Vote Social
Democratic”
(SPD, 1928, the only
poster featuring the
“New Woman” that
Julia Sneeringer
could discover)
“Their Idea of
Freedom!
Defend Yourselves!”
(KPD, 1930)
“Mothers,
Working Women:
We Vote for the
National
Socialists”
(campaign poster
from 1928)
Käthe
Kollwitz,
"Down with
the Abortion
Statute!“
(1924),
published by
the KPD
WRY OBSERVERS OF WOMEN’S POSITION IN BERLIN:
Hannah Höch
(1889-1978): Designer
for the Ullstein Press
Jeanne Mammen (18901976), a fashion illustrator
who grew up in Paris
Hannah Höch,
“The Beautiful
Girl” (1920)
Hannah Höch,
“Cut with the Dada
Kitchen Knife
through the Last
Epoch of the
Weimar Beer Belly
Culture of Germany”
(1919-20)
Hannah
Höch,
“Love in the
Bush”
(1925)
Jeanne
Mammen, “In
Front of the
Beach
Photographer”
(mid-1920s)
Jeanne
Mammen,
“Two Women
Dancing”
(mid-1920s)
Jeanne
Mammen,
“Boring Dolls,”
ca. 1929
Jeanne Mammen, “Berlin Street Scene” (ca. 1928)