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-rearingNEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL: That only the male brain is suited for quantitative and abstract reasoningMEDICAL: That adolescent girls would become barren if asked to study as hard at school as boysPSYCHOLOGICAL: 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 GERMANYTotal 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 toenroll 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 (1890-1976), 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)