Frame and Preparation
Jahrhundert – gedrittelt
Conceptual Frames and Background
- Neue Frau
- Gender roles/women’s roles in society
- Feminist movement
- History of femininity
- Time and gender
- Mutterschutz
Introduction
In her essay “Jahrhundert – gedrittelt,” published in the newspaper Berliner Tageblatt in 1932, Marieluise Fleißer reflects on the first third of the 20th century from the perspective of women’s rights and the feminist movement in Germany. She takes a more conservative view of women’s changing roles in modern German society, criticizing what she calls a “Übergangsphase” in the 1920s, in which women were liberated but expected to maintain all of their previous household responsibilities while also work full-time outside of the home to support their often unemployed husbands—what she calls the “Zwickmühle” of women’s position in society. Anticipating the turn to maternity in mainstream feminist politics with the rise of the Nazis in 1933, she heralds a new era in women’s rights in which “Mutterschutz” takes first priority for the state and society, protecting women from economic exploitation as well as social discrimination.
Preparation
A rudimentary understanding of the major figures, impulses, and points of contention of the 19th and early 20th-century feminist movement in Germany is helpful, especially its developments during the 1920s.
Text and Discussion
Find the text here. (Pages 427-9, access through HathiTrust, so you will need institutional access.)
- How does Fleißer frame her discussion of the development of the feminist movement during the 20th century?
- How does she divide and describe the various phases of this development during the first third of the century?
- What is the “Zwickmühle” of women’s situation during the 1920s?
- What does Fleißer mean when she invokes “Mutterschutz” as the future of the feminist movement? What aspects of social and economic life for women does she understand this term to encompass?
- How does Fleißer weigh social liberties and new possibilities for women against socioeconomic reality of a woman’s daily life?
- Fleißer raises the age-old debate in feminist thought and politics: what should come first, economic or social-political liberation? Which path will truly emancipate women? And must we choose between the two?