Ingrid Sharp

Women's International Activism during the Inter-War Period, 1919–1939

This article explains why women’s international activism in the inter-war period should be a subject of scholarly interest, and also discusses the myriad and vibrant forms it could take. For some women campaigners, international work—whether through established national women’s movements or via separate, radical pacifist organisations—was crucial for the prevention of war and the maintenance of world peace. However, this was not the only motivation. Others were interested in the scientific or professional advantages of combining knowledge at international or transnational level. Others still were keen to exploit international links in order to further political objectives closer to home, such as the achievement of women’s suffrage, the encouragement of inter-cultural understanding between women from different ethnic, religious or linguistic backgrounds, or the promotion of conservative values, anti-communism or physical fitness within particular national or multi-national settings. Examples of all of these kinds of activism can be found in the individual contributions to this special issue.

Overcoming Inner Division: post-suffrage strategies in the organised German women's movement

German women were working within a context strikingly different from either the USA or the UK following the granting of suffrage in 1918. Focusing on the largest of the bourgeois womens organisations, the Federation of Womens Associations (Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, BDF), this article situates the post-suffrage strategies and priorities of the German womens movement within their particular national context. The BDF have been accused of failing to fully utilise the vote as a tool for change, but a study of their journal, Die Frau, shows that it was the weight of external factors that reduced the BDFs impact, rather than any failure of courage or commitment by the women. An overview of German press coverage of female suffrage before, during and after the war sets out the mental landscape within which the women were operating and gives for the first time a much-needed indication of public response to the issue.

‘A foolish dream of sisterhood’: Anti-Pacifist Debates in the German Women’s Movement, 1914–1919

In 1914, before the outbreak of the First World War, the dominant discourse within women’s organizations was of the natural pacifism and the international solidarity of all women, especially among those who were working to improve their social, professional, and political situation.1 The women’s movement since the turn of the century had become increasingly international and even the German women, at first reluctant to cooperate beyond their own borders, had been drawn in.2 International congresses were held in Berlin in 1896, 1904 — at which the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance (IWSA) was founded, and 1912, with a further meeting planned there for 1915.3

Blaming the Women: Women’s ‘Responsibility’ for the First World War

At the end of the nineteenth century, in Germany, as in most of Europe, women were frequently made responsible for male actions despite their lack of power and legal rights. At that time, German women were downtrodden even by the standards of the rest of Europe, with women trapped by legal, social and class restrictions, by established customs and the militarization of civil society, until they existed in a state of almost complete dependence on and subjection to men (Gerhardt 1978). Women were subject to male guardianship; the doors of most professions were closed to them, as were those of higher education. The Prussian Law of Association, which prevented women from even being present at political meetings, remained in place from 1851 to 1908, making campaigning for female suffrage well-nigh impossible during this period.

‘An unbroken family’? Gertrud Bäumer and the German Women’s movement’s return to international work in the 1920s

ABSTRACT At the end of the First World War, the international womens organisations presented a unified face to the world, claiming to have emerged from the conflict as an ‘unbroken family’. However, the return to internationalism was not as straightforward as this suggests and there were many barriers to re-establishing the links that had been interrupted by the conflict. Reintegration into the international community was particularly challenging for women in defeated nations, especially for those who had engaged in patriotic war work and identified strongly with the bitter fate of their nation. By exploring the difficult return of the German women’s leader, Gertrud Bäumer, to working with the international organisations, this article will highlight some of the obstacles and ambiguities they faced in their project of restoring the ‘imagined community’ of international women activists in the aftermath of a brutal conflict that had established war and peace as matters of vital feminist concern.

Introduction: Women’s Movements And Female Activists In The Aftermath Of War: International Perspectives 1918-1923

This chapter gives an account of the role played by organised women and female activists in the aftermath of war, and addresses the question identified by Joan Scott in her essay for the seminal volume Behind the Lines (1987), asking not simply what impact the war had on these individuals and groups and how they themselves influenced events, but what our knowledge and understanding of these womens aims and strategies tell us about the politics of war and the transition to peace. The author identifies four key themes which run through the essays: commemoration of the war; the renegotiation of gender roles in the wars immediate aftermath; womens suffrage and political rights; and womens contribution to rebuilding shattered communities and creating new visions of peace in the years 1918 to 1923. Keywords: female activists; Joan Scott; political rights; womens contribution

The Disappearing Surplus: The Spinster In The Post-War Debate In Weimar Germany, 1918-1920

As the womens movement in Russia has its own specific history which is connected with the peculiarities of the political and economic development of the country, this chapter starts with a short preamble describing its characteristic features in order to provide a contextual background. The First World War created new opportunities for Russian feminists who strove to meet the new needs of the nation. A decisive role in womens suffrage in Russia was played by the outbreak of revolution in February 1917. In the autumn of 1917, the Provisional Government took the decision to open all forms of waged employment to female applicants. But the October Revolution took place in the same year, replacing parliamentary democracy with the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Several Russian feminists, such as Ariadna Tyrkova, emerged as prominent figures in the anti-Bolshevik opposition in the period immediately after the October Revolution. Keywords:October Revolution; Russia; womens suffrage

Introduction: The Women’s Movement and the First World War

The First World War marked a crisis for the burgeoning women’s movements in Europe and in the United States and tested the strength of the international bonds that the movement had been working to establish since the late nineteenth century. The outbreak of the war forced those active in the women’s movement to make a choice between supporting their own country in a time of crisis and remaining true to the dominant vision of the ‘natural’ pacifism and international sisterhood of all women. In most of the combatant nations, the call to arms polarized women, often dividing those who had worked closely together, with some rallying unproblematically to their nation’s flag, others suspending their struggle for women’s advancement and turning their backs on their international contacts ‘for the duration of the war’, while yet others remained (or became) staunchly pacifist, developing and refining their ideological position as the war progressed.

Making a space for women: student conferences as an example of feminist staff-student interaction in the university

This paper addresses the question of how to integrate womens issues more fully into the academic curriculum which, because it remains male-dominated, discourages women students from finding their voice and asserting deviant perspectives. It argues strongly for providing feminist spaces within mainstream courses where women students and teachers can explore and celebrate their experiences and viewpoints. It suggests that these spaces can be created by means of student conferences, that is, conferences targeted at student audiences at which staff and students interact in non-hierarchical ways. The main body of this paper is a report on the specific example of two such conferences held in the German Department of the University of Leeds between 1993 and 1994.