Gender Flashcards
In what year did a survey of West German men show a majority felt politics should be left to men?
1975
By when were practically all women of working age engaged in full-time wage labour, and did the proportion of women at almost every level of the educational system reach that of men in Hungary?
The middle of the 1970s
How did post-war Hungary attempt to lessen the domestic and reproductive responsibilities of women? (4)
Free nursery and child care centres, paid leave time for mothers of sick children, subsidised meals and laundry services, generous maternity leave policies
What is evidence that by the 1980s a veritable cult of motherhood had emerged in Poland?
Solidarity and the communist state vied to represent mothers as fountains of Polish strength and objects of Polish protection
In the 1980s what percentage of men comprised the Polish communist party?
75%
In the 1980s what percentage of men comprised the East German communist party?
65%
What was the percentage of women members, including candidates and voting members, in the Czech Party central committee in the 1980s?
17%
By when, had women become the majority of students across Eastern Socialist Bloc?
The early 1980s but earlier in EG and Czechoslovakia
According to Eastern European and Soviet surveys of the 1970s (when c. 50% of workforce female) what percentage of household work was performed by women?
80-90%
By 1989, what was the contrast in kindergarten spots in EG, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania?
80% in East Germany, 16% in Czechoslovakia and single digit coverage in Hungary Poland and Romania
By the 1980s, how much did Eastern European states spend on social programs and subsidies?
More than 20% of GDP
Why did the GDR party leadership come round to legalisation in 1971 of abortion?
Because it was eager to prove it was abetter friend of women than West Germany
In the 1970s what influenced the blossoming of an emancipated heterosexuality in East Germany?
German cultural traditions, WG TV and the Party’s blessing
In 1970s EG what happened with regards to relaxed sexual mores and sexual enlightenment?
Women’s sexual fulfilment was celebrated, and nudism entered the mainstream of leisure pastimes
How many million condoms were produced annually by the German pharmaceutical industry during the Weimar era?
80 million+
What is Ute Frevert’s argument about the Nazi period and women? (6)`
- Nazi Period not simply a period of “regression” for women
- Some areas deemed as ‘progress’ by historians destroyed by Nazis e.g. voting rights/access to the upper echelons of the civil service/family planning but other areas new opportunities
- Nazis clearly didn’t have women’s emancipation as their core aims, seeking to make them ‘malleable and accommodating’, but that doesn’t mean that several by-products of these aims actually benefited women
- The outcome of policy could have different/often diametrically opposed effects to those intended
- While previous tendency to cast women as helpless victims/prey to a ‘omnipotent, totalitarian polity which excluded them’, actually seems likely that the reality for most women was bearable if not appealing
- Points to the relative rarity of deliberate acts of political resistance on women’s part
What is the aim of Herzog’s sexuality in Europe (2011)? (3)
- Aim: to reflect on sexuality in Europe, not as part of a framework of progress, but rather by accounting for the complicated/diverse attitudes towards it
- Reconstruct ways people imagined sex, and the assumptions/emotions it invoked
- Explores how Europeans battled over the ethics of sex
What is important context for regimes’ demographic campaigns?
General decrease in fertility across Europe in first decades of 20th C
What must we remember to account for when reflecting upon how a regime treated women? (8)
variation w age/class/marital status/geographical location/religion/violence/culture/identity
What was there often a disjunct between?
the model/ideal traits of a women and the more real/particular groups of women that the regime was legislating for in reality
What was the purpose of the introduction of legislation/financial incentives?
The introduction of legislation/financial incentives etc., hoping to make ‘ideals’ the reality
What did the introduction of legislation/financial incentives etc., hoping to make ‘ideals’ the reality often do?
always addressed/provided/catered for specific groups of women
What does the difference in laws and practical realities regarding specific things actually tell us?
Consider relationship between state and ordinary people - who is pushing who?
What is important to consider with regards to abortion laws? (3)
Was it a matter of liberal versus authoritarian states?
A matter of religious esp. Catholic, states vs secular states?
Why would some welfare states be more accepting of abortions than other?
Why is it important to note that the societies in question didn’t develop independently from each other, but in cooperation and competition?
Gender policies were clearly meant to distinguish different societies from their forerunners or other contemporary societies
Why is it important not to only think about questions of choices and agency? (4)
- More so a question of the role of the state and interference with the private realm
- Democratic welfare states can be rather intrusive e.g. when it comes to disciplining parents
- Authoritarian regimes do not need much justification to interfere w the private as the interests of individuals are subsumed under the interests of the “nation”/Volksemeinschaft
- Reactions to this and limited by this
Why is it important to consider temporality? (3)
- Not simply a narrative of gradual progress
- would be an oversimplification of 20th c European sexual politics
- There were backlashes and problems with reaching/defining a sexually liberal society
Impact of WWI on a personal level i.e. in relationships? (4)
- many couples separated for a long time if not forever
- Increasingly blurred gender role boundaries/reorganisation of social roles
- Women increasingly taken on men’s roles/responsibilities at home in their absence
- Men who returned often psychologically, if not also physically, harmed
Greater loosening of sexual customs across period - increased interest/ventures in non-traditional sexual arrangements amongst both hetero/homosexuals? (6) evidence
- Increased availability/methods of contraception
- Push for greater homosexual rights
- Greater acceptance of premarital sex and importance of sex within marriage
- Greater advice for partnered sex
- Relaxation of Church teachings on sex, esp. from 1930s-60s
- Greater appreciation for female sexual determination, advanced by women’s movements of 1970s-90s
Greater visibility of homosexuality across period (3)
Open homosexual subcultures flourished in most major European cities
Growing visibility/literary publications around homosexuality
Steps taken towards defining what exactly homosexuality was
Why is it important to consider both short-term and long-term changes? (2)
- Gender concepts do not only inform institutions in a given society and are reflected in its structure, they are also inscribed in people’s biographies e.g. via education and different possibilities on the job market
- These differences in qualification are still present decades later as they can only partially be undone by later policies
What generally was there variation between spatially?
- Generally but not uniformly the case that southern Europe more conservative/northern Europe more liberal
- Also differences bw nations/regions/urban centres and rural areas
What did fascist regimes constitute a backlash against?
idea that individuals could have sexual rights
General tendencies - immediate aftermath of WWII? (3)
- Attempts to deflect attention from the memory of genocide of European Jewry resulted in extensive moral discussion/focus on sexual conduct/immorality during WW2 instead
- Emphasis on women’s sexual relationships with occupiers distracted from the far broader phenomenon of male political collaboration & general embarrassment/humiliation at military defeat
- As part of the swing toward sexual conservatism, the Church promoted it as part of the anti-Nazi program, associating Nazis w sexual libertinism/promiscuity
How were women in post-Liberation France treated for having sexual relationships with Germans?
E.g. in post-Liberation France, roughly 20,000 women, accused of ‘horizontal collaboration’ with Germans were humiliated by having their hair shorn in front of jeering crowds
Who’s work was attention paid to as part of the interwar period’s anti-capitalist, sex-radical tradition’s rediscovery in the 1960s/70s?
Austrian Freudian Marxist Wilhelm Reich’s 1920s/30s work
Central argument of Reich’s The Sexual Revolution, The Function of the Orgasm, The Mass Psychology of Fascism?
Central argument: ‘cruel character traits’ evident among those ‘in a condition of chronic sexual dissatisfaction’, while ‘genitally satisfied people’ displayed ‘gentleness and goodness’ (Reich, 1927)
How did young radicals in WG use Reich’s work to try to understand their parents’ generation’s participation in the persecution/murder of the European Jewry?
Hoped that by following Reich’s guidance to treat their own young children’s sexuality as normal/healthy rather than dangerous/deserving of repression, they could prevent the formation of fascistic personalities in the future
What is the significance of widespread anxiety about the decline of male predominance and declining birth rates? (8)
- Interpreted as a weakening of a nation’s strength
- Explains fascist regimes general tendency to:
- Criminalise contraception/intensify suppression of abortion
- Women’s inability to control their own reproductive life-choices made them dependent/vulnerable
- Encouraged higher birthrate
- Oppose male homosexuality
- Conflicted with the form/image of masculinity regimes promoted
- Presumably homosexuality seen as hindering birthrate
