Second-wave feminism in Germany

Historically, social systems throughout the world were organized paternally.[2] Patriarchal structures can be found in all areas of society: in governmental power structures, in the economies of developing countries,[3] in the sciences and in medicine. The first changes to this system appeared as a self-conscious, feminist movement.[4]

The emergence of women's movements and the discussion of women's rights was contingent on the French Revolution's goals to achieve universal equality.[5][6] On 14 September 1791, French feminist Olympe de Gouges demanded equal rights for men and women.[7] During this period, the women's movement was influenced predominantly by class issues.[8] Louise Otto-Peters is believed to be the founder of the first middle-class women's movement which pursued the participation of women in education and politics. According to Otto-Peters, female participation in politics was a duty rather than a right.[9]

During the mid-19th century, women's movements formed in France, England, the United States, and Australia. Hubertine Auclert, editor of the newspaper La Citoyenne (Female Citizen) coined the term "féminisme" in 1882 as a political principle. Auclert had protested the French government's decision to deny women the right to vote, stood as an illegal candidate for the French government and refused to pay taxes: "I have no rights, therefore, I have no taxes; I do not vote, I do not pay."[10] Auclert's term was introduced in 1896 at an international women's convention in Berlin (the Internationaler Kongress für Frauenwerke und Frauenbestrebungen) as a synonym for Frauenbewegung ("women's movement").[11]

Nazism made drastic changes to German society, restructuring it around Nazi values. In 1933, Baldur von Schirach[12] was appointed Reichsjugendführer (Reich youth leader) by Adolf Hitler. Before 1933, youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts[13] existed as part of German Christian or political associations. Von Schirach formed a uniformed youth movement out of those groups, the Hitler Youth, with membership becoming mandatory in 1936.[14]

The Hitler Youth was structured by gender.[15] It had two groups: the militaristic Hitler Jugend and Deutsches Jungvolk for boys,[16] and the Bund Deutscher Mädchen[15] to train girls to be "obedient housewi[ves] and mother[s]".[17]

In 1933, the Nazis banned female professors from teaching at universities.[18] National Socialist legislation from 1933 to 1945 restricted women's right to attend university, leading to a rupture in academic employment and career development for women.[19] Discriminatory Nazi legislature was also evident in the Judiciary Training Regulations of 22 July 1934,[20] according to which female lawyers were "einen Einbruch in den altgeheiligten Grundsatz der Männlichkeit des Staates" ("an invasion of the holy and established principles of the nation's manliness").[21] The Nazis destroyed women's organizations, exiling Anita Augspurg and Lida Gustava Heymann (pioneers of the first women's movement and opponents of the Nazi regime) to Switzerland in 1933.[22]

Near the end of World War II, women were required to work in factories to compensate for the lack of male labor.[19] Although their economic value changed, their social status did not.[23] Barbara Brennan described how they were perceived: "The German women who survived the Second World War are often characterized by the familiar images of long lines of women digging the country out from underneath the rubble."[24]

After the collapse of the Third Reich, women were gradually relieved of their new duties by returning prisoners of war.[25] Women who served the country during the war as volunteers or conscripts had to face the repercussions of their actions, which affected their careers and personal lives.[26]

Feminism was virtually non-existent from 1945 to 1966. An important exception is a phrase in the human-rights section of the new German constitution, which states: "Men and women have equal rights".[27] This is similar to the Weimarer Reichsverfassung, the Weimar Republic constitution, whose Article 109 read: "Alle Deutschen sind vor dem Gesetze gleich"[28] ("All Germans are equal under the law") and "Männer und Frauen haben grundsätzlich dieselben staatsbürgerlichen Rechte und Pflichten"[29] ("Men and women have strictly the same rights and obligations.")

During the 1960s several feminist groups were founded, which were characterized as the second wave.[47] University students began questioning their educators, many of whom were considered former Nazi collaborators:[48]

After the bitter experience of the Nazi regime and Second World War, Germans, both in East and West turned away from militarism. Although West Germany decided in the early 1950s – despite strong protests in Parliament and among the public – to follow East Germany in rebuilding an army and (unlike East Germany) join NATO, West German soldiers took no part in international combat missions until German reunification in 1990.[49]

— Mark Davis

This political environment enabled the formation of a new women's movement: second-wave feminism. At a 13 September 1968 conference of the Socialist German Student Association (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund, or SDS),[50] a female SDS activist of the SDS blamed her male colleagues for not pushing social criticism far enough and ignoring discrimination against women.[51] The SDS was the mirror image of a masculine society. When the association did not discuss the issue and returned to the initial agenda, Sigrid Rüger (a member of the West Berlin SDS and Aktionsrat zur Befreiung der Frauen, the Mission for the Liberation of Women) hit an SDS board member with a tomato.[51][52] That day, female members of the SDS regional councils founded Weiberräte[53] ("hag-councils") and formed women's centres. The centres encouraged women to protest against "division of labour, birth control, laws, sexuality in politics and abortion".[51][53][54]

• Feminism in Germany