Women, Gender, and Fascism in Europe, 1919-45


Book Description

Investigates the role of women and gender in fascist and non-fascist movements of the extreme right. The text re-examines the nature of the extreme right in the light of research in the field of women's and gender studies, offering an accessible overview of developments in Europe.




Women in Nazi Society


Book Description

This fascinating book examines the position of women under the Nazis. The National Socialist movement was essentially male-dominated, with a fixed conception of the role women should play in society; while man was the warrior and breadwinner, woman was to be the homemaker and childbearer. The Nazi obsession with questions of race led to their insisting that women should be encouraged by every means to bear children for Germany, since Germany’s declining birth rate in the 1920s was in stark contrast with the prolific rates among the 'inferior' peoples of eastern Europe, who were seen by the Nazis as Germany’s foes. Thus, women were to be relieved of the need to enter paid employment after marriage, while higher education, which could lead to ambitions for a professional career, was to be closed to girls, or, at best, available to an exceptional few. All Nazi policies concerning women ultimately stemmed from the Party’s view that the German birth rate must be dramatically raised.




Winning Women's Votes


Book Description

In November 1918, German women gained the right to vote, and female suffrage would forever change the landscape of German political life. Women now constituted the majority of voters, and political parties were forced to address them as political actors for the first time. Analyzing written and visual propaganda aimed at, and frequently produced by, women across the political spectrum--including the Communists and Social Democrats; liberal, Catholic, and conservative parties; and the Nazis--Julia Sneeringer shows how various groups struggled to reconcile traditional assumptions about women's interests with the changing face of the family and female economic activity. Through propaganda, political parties addressed themes such as motherhood, fashion, religion, and abortion. But as Sneeringer demonstrates, their efforts to win women's votes by emphasizing "women's issues" had only limited success. The debates about women in propaganda were symptomatic of larger anxieties that gripped Germany during this era of unrest, Sneeringer says. Though Weimar political culture was ahead of its time in forcing even the enemies of women's rights to concede a public role for women, this horizon of possibility narrowed sharply in the face of political instability, economic crises, and the growing specter of fascism.




Forging the Bubikopf Nation


Book Description

The era between World Wars I and II set East-Central Europe on a path of a modernization that was opening up numerous possibilities for challenging the region's traditional politics and established gender roles. In interwar Yugoslavia, questions of ethnically driven nationalism dominated the public discourse, but the modernizing processes of industrialization and rising consumerism also opened up a small public space for the development of the women's press. The intuitive and change-driven Croatian journalist and novelist Marija Juric Zagorka led this parallel and alternative public discourse in Yugoslavia's most popular interwar women's magazine, Zenski list. Forging the Bubikopf Nation is a book about this magazine, its editor, and its readers as well as about the alternative visions of modernity that they were offering to the magazine's readers, both throughout Yugoslavia and within the diasporic communities in the United States and Canada during the thirteen years of the magazine's existence from 1925-1938. Sensitively written, but researched with great methodological rigor and from a range of theoretical perspectives, this is a must-read book for all of those who are interested in mass communication, history, gender, and politics and for those who want to better understand this pivotal time in the history of a highly complex and intriguing part of the world.




The Fascism Reader


Book Description

The Fascism Reader is a fascinating and wide-ranging introduction to the complex nature, limits, aspects and dynamics of fascism as both ideology and practice. The book draws together classic and recent interpretations to trace the development of generic fascism. Exploring fascism in all its diverse manifestations, this book discusses the classic examples of National Socialism in Germany and Fascism in Italy, as well as a series of less familiar movements and regimes, including the Iron Guard in Romania, the British Union of Fascists, Salazar's dictatorship in Portugal and Franco's regime in Spain. The Fascism Reader explores all the key aspects of fascism including: the essence and limitations of generic fascism the intellectual and ideological dimensions of fascism regimes of fascism as particular models of the exercise of power fascism and society - from anti-Semitism to fascist attitudes to women. A must for all students of European history, sociology and politics.




The Routledge History of Women in Europe since 1700


Book Description

The Routledge History of Women in Europe since 1700 is a landmark publication that provides the most coherent overview of woman’s role and place in western Europe, spanning the era from the beginning of the eighteenth century until the twentieth century. In this collection of essays, leading women's historians counter the notion of ‘national’ histories and provide the insight and perspective of a European approach. Important intellectual, political and economic developments have not respected national boundaries, nor has the story of women’s past, or the interplay of gender and culture. The interaction between women, ideology and female agency, the way women engaged with patriarchal and gendered structures and systems, and the way women carved out their identities and spaces within these, informs the writing in this book. For any student of women’s studies or European history, The Routledge History of Women in Europe since 1700 will prove an informative addition to their studies.




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


Book Description

In historical writing the interwar years are often associated with the rise of extreme forms of nationalism. Yet paradoxically this period also saw significant advances in the development of internationalism and international-mindedness. This collection examines previously under-researched aspects of the role played by women’s movements and individual female activists in this process. Women campaigners contributed to, and helped to (re)define, what constituted international work in myriad ways. For some, particularly those coming from a radical pacifist background, the central theme after 1919 was the eradication of war and the preservation of world peace. Yet others were more interested in the sharing of medical knowledge across borders, in the promotion of new causes such as physical fitness or the cultural assimilation of immigrants, or in finding fresh and innovative ways of battling for old causes, such as female suffrage and women’s access to education. It was even possible for nationalist women to use the language and practices of internationalism to further their own conservative, illiberal or anti-communist agendas, or to argue for revision of the peace treaties of 1919-20. The volume addresses these different kinds of activism, and the many links between them, by way of particular examples. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s History Review.




Women of the Right


Book Description

In Women of the Right, Kathleen M. Blee and Sandra McGee Deutsch bring together a groundbreaking collection of essays examining women in right-wing politics across the world, from the early twentieth-century white Afrikaner movement in South Africa to the supporters of Sarah Palin today. The volume introduces a truly global perspective on how women matter in the national and transnational links and exchanges of rightist politics. Suitable for classroom use, it sets a new agenda for scholarship on women on the right. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Nancy Aguirre, Karla J. Cunningham, Kirsten Delegard, Kathleen M. Fallon, Kate Hallgren, Randolph Hollingsworth, Jill Irvine, Vandana Joshi, Carol S. Lilly, Annette Linden, Julie Moreau, Margaret Power, Mariela Rubinzal, Daniella Sarnoff, Ronnee Schreiber, Meera Sehgal, Louise Vincent, and Veronica A. Wilson.




The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History


Book Description

The Encyclopedia of Women in World History captures the experiences of women throughout world history in a comprehensive, 4-volume work. Although there has been extensive research on women in history by region, no text or reference work has comprehensively covered the role women have played throughout world history. The past thirty years have seen an explosion of research and effort to present the experiences and contributions of women not only in the Western world but across the globe. Historians have investigated womens daily lives in virtually every region and have researched the leadership roles women have filled across time and region. They have found and demonstrated that there is virtually no historical, social, or demographic change in which women have not been involved and by which their lives have not been affected. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History benefits greatly from these efforts and experiences, and illuminates how women worldwide have influenced and been influenced by these historical, social, and demographic changes. The Encyclopedia contains over 1,250 signed articles arranged in an A-Z format for ease of use. The entries cover six main areas: biographies; geography and history; comparative culture and society, including adoption, abortion, performing arts; organizations and movements, such as the Egyptian Uprising, and the Paris Commune; womens and gender studies; and topics in world history that include slave trade, globalization, and disease. With its rich and insightful entries by leading scholars and experts, this reference work is sure to be a valued, go-to resource for scholars, college and high school students, and general readers alike.




Women Activists between War and Peace


Book Description

Women Activists between War and Peace employs a comparative approach in exploring women's political and social activism across the European continent in the years that followed the First World War. It brings together leading scholars in the field to discuss the contribution of women's movements in, and individual female activists from, Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Russia and the United States. The book contains an introduction that helpfully outlines key concepts and broader, European-wide issues and concerns, such as peace, democracy and the role of the national and international in constructing the new, post-war political order. It then proceeds to examine the nature of women's activism through the prism of five pivotal topics: * Suffrage and nationalism * Pacifism and internationalism * Revolution and socialism * Journalism and print media * War and the body A timeline and illustrations are also included in the book, along with a useful guide to further reading. This is a vitally important text for all students of women's history, twentieth-century Europe and the legacy of the First World War.