Gender Roles And Social Expectations Of Germans In The 19th Century

Nuanced gender roles and related social expectations for Germans changed as much as the political climate did between the 18th and 19th century. War, revolution, and poverty influenced these shifts. By WWI traditional gender roles, despite some fluidity in the 1800’s, had been reified by wartime necessity. For German men, this arc of gender norms took them from militaristic masculinity, to a freedom for philosophic fluidity and then back to martial manhood. Women, particularly those of the middle and lower classes saw inconsistent expectations during wartime which accused them of being victims of ‘need’ while simultaneously asking them to support families on their own. For much of modern history German men were expected to be strong leaders,
Hindenburg argued that “whoever does not work shall not eat” but again, those women who did work represented male fears about women’s potential for abandoning family values. Whereas male soldiers were defined by political and martial needs, the wartime economy defined women’s identities and actions individually and collectively. Dresden women for example created their own committees to address food shortages and hyperinflation, putting pressure on policy makers to address their rights to food and other resources. This grassroots organization of poor women, especially those with families is representative of a type of identity available to women almost exclusively during wartime. “Such women began to perceive themselves as in a position to make big demands on the government” but this power all but disappeared upon soldiers’ return by
Women as the lasting civilian population during the war are most representative of the way war changed their society. Creation of a German empire in the late 1800s had inspired nationalism and hope for political strength, coupled with industrial fortitude. WWI however, destroyed this hope for many civilians, especially poor women in Berlin. As a result, womanhood for Germans at the beginning of the 20th century was to some extent defined by the lack of assistance they received from the government and the resentment exhibited by men after the war. Despite extreme independence and self-sustaining practices during the war, women were again regarded as helpless victims of social problems after the war. Sozialfrage as a political concept post war seemingly forgot the demands, actions, and strength demonstrated by female civilians during the war resulting in a specific frauenfrage which the Weimar republic would then have to address during post WWI