attitudes towards women

• changing attitudes towards women in politics:

  • under weimar constitution women over 21 could vote in elections
  • women given opportunity to join in political parties
  • BDF demanded martial reform and right of equal pay for equal work for women
  • female politicians still minority
• the 'new woman' was a stereotype for modern femininity but reflected the changing position for women in society
• features of the 'new woman':

  • short hair
  • wear trousers
  • ride bicycles
  • smoke
• access to higher education improved for women over weimar period
• during WW1 women demonstrated their ability to work yet this changed as men came back and reclaimed their jobs. Employment rates for women did still increase
• weimar government liberalised abortion laws in 1926 due t pressure of communist and social democrat feminists
• conservative attitudes to women in weimar society:

  • many women engaged in politics to futher conservative ideas of wife and mother hood (BDF promoted importance of family from female POV)
  • for many , womens primary function was to be a wife and mum
  • lots of pronatalist reforms, after WW1 , government encouraged women to have kids
• attitudes towards homosexuality:

  • illegal
  • gay bars flourished
• what was Hirschfeld's Institute for Sexual Science?

  Hirschfeld was radical who believed in same sex love and pioneered transgender surgery. During weimar period , his institution received over 20,000 visitors a year. Institute burned down in 1933 by Nazis
• number of women employed dropped from 75% in 1918 to 26% in 1925