Sozialpolitik als Geschlechterpolitik: Die Regulierung der Frauenarbeit nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg

This well-researched book examines efforts by German public authorities to regulate women's work after World War I. Its time-frame is 1918-1923; its focus, Berlin. Rouette investigates the origins, goals, and consequences of the labor market policies of three institutions: the Demobilization Commission (DMA) that oversaw economic reconversion; public labor exchanges; the administration of welfare for mothers/infants and for the unemployed. She also analyzes the reaction to national demobilization policies by prominent women in trade unions, white-collar employee organizations, political parties, and women's groups. The author concludes that policy-makers shared a series of assumptions about the proper gender division of labor in the workplace and home. Their first priority was to place the veterans who had sacrificed so much and now must support families. Second, they intended to reconstitute the pre-war gender-segregated labor market by rechanneling women into domestic service and "female" industries such as textiles. Third, they believed that wives and mothers should return to the home. These principles met with virtually unanimous public approval. Not only conservative white-collar employee groups but Socialist trade unions and the SPD, not only male leaders but notable women accepted the DMA's precepts. Many women, however, were upset by demobilization in practice. [Donna Harsch]