Blaming the women

women's "responsibility" for the First World War

Ingrid Sharp

pp. 67-87

in: Alison S. Fell, Ingrid Sharp (eds), The women's movement in wartime, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth century, in Germany, as in most of Europe, women were frequently made responsible for male actions despite their lack of power and legal rights. At that time, German women were downtrodden even by the standards of the rest of Europe, with women trapped by legal, social and class restrictions, by established customs and the militarization of civil society, until they existed in a state of almost complete dependence on and subjection to men (Gerhardt 1978). Women were subject to male guardianship; the doors of most professions were closed to them, as were those of higher education. The Prussian Law of Association, which prevented women from even being present at political meetings, remained in place from 1851 to 1908, making campaigning for female suffrage well-nigh impossible during this period.