Modeling Motherhood in Weimar Germany

The politics of the body in Weimar Germany: women's reproductive rights and duties

This essay was inspired by Mark Jones’ monograph Founding Weimar. Violence and the German Revolution of 1918–1919 (2016). The first section of the essay highlights the relevance of this book for historical research on the revolution of 1918/19. Its second section discusses relevant reviews of the monograph. The third and fourth sections focus on how different political movements, as well as the views of historians on the revolution of 1918/19, have changed within the past hundred years. Nowadays, critical historical research on the revolution has to focus on new questions. Since the outbreak of the present global economic crisis, the capitalist order has been in question. Alternative left-wing economic orders as they were developed by the German Ratebewegung (worker’s council movement) in 1918/19 should be discussed from a new perspective. Due to the global economic crisis, right-wing movements have gained more influence over the last decade. Parliamentary democracies are progressively eroding. Jones’ book is in contrast to the current academic discourse. This last can be considered to be in crisis, as it displays a limited understanding of the revolution of 1918/19 by merely regarding it as part of the success story of the Weimar Republic. Jones highlights the escalation of violence and the role proto-fascist Freikorps played as the initiators of this escalation. He also considers the political responsibility of the Social Democratic Party. Jones concludes that counter-revolutionary violence caused the founding as well the end of the Weimar Republic.

Context: Women's reproductive rights are a nursing concern that is considered of vital importance and has widespread implications on the health, wellbeing, and development of the entire population.
 Aim: Investigate the effect of educational sessions regarding women's reproductive rights on student nurses' theoretical achievement, attitude, and satisfaction, at the Faculty of Nursing, Port Said University.
 Methods: Quasi-experimental research (Pre-test/post-test) design was used to achieve the aim of this study. A purposive sample of 92 female nursing students in the third and fourth academic year was recruited in this study. Data collection tools included a structured interviewing questionnaire, women reproductive rights attitude assessment scale, and women reproductive rights satisfaction scale.
 Results: A statistically significant improvement was observed among the studied sample theoretical achievement post-intervention compared to pre-intervention. A significant improvement was observed among the studied sample attitude post-intervention compared to pre-intervention, and the majority of the students were satisfied with the application of educational sessions regarding women's rights.
 Conclusions: The present study's hypothesis was supported. The student nurse who attended the educational session regarding women's reproductive rights has improved the theoretical achievement and attitude compared to their pre-intervention levels. The present study recommended integrating Egyptian women's reproductive rights into the curriculum of the undergraduate, postgraduate student nurses at the faculty of Nursing at Port Said University. A replication of the current study was also suggested in another setting and on another sampling.

The HIV epidemic has changed the face of women's reproductive health across southern Africa. In some circles, there have been calls for restrictions on women's reproductive rights, focusing particularly on the spread of HIV between sexual partners and from mother to child. However, during the past decade, public health attention and resources for the clinical care of HIV-infected individuals living in Africa have led to advances in women's reproductive health services. As many programs have recognized that effective HIV care and treatment services must link to other areas of primary care, key reproductive health services such as those providing contraception and barrier methods are commonly integrated into antiretroviral therapy services. In much of the region, this programmatic focus has helped increase attention on the ground to women's reproductive rights. However, in many settings, policies explicitly supporting the reproductive rights of HIV-infected women have lagged. Important gaps remain both in policy development and in the design, evaluation, and implementation of interventions promoting women's reproductive health and rights at the service delivery level.

This study deals with left-wing splinter parties which were in existence in Germany between 1918 and 1933. In 1918 the Second Empire collapsed, the Kaiser abdicated, and the imperial government resigned. Only the socialists were relatively strong enough and, in the eyes of the public and the victorious Allies, unblemished enough to take command of the state. At this historical moment, however, the socialists were divided. The chance to install socialism in Germany was lost due to the bitter fighting among the three principal left-wing parties. The divisions in the socialist camp, which had started earlier, but which broke into open warfare at the end of the Great War, were intensified by the crises the Weimar Republic faced and led to a great number of splinter parties. Chapter One provides the background. It concentrates on some of the problems that the SPD and the KPD faced before Hitler's take-over. Chapter Two discusses the emergence of splinter groups. It traces each splinter group from its origin inside a larger party, its evolution,aand its decline. The Third Chapter examines the programs, platforms, and ideologies of the splinter parties. It concentrates on their political and economic demands. It also deals with their views on fascism and the methods they adopted to cope with the menace presented by the rise of Hitler's NSDAP. The Fourth Chapter is devoted to structure and organization. The parliamentary as well as the non parliamentary activities of the splinter parties are discussed. It examines their involvement in organizations like the trade unions and affiliated youth groups. Some of the major publications of the splinter parties are listed here. The Conclusion assesses the reasons for the failure of the splinter parties. Splinter parties were both, symptoms and victims of the turbulent times of the Weimar Republic. They were not the cause of Hitler's victory. Their importance lies not in the Impact they had on Weimar, but in what they show about Weimar Germany. They reflected in a microscopic way the insecurity, the mistrust, the social decay, the social and political mobility and unrest, the countless crises, and the blind and desperate search for something better.

Traditionalists, whether working within a religious or a scientific framework, have regarded subordination as universal, God-given, or natural, hence immutable.... The traditionalist explanation focuses on reproductive capacity and sees in motherhood woman's chief goal in life.... Thus the division of labor based on biological is seen as functional and just. (1) --Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Patriarchy, 16-17 INTRODUCTION President Barack Obama has asked Senator John Kerry, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to move forward on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (2) (CEDAW or the Convention), (3) which President Jimmy Carter signed in 1978. (4) This Article focuses on the consequences of ratification for reproductive rights. Under CEDAW, I argue, the United States would be required to fully assure these rights, including subsidized family planning services and abortion. Part I of this Article describes CEDAW's broad prohibition against what I call 'the reproduction of gender,' including the sexual division of labor based on biological differences that historian Gerda Lerner (5) and other feminist scholars identify as the bedrock for subordination. (6) Part II explains why the denial of reproductive rights necessarily reproduces gender hierarchy, whether by the state or by non-state actors. Part III explains how this plays out, internationally and in the United States. It does so by drawing on recent work regarding the fragmentation of international law. This fragmentation has led to the proliferation of national applications. It then situates this law in U.S. constitutional jurisprudence, showing how the argument set out in this Article resonates with the arguments of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Professors Sylvia Law, Reva Siegel and others, to ground reproductive rights in equality, rather than privacy. Efforts to do so under the U.S. Constitution have failed. As this Article demonstrates, CEDAW provides equality on steroids, equality that can do the work necessary to assure reproductive rights. It should be noted that many American proponents of CEDAW oppose my argument. Rather, it is their view that CEDAW does not require support for family planning services and is abortion neutral. (7) Indeed, pro-life opponents of ratification argue, as I do, that CEDAW requires support for family planning services and abortion. (8) I agree, although in my view this is another reason why the United States should ratify CEDAW. Both positions reflect their proponents' strategies regarding ratification of CEDAW. (9) They may be right, but I am not arguing that the United States should or should not ratify CEDAW, or that relying on CEDAW is or is not a useful strategy for furthering reproductive rights in the United States. It may well have the opposite effect. (10) Rather, my argument is that the Women's Convention bars the reproduction of gender, which, as a matter of law, requires the assurance of women's reproductive rights in the United States and everywhere else. I. THE REPRODUCTION OF GENDER (11) A. Reproductive Rights Under International Law Women's rights are relatively new in international law. While the International Bill of Rights (12) requires states to treat women and men 'equally,' this assumes and confirms a male norm. (13) The Covenants and the Universal Declaration protect rights in the public sphere, that is, the rights of individuals in their relations with the state. Some family rights are recognized, (14) but even here the focus is to protect the family from the state, rather than to protect women within the family from men. (15) As the Committee responsible for monitoring CEDAW notes, historically, human activity in public and private life has been viewed differently and regulated accordingly. In all societies, women who have traditionally performed their roles in the private or domestic sphere have long had those activities treated as inferior. …

Despite the teachings of Islam that advocate for women's rights and empowerment, a substantial disparity persists between the ideal principles and the actual conditions in numerous Muslim communities. Women in many Muslim-majority nations encounter diverse challenges hindering their empowerment and complete societal involvement. Key factors contributing to the predicament of women's empowerment in Islam encompass patriarchal attitudes and cultural norms that confine women's roles and opportunities, as well as limited access to education and training, restricting their active participation in economic and political spheres. Present-day concerns include workplace discrimination and bias against women, encompassing unequal pay and limited advancement opportunities. Additionally, insufficient access to healthcare, education, societal engagement, and reproductive rights adversely affect women's health and well-being. Gender-based violence and harassment, encompassing domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking, exacerbate these challenges. Legal inadequacies in protecting and enforcing women's rights regarding marriage, divorce, inheritance, and property ownership further compound the issue. Misinterpretation and misapplication of religious teachings contribute to harmful practices such as forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Addressing these challenges necessitates targeted interventions and policy changes to dismantle significant barriers to women's empowerment in Muslim communities. The researcher employed an inductive approach, tracing research components from exegetical, hadith, and jurisprudential books to derive general rulings. Subsequently, an analytical method was utilized to categorize and discuss scientific material, yielding specific rulings about the subject. The research reached certain significant results, emphasizing the promotion of women's rights, equality, and comprehensive societal participation to foster just and equitable societies. A focus on women's rights to education, societal engagement, economic independence, fair treatment in marriage, and protection from violence and discrimination is crucial. Quranic teachings offer valuable guidance for Muslims to contribute to women's empowerment in their societies actively.

For most of human existence and in most societies, women have been considered to be property and subject to men. Throughout history, with such notable exceptions as Queen Boadicea, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Elizabeth I of England, and Catherine the Great of Russia, women had little or no power until early in the 20th century when the women's suffrage movement was successful in the United States and in some European countries. As women have gained political rights, groups of women have sought sexual and reproductive rights, as exemplified by the feminist movement of the past few decades in the United States. Although marked strides toward achievement of reproductive choice have been taken in high-income countries, there remain major strictures to reproductive freedom for women in low-income countries. This area, which is replete with ethical and moral issues, has been addressed by the International Planned Parenthood Foundation (IPPF), which has worked to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout the world. The IPPF Charter on Sexual and Reproductive Rights is a paradigm for both women's rights and human rights. Karen Newman is policy adviser with the IPPF and has codrafted the IPPF Charter on Sexual and Reproductive Rights together with two lawyers. She has held several positions within the IPPF, including medical researcher, press officer, and programme adviser in Europe, where she had responsibility for working with new family planning associations (FPAs) in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. At present, she is working to increase the capacity of IPPF member FPAs to undertake human rights-based advocacy for sexual and reproductive health and rights. Judith F. Helzner is director of Sexual and Reproductive Health at International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region, Inc., where she has worked since 1987. She holds M.A. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in International Relations and Demography. Her previous employment includes the Pathfinder Fund and the International Women's Health Coalition.

The role of schools is an important factor in shaping human civilization. The phenomenon of the high number of high school marriages in Wonosobo with all the social changes that surround it, until 2019 marriages under the age of 19 (nineteen) years there were 430 cases including marriage dispensation. The Merried By Accident (MBA) case dominates all of these cases. The focus of this research is the analysis of the role of school in child marriage and women's reproductive rights, two things that influence each other and whether women's reproductive health rights include the right to abortion and to refuse pregnancy which often occurs in society. This study uses qualitative research by conducting in-depth interviews and discussion group forums which are analyzed and described using a symbolic interactionism approach. The results of the study found that there was a shift in the meaning of marriage for high school children, the high number of cases of child marriage was dominated by changes in social behavior and adolescent relationships, so that pregnancy before marriage led to dropping out of school. Women's reproductive health rights are especially not ready to give birth, take care of children so that the life cycle after giving birth to children does not get serious attention, and it is not uncommon for domestic violence (KDRT) to be a way out to solve problems that cause divorce at a young age. The role of schools has not shown significant results because there is almost no curriculum in schools that requires provisions about marriage. The ideal school role is in the form of providing early marriage education and reproductive health, having an effective school fee subsidy, providing regular health services, and motivating students in the spirit of learning at school.

Reviewed by: Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide ed. by Elisabeth Jay Friedman Juliana Restrepo Sanín Seeking Rights from the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide. By Elisabeth Jay Friedman (ed). Durham: Duke University Press, 2019, p. 344, $29.95. Latin America has made significant gains in the legal protection of women's and sexual minorities' rights, including comprehensive laws against gender-based violence, political participation, and some legal protections for LGBT+ folks. These advancements are somewhat recent, coinciding with the so-called Left Turn that started with the election of Hugo Chávez en Venezuela in 1998. The increased legal recognition of women and LGBT+ rights is sometimes lauded as an achievement of the Pink Tide. However, as Elisabeth Jay Friedman and the contributors to Seeking Rights From the Left: Gender, Sexuality, and the Latin American Pink Tide make clear, the relationship between progressive gender and sexuality policies and the Left is not as clear and straightforward as some suggests. Friedman's book offers a more nuanced comparative perspective building on Mala Htun's (2003) and Htun and S. Laurel Weldon's (2010) framework for analyzing gender and sexuality policies. Seeking Rights from The Left shows that, despite advancements, Left-wing governments in Latin America "relied on heteropatriarchal relations of power" and engaged in "strategic trade-offs among gender and sexual rights" (p. 3), promoting maternalist and familist policies instead of transformative policies to achieve gender and sexuality justice. The contributors evaluate the Left's policies in diverse areas, including welfare, redistribution, and poverty; political representation; violence against women; and bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. Importantly, the book finds that there were important advancements in regards to poverty alleviation and women's political participation. Despite the significant increase in women's political participation, which surpassed 25% regionally, and in some countries reached 50% in national legislatures, Left governments frequently engaged in "Pinkwashing:" advancing (some) LGBT+ and women's rights to obscure blatant and broader violations of human rights – including those of women and LGBT+ folks. In addition, policies and perspective that challenge heterosexual and cisgender men's privilege –what Friedman calls 'countercultural' policies – not only did not significantly advance during the left turn but in some cases were reversed. What explains these variations? Seeking Rights from the Left finds that state institutionalization and alliances between the left and religious forces are key determinants in the types of gender and sexuality policies that governments adopt. But good will and strong institutions are not enough. Rather, the strength of women's, feminist, and LGBT+ movements, and their ability to make alliances among themselves and with state actors in women's policy agencies and anti-discrimination institutions are key for advancing the policies with the [End Page 243] most potential to undermine heteropatriarchy. Importantly, Seeking Rights from the Left shows that improvements in the descriptive representation – that is, increased numbers of women in politics – are not an indicator of a country's move toward significant and transformative policy changes in support of women and LGBT+ rights. Despite these limitations, there were some important transformations promoted by some of the governments of the Pink Tide. In the recognition and protection of women's and LGBT+ rights, Uruguay stands out as the country with the most significant progress. Despite few women in Congress, feminist and LGBT+ activists used a variety of mobilizational strategies and built alliances to secure protections for some rights, including abortion, affirmative action for trans folks, and marriage equality. Even in this more welcoming context, poverty-relief and social welfare policies still relied and entrenched traditional gender roles. The limits of the left turn are even more evident when looking at the most radical governments: Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Bolivia. Although all these countries made important advancements in reducing poverty and inequality, progress relied on the instrumentalization of women's organizations and the reproduction of maternalist and heteronormative views of the state and the family. In the two most extreme cases, Nicaragua and Ecuador, the Left turn not only failed to transform gender relations, but significantly reversed women's rights – despite international praise for (very limited) advancements in the protection...

Reviewed by: Leaders of Their Race: Educating Black and White Women in the New South by Sarah H. Case Charles A. Israel Leaders of Their Race: Educating Black and White Women in the New South. By Sarah H. Case. Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History. (Urbana and other cities: University of Illinois Press, 2017. Pp. xii, 219. $28.00, ISBN 978-0-252-08279-5; $95.00, ISBN 978-0-25204123-5.) Does a new South require a new approach to education for women? Sarah H. Case's compact volume sets out to answer this question by focusing on two Georgia women's schools in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Spelman Seminary continues today as a liberal arts college but began in an Atlanta church basement in 1881 teaching basic literacy skills to its earliest African American students. The Lucy Cobb Institute was founded in Athens in 1859 to train white young ladies of privilege in both academics and social graces. The two schools served students divided by race, but Case largely delivers on her promise that examining them together "provides a way to explore beliefs about women's roles and duties, racial and class divisions between women, and changes in expectations of women's citizenship rights and duties" (p. 2). Appropriate to the era she is considering, Case devotes considerable attention to the concept of respectability, the racial differences in how it worked, and some of the historiographical disagreements about the concept. For the white "Lucies," training in proper manners, posture, and sexual purity helped ease their transition into a New South middle class that saw women increasingly likely to be working outside the home for wages, at least until marriage, and engaging in women' s clubs and social activism. For the black women of Spelman, protecting and projecting respectability was an essential part of counteracting the vicious racial narratives of the South, becoming ever more important in the era of disenfranchisement, as black women were not just working outside the home but also increasingly serving as ambassadors of the race. Spelman Seminary and the Lucy Cobb Institute had different students and different missions, but both had white leaders. Case suggests that leadership was an important component of Spelman's success at courting substantial support from white northerners such as philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and Henry Morehouse, the executive secretary of the American Baptist Education Society and, for a time, president of the Spelman board of trustees. Case explores how the Spelman curricula interpreted the language of industrial education that was key to northern support while blending it with religious and academic instruction. Mildred Lewis Rutherford, 1867 graduate and longtime leader of the Lucy Cobb Institute, had a significant influence beyond the school in her role as historian general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and founder of the Athens chapter of the organization. An antisuffragist who worried that white women's public and political participation would undermine [End Page 204] their moral standing, Rutherford nonetheless taught not only the descendants of planter families but also the daughters of the emerging middle class. While a more comprehensive approach to identifying and categorizing the schools' graduates might have been more revealing, Case provides short biographies of a number of graduates of each school, suggesting how the language of the school catalogs and the speeches of their leaders produced diverse outcomes. Many Spelman graduates became heavily involved in the Neighborhood Union and other social welfare organizations that sought to extend the focus on respectability beyond the seminary. Lucy Cobb Institute graduate Caroline Love Goodwin O'Day married a northern industrialist, became active in New York state suffrage campaigns, and in 1934 was elected to the first of four terms in Congress as a New Deal Democrat. The halting emergence of public and college-level educational institutions forced some evolution of both schools in the twentieth century. Case makes productive comparisons between Spelman and other black educational institutions but is less successful situating the Lucy Cobb Institute in the landscape of white women's schools. She also explores the religious roots and influences of Spelman Seminary, opening questions about the continuation of religious training at the Lucy Cobb...

This article considers the legal issues surrounding induced late abortion in cases when severe medical, therapeutic or ethical reasons have not been in dispute. Generally discussing the essential question about abortion today, it means not anymore legality of abortion but, in the first place, safety of abortion. From the aspect of woman health the most important aim is to detect and avoid possible risks of medical intervention, such as late abortion present. This is the matter of medical law context and also the matter of the woman's reproductive rights, here observed through legislation and court practice. The gynecologist has an obligation to obtain the informed consent of each patient. Information's should be presented in reasonably understandable terms and include alternative modes of treatment, objectives, risks, benefits, possible complications, and anticipated results of such treatment. Pregnant woman should receive supportive counseling before and particularly after the procedure. The method chosen for all terminations should ensure that the fetus is born dead. This should be undertaken by an appropriately trained practitioner. Reform in abortion law, making it legally accessible to woman, is not necessarily the product of a belief in woman's rights, but can be a means of bringing the practice of abortion back under better control. Counseling and good medical practice in performing late abortion are the instruments to drive this point even further home. It does not undermine the woman who wants to make a positive decision about her life and its purpose is not to produce feelings of insecurity and guilt. It concludes that existing law should not be changed but that clear rules should be devised and board created to review late term abortion. In Serbia, this leads to creation and set up guidelines for reconciling medical justification for late abortion with existing law, especially with solutions which brings comparative law. .

In the centenary of the Bauhaus foundation new studies were released about the role women played as part of the school instituted by Walter Gropius. In fact, the conquest for them of being able to reach the university or academic high level education, is one of the novelties registered in Germany during Weimar Republic years; therefore the Bauhaus, in its initial assumptions and in line with the republican Constitution, newly launched in 1919, opened its doors to the female community who responded with numerous applications. Soon, this professed equality, proved to be just illusory: growing numbers of women were driven exclusively towards the weaving workshops, moreover the access to different laboratories turned out to be more difficult than expected. For the foregoing reasons, this study focuses on some female figures who succeeded beyond the mere weaving workshops (in which Anni Albers and Otti Berger stood out among the others): Gertrud Grunow for pedagogy, Marianne Brandt for metallurgy and lighting engineering, Lucia Moholy and Irene Hoffmann for photography, Alma Buscher for designing toys and furniture, and especially Lilly Reich for interior design. The Reich and its connection with Mies van der Rohe are still matter of investigations that are redefining the nature of its role and authorship

This article seeks to correct the assumption that Lifelong Learning was only invented by educationists in the 1970s. In contrast to the numerous authors who regard E. Faure's 1972 book Learning to Be as the origin of lifelong learning, I refer back to Cyril O. Houle and his remarkable publication of 1961, ”The Inquiring Mind”, as the father of lifelong learning in a modern sense. Houle suggested that the roots of lifelong learning lay in ancient Judaism. The article follows this notion and provides the main stages of this argument: ancient Judaism existed primarily as a learning community, lifelong learning is demonstrated repeatedly in the Torah and Talmud, the Haskalah serves as the link with educational practice in Germany, and finally the function of the ”houses of teaching” (Lehrhauser) in the Weimar Republic (Buber, Rosenzweig, & Simon) as places of lifelong learning in both its religious and its secular sense.

Like many of us, this book originated in chance and accident rather than forethought and planning. Not long after the Wende, the coming down of the Wall, I happened to be in Berlin, and, as I wandered through the newly open city, it struck me (as it doubtless struck many others at that time) that after some sixty years — roughly the span of my own lifetime — Berlin had returned to a state it had not known since the Nazis came to power. This brought to mind the group of English writers who had, briefly or not so briefly, made Berlin their home in the last years of the Weimar Republic, and I wondered idly how much in a merely material sense had survived two generations of destruction and rebuilding, partition and reunification: how far the physical fabric of the Berlin that Wystan Auden, Christopher Isherwood, Stephen Spender and others had lived in and written about could be, historically or sentimentally, recovered or rediscovered.