Protecting Motherhood: Women and the Family in the Politics of Postwar West GermanyRobert G. Moeller is the first historian of modern German women to use social policy as a lens to focus on society's conceptions of gender difference and "woman's place." He investigates the social, economic, and political status of women in West Germany after World War II to reveal how the West Germans, emerging from the rubble of the Third Reich, viewed a reconsideration of gender relations as an essential part of social reconstruction. The debate over "woman's place" in the fifties was part of West Germany's confrontation with the ideological legacy of National Socialism. At the same time, the presence of the Cold War influenced all debates about women and the family. In response to the "woman question," West Germans defined the boundaries not only between women and men, but also between East and West. Moeller's study shows that public policy is a crucial arena where women's needs, capacities, and possibilities are discussed, identified, defined, and reinforced. Nowhere more explicitly than in the first decade of West Germany's history did, in Joan Scott's words, "politics construct gender and gender construct politics." Robert G. Moeller is the first historian of modern German women to use social policy as a lens to focus on society's conceptions of gender difference and "woman's place." He investigates the social, economic, and political status of women in West Germany |
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Adenauer Adenauer's Allied Arbeit Ausschusses Basic Law Berlin Bonn bourgeois Bridenthal Bundesrepublik Deutschland Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch Catholic CDU/CSU Christian Civil Code claims conception constitution court debates decision Deutsche Deutscher Bundestag difference discussion Düsseldorf economic employers Entwicklung equal rights Erna Scheffler factory inspectors Familienpolitik Familienrecht family allowances family law family policy fathers Federal female feminist fifties Frankfurt Frau Frauen Frauenarbeit gender German women Geschichte Gesellschaft Gleichberechtigung Grundgesetz guarantee Helene Weber Helmut Schelsky Herta Ilk husband ibid idem Jahre labor Lüders male marriage married motherhood mothers National Socialism National Socialist Nazi Nazi Germany Niethammer North Rhine-Westphalia NWHStA occupation Parlamentarischer Rat Parliamentary Council party patriarchal percent political Politik politische postwar West German pregnant Protokoll reform Reich responsibility Schelsky Seibert sexual Sitzung Social Democrats Sozialpolitik Teetz VDBT wage Weber Weimar Weimar Republic welfare West German wife wives woman women workers women's equality women's rights workplace Wuermeling