Women and Socialism - Socialism and Women by Helmut Gruber

French Women in the Crossfire of Class, Sex, Maternity and Citizenship Helmut Gruber Chapter 8. Bread and Roses: Pragmatic Women in the Belgium Workers' Party Denise De Weerdt PART III: POLITICAL FRACTURES Introduction Mary Gibson Chapter 7. Gender and Democratic Socialism in the Netherlands Ulla Jansz Chapter 6. An Experiment in Women-Centered Socialism: Labour Women in Britain Pamela Graves Chapter 5. German Communism and New Women: Dilemmas and Contradictions Atina Grossmann PART II: GRASSROOTS INITIATIVES Introduction Pamela Graves Chapter 4. Modernization as Challenge: Perceptions and Reactions of German Social Democratic Women Adelheid von Saldern Chapter 3. 'The 'New Woman': Realities and Illusions of Gender Equality in Red Vienna Helmut Gruber Chapter 2. List of Photo Essays List of Acronyms Acknowledgments Introduction Helmut Gruber & Pamela Graves 1914: Great Feminist Expectations Michelle Perrot PART I: SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS Introduction Atina Grossmann Chapter 1. This rigorously focused and coherent volume, to which some of the best-known scholars in the field have contributed, will no doubt establish itself as the standard reference work for years to come. The main issue addressed in this volume is not how male socialists 'dealt with' the woman question or how women functioned in or outside left-wingparties it rather centers on illustrating the power distribution between the sexes in specific political and cultural contexts. The mystique of the 'new woman' in the 1920s and the 1930s challenged traditional notions of gender identity and relations, not the least of which was the redefinition of the role of men. Central to these are definitions of femininity and masculinity in terms of mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion at the workplace, in the home, and in the political arena. However, by far the most provocative questions deal with gender relations.

Each of these movements is viewed as acomplex matrix of organized and unorganized participants. The emblematic title of this volume highlights the fundamental conception of this comparative study of eleven West European countries: that in the interwar decades two great movements gained in strength, converged, diverged, competed, and cooperated.

This pioneering volume places the role of women within the history of the interwar years, whenboth the women's and socialist movements became prominent, and raises the key question of how power was distributed between the genders in a historical setting. Until recently, histories of women tended to be segregated from the larger historical context.

Women and Socialism - Socialism and Women by Helmut Gruber