Journal article
Single Motherhood and Maternal Employment in Divided Germany: Ideology, Policy, and Social Pressures in the 1950s
Journal of women's history, Vol.12(3), pp.146-172
10/01/2000
DOI: 10.1353/jowh.2000.0055
PMID: 19317009
Abstract
Patterns of housewifery, single motherhood, & maternal employment were similar in the two Germanys in the 1950s. Yet the social climate began to change in that decade. This article argues that, despite their short-term failure to change women's mothering & labor force behavior via public policy, the German states strongly influenced the social pressures women faced by shaping the discursive environment. With the major political parties of West Germany unanimously preferring housewifery & the East German Socialist Unity Party acknowledging the value of housewifery, although it promoted alternatives to it, the results were ironic. The strictly controlled academy & media of East Germany supported tolerance for a wider range of models of motherhood than did the uncensored media & scholarly community in the western state. In exploring the ways capitalist liberal democracy & state socialism structured women's roles, historians must look beyond policies' material effects on women's labor force & mothering choices. Adapted from the source document.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Single Motherhood and Maternal Employment in Divided Germany: Ideology, Policy, and Social Pressures in the 1950s
- Creators
- Elizabeth Heineman
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of women's history, Vol.12(3), pp.146-172
- DOI
- 10.1353/jowh.2000.0055
- PMID
- 19317009
- NLM abbreviation
- J Womens Hist
- ISSN
- 1042-7961
- eISSN
- 1527-2036
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/01/2000
- Academic Unit
- International Programs; History; Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984277639302771
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