Reflections on a theme: The German women's movement, then and now

Abstract

We are two German feminists who have been engaged in the German women's movement for a number of years. We decided that we needed to take stock of our past and present movement history subjectively, and this article is the result of our efforts. Since our intention was to find out what issues we also had in common with our ‘foresisters≐, we have tried to give a comparatively brief summary of both movements. It goes without saying, that we simply cannot say all that we would like to say to do justice historically to so complex a topic.

In addition, we thought it would be interesting for our Anglo Saxon sisters to get some general information on the development of both our women's movements. The article is structured in the following way: the first section deals with the roots of radical feminism in Germany and traces its development from 1848 until the National Socialist take-over of power in 1933; the second section describes the second wave of post-war feminism until the present; the third section is composed of a short analysis and concluding remarks.