Intim and respactable

At the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, profound social, political and cultural changes occurred in many European countries, including the German Reich. New political movements such as the women`s movement experienced lively growth and previously taboo topics such as sexuality were discussed publicly. The role played by questions of sexuality in the womens movement, for example on the topic of prostitution, has been addressed by scholars. How activists of the women`s movement positioned themselves with regard to homosexuality, however, and whether some of them had homosexual relationships themselves has hardly been researched at all thus far. This book fills this lacuna as regards the German Reich: on the one hand, it asks how homosexuality was conceived of and talked about in the women`s movement around 1900. On the other hand, it examines how women in the movement dwelt with one another, what relationships they had and how these were described. The study is based on journals, protocols and correspondence of associations as well as biographic al sources, such as private letters or notebooks of activists. The women`s movement was not only a place of political debate. A large number of activists spent most of their time among women at womens clubs, as female couples or in so-called ladies apartments. Respectability played a significant role in these circles. Whether or not a relationship or behavior was considered respectable was much more important than whether someone entered into sexual or platonic relationships. Activists who lived, worked and travelled together like in a marriage were acknowledged and considered respectable. An important result of the study is that the relationships between the women in question cannot be interpreted using customary attributions such as friendly, romantic or sexual. In order to describe the diverse, close relationships between women the term intimate is used in the book. Another finding of the book is that the women`s movement came under great pressure when sexology became popular at the end of the 19th century. Sexological categories such as homosexuality and heterosexuality did not fit the models of life in the women`s movement. In particular when female homosexuality was to become punishable in the course of the 1909 criminal law reform, activists discussed what position the women`s movement should take on this. The book traces the debates, revealing the impact of sexological and penal categories on the women`s movement.