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Revenge of the Domestic

Women, the Family, and Communism in the German Democratic Republic
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Sprache: Englisch
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 2018

Über dieses Buch

Revenge of the Domestic examines gender relations in East Germany from 1945 to the 1970s, focusing especially on the relationship between ordinary women, the Communist Party, and the state created by the Communists, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The book weaves together personal stories from interviews, statistical material, and evidence from archival research in Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig, Merseburg, and Chemnitz to reconstruct the complex interplay between state policy toward women and the family on the one hand, and women's reactions to policy on the other. Donna Harsch demonstrates that women resisted state decisions as citizens, wageworkers, mothers, wives, and consumers, and that in every guise they maneuvered to overcome official neglect of the family.


As state dependence on female employment increased, the book shows, the Communists began to respond to the insistence of women that the state pay attention to the family. In fits and starts, the party state begrudgingly retooled policy in a more consumerist and family-oriented direction. This "domestication" was partial, ambivalent, and barely acknowledged from above. It also had ambiguous, arguably regressive, effects on the private gender arrangements and attitudes of East Germans. Nonetheless, the economic and social consequences of this domestication were cumulatively powerful and, the book argues, gradually undermined the foundations of the GDR.

Information zu Autoren / Herausgebern

Donna Harsch is professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University. She specializes in twentieth-century German history.

Rezensionen

"This is a major work not to be missed by those interested in GDR history. The book's readability (despite its complexity) would also make it a good choice for course adoptions on the advanced undergraduate and graduate levels."---Dolores L. Augustine, Journal of Social History --- "Overall, the book is a compelling contribution to women's history, richly illustrating, through women's agency, the continuous intersections between work, family, consumption, and household. As a gender study, it traces their reverberations for women and men at the level of state decision making, the factory floor, the judicial sphere, and the shopping queue."---Jean H. Quataert, Journal of Modern History --- "Donna Harsch has written a terrific book, the focus of which is the often confrontational relationship between East German women and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from the immediate postwar years to the 1970s."---Irene Guenther, American Historical Review --- "Much of [Donna Harsch's] work will be of use to historians of the GDR and women's history, particularly as a summary of recent works on East German labor, economic, and women's history."---Benita Blessing, Slavic Review --- "This book . . . is not for the novice. However, it is indispensable for any one else interested in the nature of state socialism, the preconditions of its collapse, and gender."---Lora Wildenthal, Labor History --- "Harsch's new book is a valuable contribution to the burgeoning historiography of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Looking primarily at the developments during the course of the 1950s, she analyzes the ways that the East German leadership viewed gender issues. . . . Harsch's detailed analysis assures that her book provides valuable insight into the social history of the GDR and the failure of 'real-existing socialism.'"---R.W. Lemmons, Choice

Fachgebiete

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    Frontmatter

    i
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    Contents

    vii
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    Illustrations

    ix
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    Tables

    xi
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    Acknowledgments

    xiii
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    Abbreviations

    xv
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    INTRODUCTION

    1
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    CHAPTER ONE. The Trying Time SURVIVAL CRISES AND POLITICAL DILEMMAS UNDER SOVIET OCCUPATION

    19
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    CHAPTER TWO. Constructing Power: Women and the Political Program of the Socialist Unity Party

    61
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    CHAPTER THREE. Forging the Female Proletarian: Women Workers, Production, and the Culture of the Shop Floor

    87
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    CHAPTER FOUR. Restoring Fertility: Reproduction under the Wings of Mother State

    133
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    CHAPTER FIVE. Reforming Taste: Public Services, Private Desires, and Domestic Labor

    165
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    CHAPTER SIX. Reconstituting the Family: Domestic Relations between Tradition and Change

    198
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    CHAPTER SEVEN. Modernization and Its Discontents: State, Society, and Gender in the 1960s

    236
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    Slouching toward Bethlehem

    304
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    Bibliography

    321
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    Index

    343
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Informationen zur Veröffentlichung
Seiten und Bilder/Illustrationen im Buch
eBook veröffentlicht am:
19. November 2018
eBook ISBN:
9780691190402
Seiten und Bilder/Illustrationen im Buch
Inhalt anzeigen
https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691190402
eBook ISBN: 9780691190402
Schlagwörter für dieses Buch
Communism; Employment; Abortion; Housewife; Physician; Household; Stalinism; Politburo; Workforce; Dictatorship; Trade union; Politics; Child care; Erich Honecker; Soviet Union; Central Committee; Refugee; Shortage; Prostitution; Communist Party of Germany; Sexism; Neulehrer; Oppression; Anti-communism; Ridicule; Pension; Adultery; Misogyny; Midwife; Hostility; Incest; War crime; Nazism; Marital breakdown; Narcissism; Persecution; Divorce; Grounds for divorce; Demoralization (warfare); Total war; Antifeminism; Bureaucrat; Subversion; Political repression; Scarcity (social psychology); Anti-fascism; Supervisor; Domestic violence; Neglect; Anti-capitalism; De-Stalinization; Disgust; Sabotage; Ostracism; Class conflict; New Course; Defamation; Unemployment; Rationing; Racism; Sexual dysfunction; Illegal abortion; On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences; Banditry; Nazi Party; Occupational inequality; Neues Deutschland; Home appliance; False consciousness; Death
Zielgruppe(n) für dieses Buch
For a non-specialist adult audience
Heruntergeladen am 19.4.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780691190402/html
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