A01=Elizabeth D. Heineman
Author_Elizabeth D. Heineman
Category=JBSF
Category=JBSF1
Category=NHD
communism
democracy
divorce
east germany
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
europe
family
female population
femininity
feminism
gender
gender and sexuality
gender roles
gender studies
german history
history
household
marital status
marriage
modern germany
nazi germany
nonfiction
public policy
reunification
single women
sociology
unmarried women
west germany
widows
women s history
womens experiences
womens lives
womens studies
working women
Product details
- ISBN 9780520239074
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 Feb 2003
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In October 1946, seven million more women than men lived in occupied Germany. In this study of unwed, divorced, widowed, and married women at work and at home across three political regimes, Elizabeth Heineman traces the transitions from early National Socialism through the war and on to the consolidation of democracy in the West and communism in the East. Based on thorough and extensive research in German national and regional archives as well as the archives of the U.S. occupying forces, this pathbreaking book argues that marital status can define women's position and experience as surely as race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Heineman finds that, while the war made the experience of single women a dramatic one, state activity was equally important. As a result, West German women continued to be defined in large part by their marital status. In contrast, by the time of reunification marital status had become far less significant in the lives of East German women. In one broad, comprehensive sweep, Elizabeth Heineman compares prewar and postwar, East and West, lived experience and public policy.
Her sharp analytical insights will enrich our understanding of the history of women in modern Germany and the role of marital status in twentieth-century life worldwide.
Elizabeth D. Heineman is Associate Professor of History at the University of Iowa.
