Ancient & Medieval Literature, Gender Studies, European Literature, German History, Feminism, Literary Theory, General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism, German Literature

The promised land?

Name: The promised land?
Author: Lorna Martens
ISBN: 9780791448595

by Lorna Martens

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Overview

"From the 1960s on, women writers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), including Christa Wolf, Irmtraud Morgner, Sarah Kirsch, Brigitte Reimann, Charlotte Worgitzky, Lia Pirskawetz, and Maya Wiens, produced a large, interesting body of writing on women's issues. The Promised Land? is the first book to interrogate the work of these writers as a group for their feminist ideas, ideas that are original, often upbeat, and mostly different from those of the Western feminist Movement." "In the GDR, a state that existed from 1949 to 1990, women had not only equal rights and good jobs, but also lavish maternity leave and generous childcare benefits designed to make work compatible with motherhood. The ideas presented by the writers discussed here include women as the subject of desire, femininity as a politically progressive model, remaking of the image of woman, and liberating women's speech. By studying these ideas through the lenses of cultural studies, feminist theory, and literary criticism, this book draws comparisons between the situation of women in the GDR and the United States, and between the GDR and Western feminism, and asks whether the GDR really was the "promised land" for women."--BOOK JACKET.

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Editorials

Library Journal

The Socialist government of the former East Germany provided women with what liberal feminists in Western democracies presumably want: affordable childcare, legalized abortion, and equal employment opportunities. In her lucid, lively study of feminist East German authors, Martens (German, Univ. of Virginia) shows why these offerings were not enough. According to Marxist doctrine, gender inequality would vanish with the abolition of a class system. Yet important East German women like novelist Christa Wolf insisted on women's difference rather than celebrating the abstract ideals of absolute equality as promulgated by the Socialist state. Since it was forbidden to question the overriding significance attributed to class struggle, feminism never became a popular movement in East Germany, and women's literature passed government censors only when it treated women's issues as a secondary concern. Martens explains that East German feminist writing had to resign itself to pointing out the apparently "contradictory" instances of inequality that remained under socialism. Nonetheless, East German feminist writers could draw on a range of precursors. Some of their work is now usefully available in an expansive collection edited by Herminghouse and Mueller. These writings, including those by well-known figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and Bertha Pappenheim (Freud's famous patient "Anna O."), cover concerns ranging from education, work, and politics to art and literature. Regrettably, the editors, who have published collections of works by German women writers like Ingeborg Bachmann, chose to exclude early feminist male-authored texts by Friedrich Engels, Johann Bachhofen, and August Bebel that Martens holds significant for an understanding of feminism anywhere. Still, this anthology is an important addition for research libraries, while Martens's book is recommended for academic libraries and specialized collections in women's writing. Ulrich Baer, New York Univ. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

A collection of information on the German Democratic Republic's feminist ideas, presenting primarily material which has never seen English translation and which shows the great differences between feminism on each side of this iron curtain. In East Germany, feminism took the form not of political action (which would have been impossible), but through revolutionizing the way people thought about women and women thought of themselves, staging a radical revision of discourse both by and about women. From 1949-1990, women in the GDR had not only equal rights and jobs, but lavish maternity leave and generous childcare benefits. This book takes these, and other considerations into account in determining if this was, indeed, the promised land for women. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)