Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism in Divided Berlin, 1968-2002

Jane Freeland author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:10th Nov '22

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Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism in Divided Berlin, 1968-2002 cover

This is the first in-depth historical study of feminist activism against domestic violence in divided Berlin between 1968 and 2002. Starting in the 1970s, feminists in West and then East Berlin campaigned against domestic violence as a key issue of women's inequality. They exposed the harmful gender norms that left women unprotected and vulnerable to abuse in the home and called for this to change. Indeed, domestic violence has been one of the issues most effectively addressed by the women's movement in Germany. Since the first shelter opened in West Berlin in 1976, women's shelters have spread throughout the country, and today up to 45,000 women a year turn to emergency housing in Germany, with many more accessing helplines and crisis centres. Situating domestic violence activism within a broader history of feminism in post-war Germany, Feminist Transformations traces the evolution of this movement both across political division and reunification and from grassroots campaign to established, professionalised social service. In doing so, it brings the histories of feminism in East and West Berlin together for the first time and explores how feminism successfully changed women's rights in Germany. But it also asks what popular and political support for domestic violence activism has meant for feminism and the advancement of women's rights more broadly. Examining the trajectory of feminism in Germany, Jane Freeland reveals the limitations of gender equality as advancements in women's rights were often built on the reassertion of patriarchal gender roles.

For our own confused era of ongoing liberalization and ferocious antifeminism, Freeland's beautifully argued book offers myriad profound insights. Contrasting developments under democratic capitalism and state socialism, Freeland makes ingenious use of sources to consider anew the intricacy of interactions between activists and the people they serve - as well as the politicians and wider public they need to persuade - and the learning processes necessary to secure broad-based progressive social change. * Dagmar Herzog, Graduate Center, City University of New York *
Jane Freeland's original and pioneering book uses the campaign against domestic violence - first in West Germany, then in the GDR - as a revealing case study of the relationship between feminism and social politics in each rival republic, and puts it in a broader transnational context. In it she boldly explores how feminist politics were negotiated across national boundaries and the Cold War divide, and at the crossroads of political and social history, organised activism and private life, with surprising results. * Paul Betts, University of Oxford *
Feminist Transformations and Domestic Violence Activism in Divided Berlin is an urgent intervention in both the history of postwar Germany, and the history of feminism. Jane Freeland is breaking new ground, both in her evaluation of the impact of feminism on the mainstream political agenda, and her nuanced assessment of how the movement was changed in the process. Her integration of activism in East Berlin, before and after the Wende, expands our understanding of feminism in exciting and important ways. We need more work like this! * Josie McLellan, University of Bristol *
Feminist Transformations deserves a wide readership among historians of divided and reunified Germany, as well as among scholars of feminism more broadly. * Lauren Stokes, Europe Now *
Freeland's monograph is an important addition to the canon of German gender history in many ways. * Alexandria Ruble, H-German *
Jane Freeland has written an ambitious book about a field of the social history of the double Germany and the reunified Federal Republic that is still unfairly viewed as an addendum. It shows that the analysis of the interactions between, firstly, feminist activists, secondly, media representatives, thirdly, state actors and, fourthly, the addressees of the violence protection initiatives, sharpen and sometimes blind central questions of German history since the 1960s can illuminate the spot. * Sophia Dafinger, University of Augsburg, SEHEPUNKTE *

ISBN: 9780197267110

Dimensions: 240mm x 160mm x 20mm

Weight: 524g

240 pages