Dominion of the Spirit over the Flesh: Religion, Gender and Sexual Morality in the German Women's Movement before World War I

2005 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 378-408
Author(s):  
Edward Ross Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
World War

Women against War

2019 ◽  
pp. 169-200
Author(s):  
Anya Jabour
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
World War I ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Red Scare ◽  
International Social Work ◽  
World War ◽  
International Social

Chapter 7 focuses on Breckinridge’s involvement in an international women’s movement dedicated to feminism, pacifism, and justice that flourished in the United States and Europe during and after World War I. This chapter explores the origins of Breckinridge’s pacifism, her introduction to feminist-pacifism during World War I, and her continuing commitment to internationalism in the isolationist 1920s. Breckinridge maintained her commitment to social justice and her participation in international social work circles even at the height of the Red Scare.

The Homosexual Scare and the Masculinization of German Politics before World War I

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-759 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Domeier
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
World War ◽  
German Politics ◽  
Political Events ◽  
Dreyfus Affair ◽  
Domestic Affairs ◽  
The Military

It may seem strange today to study aspects of the political sphere—from foreign policy to diplomacy and the military—in the context of sexuality. But the Belle Epoque (1871–1914) was an era of prestige politics, also with respect to the politics of sexuality. This article reveals how the Eulenburg Scandal of 1906 to 1909 used sexual morality as a way to explain and interpret the tensions that pervaded Germany's domestic affairs and international relations. The reliance on sexual mores as an explanation for large-scale political events was the result of an ever-intensifying chain of national and international complications—complications that later undermined Germany's sense of national honor. The Eulenburg Scandal is remembered today mainly as the first major homosexual scandal of the twentieth century, but contemporaries experienced it in a wider sense: it became Germany's counterpart to the Dreyfus Affair in France—two examples of political, social, and cultural conflict that threatened the foundations of their respective countries.

“A Perilous Venture for Democracy”: Soldiers, Sexual Purity, and American Citizenship in the First World War

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberley A. Reilly
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
Military Government ◽  
World War ◽  
War Department ◽  
The Military

This essay examines the influence of the social purity movement on the U.S. government's campaign to protect servicemen from the temptations of drink and illicit sex during World War I. This influence had been forged in the context of U.S. imperialism in the two decades prior to American entry into the war, as purity reformers linked the sexual morality and temperance of soldiers serving in occupied territories overseas to racial purity and national character at home. War Department policymakers who were allied with the purity movement likewise understood male moral restraint and sexual self-control to underpin democratic self-governance. This linkage between civic virtue and moral virtue was especially problematic at the outset of the war, as many native-born Americans (progressive policymakers included) questioned whether all members of the ethnically and racially diverse nation had the capacity for self-government. The goals of social purity and wartime policymakers were thus aligned as the War Department launched its crusade against liquor and sexual vice within the military. Government officials required moral sobriety of servicemen in order to remake the body politic. But even as they demanded virtuous conduct from the man in uniform, they simultaneously infantilized the “soldier lad” in their effort to safeguard him.

“Why Cant 2 Brothers”? World War I and Britain’s Deceased Brother’s Widow Act of 1921

2021 ◽  
pp. 036319902098832
Author(s):  
Nadja Durbach
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Sex Discrimination ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
British Government ◽  
World War ◽  
Family Model ◽  
Male Breadwinner ◽  
The Family ◽  
State Welfare

In 1921, Britain legalized marriage between a widow and her deceased husband’s brother. The Deceased Brother’s Widow Act was not, however, an addendum to the 1907 Deceased Wife’s Sister Act. It was passed in the aftermath of World War I to address administrative problems regarding war widows’ pensions. Its significance lies in its role as a microcosm of a range of postwar debates around sex discrimination, women’s access to state welfare, sexual morality, the family, and the declining birthrate, which provoked the British government to reinforce a family model predicated on a male breadwinner and his dependent wife and children.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document