About 50 women doctors are practicing in Germany; as yet there are no women preachers, but there are 5 women lawyers, one of whom in 1908 pleaded the case of an indicted youth before the Altona juvenile court. Although there are only a few women lawyers in Germany, women are now permitted to act as counsel for the defendant, there being 60 such women counselors in Bavaria. Recently (1908) even Bavaria refused women admission to the civil service.
In the autumn there was appointed the first woman lecturer in a higher institution of learning,—this taking place in the Mannheim School of Commerce. Within the last five years many new callings have been opened to women: they are librarians (of municipal, club, and private libraries) and have organized themselves into the Association of Women Librarians; they are assistants in laboratories, clinics, and hospitals; they make scientific drawings, and some have specialized in microscopic drawing; during the season for the manufacture of beet sugar, women are employed as chemists in the sugar factories; there is a woman architect in Berlin, and a woman engineer in Hamburg. Women factory inspectors have performed satisfactory service in all the states of the Empire. But the future field of work for the German women is the sociological field. State, municipal, and private aid is demanded by the prevailing destitution. At the present time women work in the sociological field without pay. In the future much of this work must be performed by the professional sociological women workers. In about 100 cities women are guardians of the poor. There are 103 women superintendents of orphan asylums; women are sought by the authorities as guardians. Women’s coöperation as members of school committees and deputations promotes the organized woman’s rights movement. The first woman inspector of dwellings has been appointed in Hessen. Nurses are demanding that state examinations be made requisite for those wishing to become nurses; some cities of Germany have appointed women as nurses for infant children. In Hessen and Ostmark [the eastern part of Prussia], women are district administrators. There is an especially great demand for women to care for dependent children and to work in the juvenile courts; this will lead to the appointment of paid probation officers. In southern Germany, women police matrons are employed; in Prussia there are women doctors employed in the police courts. There are also women school physicians. Since 1908, trained women have entered the midwives’ profession.
When the German General Woman’s Club was formed in 1865, there was no German Empire; Berlin had not yet become the capital of the Empire. But since Berlin has become the seat of the Imperial Parliament, Berlin very naturally has become the center of the woman’s rights movement. This occurred through the establishment of the magazine Frauenwohl [Woman’s Welfare] in 1888, by Mrs. Cauer. In this manner the younger and more radical woman’s rights movement was begun. The women that organized the movement had interested themselves in the educational field. The radicals now entered the sociological and political fields. Women making radical demands allied themselves with Mrs. Cauer; they befriended her, and coöperated with her. This is an undisputed fact, though some of these women later left Mrs. Cauer and allied themselves with either the “Conservatives” or the “Socialists.”
In the organization of trade-unions for women not exclusively of the middle class, Minna Cauer led the way. In 1889, with the aid of Mr. Julius Meyer and Mr. Silberstein, she organized the “Commercial and Industrial Benevolent Society for Women Employees.” The society has now 24,000 members. State insurance for private employees is now (1909) a question of the day.
Jeannette Schwerin founded the information bureau of the Ethical Culture Society, which furnished girls and women assistants for social work. At the same time Jeannette Schwerin demanded that women be permitted to act as poor-law guardians. The agitation in public meetings and legislative assemblies against the Civil Code was instituted by Dr. Anita Augsburg and Mrs. Stritt.
The opposition to state regulation of prostitution was begun by the “radical” Hanna Bieber-Böhm and Anna Pappritz. Lily v. Gikycki was the first to speak publicly concerning the civic duty of women. The Woman’s Suffrage Society was organized in 1901 by Mrs. Cauer, Dr. Augsburg, Miss Heymann, and Dr. Schirmacher.
In 1894 the radical section of the “German Federation of Women’s Clubs” proposed that women’s trade-unions be admitted to the Federation. This radical section had often given offense to the “Conservatives”—in the Federation, for instance—by the proposal of this measure; but the radicals in this way have stimulated the movement. As early as 1904 the Berlin Congress of the International Council of Women had shown that the Federation, being composed chiefly of conservative elements, should adopt in its programme all the demands of the radicals, including woman’s suffrage. The differences between the Radicals and the Conservatives are differences of personality rather than of principles. The radicals move to the time of allegro; the conservatives to the time of andante. In all public movements there is usually the same antagonism; it occurred also in the English and the American woman’s rights movements.
In no other country (with the exception of Belgium and Hungary) is the schism between the woman’s rights movement of the middle class and the woman’s rights movement of the Socialists so marked as in Germany. At the International Woman’s Congress of 1896 (which was held through the influence of Mrs. Lina Morgenstern and Mrs. Cauer) two Social Democrats, Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin, declared that they never would coöperate with the middle-class women. This attitude of the Social Democrats is the result of historical circumstances. The law against the German Socialists has increased their antagonism to the middle class. Nevertheless, this harsh statement by Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin was unnecessary. It has just been stated that the founders of the German woman’s rights movement had included the demands of the workingwomen in their programme, and that the Radicals (by whom the congress of 1896 had been called, and who for years had been engaged in politics and in the organization of trade-unions) had in 1894 demanded the admission of women’s labor organizations to the Federation of Women’s Clubs. Hence an alignment of the two movements would have been exceedingly fortunate. However, a part of the Socialists, laying stress on ultimate aims, regard “class hatred” as their chief means of agitation, and are therefore on principle opposed to any peaceful coöperation with the middle class. A part of the women Socialist leaders are devoting themselves to the organization of workingwomen,—a task that is as difficult in Germany as elsewhere. Almost everywhere in Germany women laborers are paid less than men laborers. The average daily wage is 2 marks (50 cents), but there are many workingwomen that receive less. In the ready-made clothing industry there are weekly wages of 6 to 9 marks ($1.50 to $2.25). At the last congress of home workers, held at Berlin, further evidence of starvation in the home industries was educed. But for these wages the German woman’s rights movement is not to be held responsible.
In the social-political field the woman’s rights advocates hold many advanced views. Almost without exception they are advocating legislation for the protection of the workingwomen; they have stimulated the organization of the “Home-workers’ Association” in Berlin; they urged the workingwomen to seek admission to the Hirsch-Duncker Trades Unions (the German national association of trade-unions); they have established a magazine for workingwomen, and have organized a league for the consideration of the interests of workingwomen. In 1907 Germany had 137,000 organized workingwomen and female domestic servants.[70] Most of these belong to the socialistic trade-unions. The maximum workday for women is fixed at ten hours. The protection of maternity is promoted by the state as well as by women’s clubs.
Peculiar to Germany is the denominational schism in the woman’s rights movement. The precedent for this was established by the “German Evangelical Woman’s League,” founded in 1899, with Paula Müller, of Hanover, as President. The organization of the League was due to the feeling that “it is a sin to witness with indifference how women that wish to know nothing of Biblical Christianity represent all the German women.” The organization opposes equality of rights between man and woman; but in 1908 it joined the Federation of Women’s Clubs. In 1903 a “Catholic Woman’s League” was formed, but it has not joined the Federation. There has also been formed a “Society of Jewish Women.” We representatives of the interdenominational woman’s rights movement deplore this denominational disunion. These organizations are important because they make accessible groups of people that otherwise could not be reached by us.