| Total population: about | 7,000,000. |
| Women: about | 3,750,000. |
| Men: about | 3,250,000. |
| Federation of Austrian Women’s Clubs. No woman’s suffrage league. |
The Austrian woman’s rights movement is based primarily on economic conditions. More than 50 per cent of the women in Austria are engaged in non-domestic callings. This percentage is a strong argument against the theory that woman’s sphere is merely domestic. Unfortunately this non-domestic service of the Austrian women is seldom very remunerative. Austria itself is a country of low wages. This condition is due to a continuous influx of Slavic workers, to large agricultural provinces, to the tenacious survivals of feudalism, etc. Therefore women’s wages and salaries are lower than in western Europe, and low living expenses do not prevail everywhere (Vienna is one of the most expensive cities to live in). The “Women’s Industrial School Society,” founded in 1851, attempted to raise the industrial ability of the girls of the middle class. In accordance with the views of the time, needlework was taught. Free schools for the instruction of adults were established in Vienna. The economic misery following the war of 1866 led to the organization of the “Woman’s Industrial Society,” which enlarged woman’s sphere of activity as did the Lette-Society in Berlin. Since 1868 the woman’s rights movement has secured adherents from the best educated middle-class women,—namely, women teachers. In that year the Catholic women teachers organized a “Catholic Women Teachers’ Society.” In 1869 was organized the interdenominational “Austrian Women Teachers’ Society.” This society has performed excellent service. The women teachers, who since 1869 had been given positions in the public schools, were paid less than the men teachers having the same training and doing the same work. Therefore the women teachers presented themselves to the provincial legislatures, demanded an increase in salary, and, in spite of the opposition of the male teachers, secured the increase by the law of 1891. In 1876 a society devoted its efforts to the improvement of the girls’ high schools, which had been greatly neglected. In 1885 the women writers and the women artists organized, their male colleagues having refused to admit women to the existing professional societies. In 1888 the women music teachers likewise organized themselves. At the same time the question of higher education for women was agitated. In Vienna a “lyceum” class—the first of its kind—was opened to prepare girls for entrance to the universities (Abiturientenexamen). Admission to the boys’ high schools was refused to girls in Vienna, but was granted in the provinces (Troppau, and Mährisch-Schönberg). Girls were at all times admitted as outsiders (Extraneae) to the examinations held on leaving college (Abiturientenexamen). In this way many girls passed the “leaving” examination before they began their studies in Switzerland. Until 1896 the Austrian universities remained closed to women. The law faculties do not as yet admit women. The women’s clubs are striving to secure this reform. Those women that had studied medicine in Switzerland previous to 1896, and wished to practice in Austria, required special imperial permission, which was never withheld from them in their noble struggle.
In this way Dr. Kerschbaumer began her practice as an oculist in Salzburg. However, the Countess Possanner, M.D., after passing the Swiss state examination, also took the Austrian examination. She is now practicing in Vienna.
As the Austrian doctors have active and passive suffrage in the election to the Board of Physicians (Ärztekammer)[72] Dr. Possanner also requested this right. Her request was refused by the magistrate in Vienna because, as a woman, she did not have the suffrage in municipal elections, and the suffrage for the Board of Physicians could be exercised only by those doctors that were municipal electors.[73] Thereupon Dr. Possanner appealed her case to the government, to the Minister of the Interior, and finally to the administrative court. The court decided in favor of the petition. It must be emphasized, however, that the Board of Physicians favored the request from the beginning.
Women preachers and women lawyers are as yet unknown in Austria. As in former times, the teaching profession is still the chief sphere of activity for the middle-class women of German Austria. According to the law of 1869 they can be appointed not only as teachers in the elementary schools for girls, but also as teachers of the lower classes in the boys’ schools. Their not being municipal voters has two results: if the municipality is seeking votes, it appoints men teachers that are “favorably disposed”; if the municipality is politically opposed to the male teachers, it appoints women teachers in preference. But to be the plaything of political whims is not a very worthy condition to be in. If women teachers marry, they need not withdraw from the service (except in the province of Styria). More than 10 per cent of the women teachers in the whole of Austria are married, more than 2 per cent are widows. The women comprise about one fourth of the total number of elementary school teachers, of whom there are 9000. Their annual salaries vary from 200 to 1600 guldens ($96.40 to $771.20). The ordinary salary of 200 guldens is so insufficient that many elementary school teachers actually starve. The competition of the nuns is feared by the whole body of secular school teachers. In Tyrol instruction in the elementary schools is still almost wholly in the hands of the religious orders. The sisters work for little pay; they have a community life and consume the resources of the dead hand.
Of the secondary schools for girls some are ecclesiastic, some are municipal, and some private. The lyceums give a very good education (mathematics is obligatory), but as yet there are no ordinary secondary schools whose leaving examinations are equivalent to the Abiturientenexamen of the Gymnasiums. The “Academic Woman’s Club” in Vienna is demanding this reform, and the Federation of Austrian Women’s Clubs is demanding the development of the municipal girls’ schools into Realschulen. The state subsidizes various institutions. The girls’ Gymnasiums were privately founded. Dr. Cecilia Wendt, upon whom the degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred by Vienna University, and who took the state examination for secondary school teachers in mathematics, physics, and German, was the first woman appointed as teacher in a Gymnasium, being appointed in the Vienna Gymnasium for girls. Since 1871, women have been appointed in the postal and telegraph service. Like most of the subordinate state officials, they receive poor pay, and dare not marry. The women telegraph operators in the central office in Vienna are paid 30 guldens ($14.46) a month. “The woman telegraph operator can lay no claims to the pleasures of existence.” “These girls starve spiritually as well as physically.”[74] During the past twenty-eight years salaries have not been increased. Every two years a two-week vacation is granted. Since 1876 there has existed a relief society for women postal and telegraph employees.
The woman stenographer, to-day so much sought after in business offices, was in 1842 absolutely excluded from the courses in Gabelsberger stenography[75] by the Ministry of Public Instruction. In the courts of chancery (Advokatenkanzleien) women stenographers are paid 20 to 30 guldens ($9.64 to $14.46) a month. They are given the same pay in the stores and offices where they are expected to use typewriters. They are regarded as subordinates, though frequently they are thorough specialists and masters of languages. In the governmental service the women subordinates that work by the day (1.50 guldens,—73 cents) have no hope for advancement or pension. The first woman chief of a government office has been appointed to the sanitary department of the Ministry of the Labor Department, in which there is also a woman librarian.
It is not easy to imagine the deplorable condition of workingwomen when women public school teachers and women office clerks are expected to live on a monthly salary of $9.64 to $14.46. The Vienna inquiry into the condition of workingwomen in 1896 disclosed frightfully miserable conditions among workingwomen. Since then, especially through the efforts of the Socialists, the conditions have been somewhat improved.
In Vienna, efforts to organize women into trade-unions have been made,—especially among the bookbinders, hat makers, and tailors. Outside Vienna, organization has been effected chiefly among the women textile workers in Silesia, as well as among the women employees of the state tobacco factories. The most thorough organization of women laborers is found in northern and western Bohemia among the glassworkers and bead makers. In Styria, Salzburg, Tyrol, and Carinthia the organization of women is found only in isolated cases. Everywhere the organization of women is made difficult by domestic misery, which consumes the energy, time, and interest of the women. The organized Social-Democratic women laborers of German Austria have a permanent representation in the “Women’s Imperial Committee.” Of the 50,000 women organized in trade-unions, 5000 belong to the Social-Democratic party. The Magazine for Workingwomen (Arbeiterinnenzeitung) has 13,400 subscribers. Women industrial inspectors have proved themselves efficient.