„Proletarische Frauen, seid bereit!“

Antimilitaristische Agitation proletarischer Frauen in der Zeitschrift Die Gleichheit (1892-1923)

Abstract

Social Democrats in the German Empire fought against militarism as part of their anticapitalistic aims. Consequently, the proletarian women’s movement’s periodical, Die Gleichheit, contained anti-militarist agitation which it addressed specifically to proletarian women. This article demonstrates that the periodical’s anti-militarist rhetoric often sought to place readers and their lived experience in direct connection with militarism, thus offering potential for identification and ultimately demonstrating to readers their own interest in an anti-militarist attitude and activity. Die Gleichheit’s endeavours to create identification were based on specific collective identity constructions of the proletarian woman which were centred around multiple and intertwined social power relations. Patriarchy (gender relations), capitalism and its instrument militarism, were understood as intertwined systems of oppression in which proletarian women held a multiply precarious social position. This article demonstrates that this made anti-militarism in Die Gleichheit appear to be a logical and consistent form of struggle against capitalism and patriarchy, which also decisively pursued goals of women's emancipation.