Debating Individualism and Altruism: Gertrud Bäumer, Ellen Key and the ethical foundations of modern life

Abstract

This article deals with the reception of writings by Ellen Key (1849–1926) by the moderate group of German middle-class feminists, especially Gertrud Bäumer (1873–1954), in the pre-World War One period. For both Key and Bäumer, gender was a central category in their vision for the future. Despite their agreement about the ultimate aim (gender equality), they held divergent views on a number of issues. Bäumer's criticisms of Key's work were not, however, primarily directed at her ideas about female emancipation. Rather, her discussion focused on the complex relationship between the individual and society. This article argues that the disagreement between Key and Bäumer concerning the relationship between the individual and society was anchored in their diverging views about the role of religion in ideological debates at the time. More generally, it suggests that researchers should pay closer attention to religious concerns among first-wave feminists and to the role that religious divergences played in feminist debates.

Notes

For example, Ronny Ambjörnsson (1974) Samhällsmodern. Ellen Keys kvinnouppfattning till och med 1896 [The mother of society. Ellen Key's view on femininity until 1896] (Dissertation, University of Gothenburg).

On Key's reception in Germany, see: Tiina Kinnunen (2000) ‘Eine der Unseren’ und ‘Königin im neuen Reiche der Frau’. Die Rezeption Ellen Keys in der Frauenbewegung des deutschen Kaiserreichs [‘One of ours’ and ‘Queen in the new land of women’. Ellen Key's reception in the women's movement of German Kaiserreich] (Tampere: Tampere University Press).

On Bäumer, see: Angelika Schaser (1998/99) Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer. Politik als Beruf vom Kaiserreich bis zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Helene Lange and Gertrud Bäumer. Politics as a profession from German Kaiserreich up to the Federal Republic of Germany] (Habilitationsschrift, Freie Universität Berlin) and Margit Göttert (2000) Macht und Eros. Frauenbeziehungen und weibliche Kultur um 1900—eine neue Perspektive auf Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer [Power and Eros. The relations between women and female culture around 1900—a new perspective on Helene Lange and Gertrud Bäumer] (Königstein: Ulrike Helmer Verlag).

Göttert, Macht und Eros, pp. 71–82; Schaser, Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer, pp. 135–147.

Leila J. Rupp (1997) Worlds of Women. The Making of an International Women's Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press), p. 55.

Inger Hammar (1999) Emancipation och religion. Den svenska kvinnorörelsens pionjärer i debatt om kvinnans kallelse ca 1860–1900 [Emancipation and religion. The pioneers of the women's movement in Sweden and the debate on women's vocation, 1860–1900] (Stockholm: Carlsson Bokförlag), p. 211. See also Women's History Review, vol. 17, no. 2, April 2008.

Edward Ross Dickinson (2005) Dominion of the Spirit over the Flesh: religion, gender and sexual morality in the German women's movement before World War I, Gender & History, 2(17), p. 379.

Karen Offen (2000) European Feminisms 1700–1950. A Political History (Stanford: Stanford University Press), p. 236.

About spiritual/social motherhood, see: Ann Taylor Allen (1991) Feminism and Motherhood in Germany, 1800–1914 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press), pp. 17–131.

Missbrauchte Frauenkraft was a compilation of two provocative books by Ellen Key that were published in Swedish in 1896. These books were Missbrukad kvinnokraft [The misuse of women's power] (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag) and Kvinnopsykologi och kvinnlig logik [Psychology of women and female logic] (Stockholm: Albert Bonniers förlag).

Helene Lange (1902) Das ungeborene Geschlecht und die Frauenbewegung [The unborn humankind and the women's movement], Die Frau 1(10), pp. 4–5.

Alice Kessler-Harris, Jane Lewis & Ulla Wikander (1995) Introduction, in Alice Kessler-Harris, Jane Lewis & Ulla Wikander (Eds) Protecting Women. Labor Legislation in Europe, the United States, and Australia, 1880–1920 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), pp. 1–27.

Sabine Schmitt (1995) ‘All These Forms of Women's Work which Endanger Public Health and Public Welfare’. Protective Labor Legislation for Women in Germany, 1878–1914, in Wikander et al. (Eds) Protecting Women, pp. 131, 140–141.

Gertrud Bäumer (1904) Die Frau in der Kulturbewegung der Gegenwart [The woman in the cultural movement of the present time] (Wiesbaden: Bergmann), p. 29; Helene Lange (1908) Die Frauenbewegung in ihren modernen Problemen [The women's movement with it's modern problems] (Leipzig), p. 27.

Dickinson, ‘Dominion of the Spirit’, pp. 387–391; Ursula Baumann (1992) Protestantismus und Frauenemanzipation in Deutschland 1850 bis 1920 [Protestantism and women's emancipation in Germany, 1850–1920] (Frankfurt/Main and New York: Campus), pp. 20–25.

About Key's religious development, see: Ulf Wittrock (1953) Ellen Keys väg från kristendom till livstro [Ellen Key's way from Christianity to a faith in life] (Stockholm: Natur och Kultur).

For example, Ellen Key (1907) Persönlichkeit und Schönheit in ihren gesellschaftlichen und geselligen Wirkungen. Essays [Personality and beauty and their impact in society. Essays], 2nd ed. (Berlin: Fischer), pp. VII, XI; Ellen Key (1906) Lebensglaube. Betrachtungen über Gott, Welt und Seele [The faith in life. Contemplation of God, world and soul], 3rd ed. (Berlin: Fischer), pp. 290–362. The original Swedish edition of Persönlichkeit und Schönheit was entitled Lifslinjer III (volume 3) and Lebensglaube was entitled Lifslinjer II (volume 2).

Die Essays [The essays] and Die Wenigen und die Vielen (The few and the many) were published in Sweden as Tankebilder I–II (1898) [Impressions, volumes 1–2].

For example, Ellen Key (1905) Die Wenigen und die Vielen, 4th ed. (Berlin: Fischer), pp. 81, 96.

For example, Ellen Key (1907) Die Essays, 7th ed. (Berlin: Fischer), p. 21.

Gertrud Bäumer (1900) Die physischen Probleme der Gegenwart und die Frauenbewegung [The physical problems of the present time and the women's movement], Die Frau 7(7), pp. 385–395.

The original Swedish title of Das Jahrhundert des Kindes is Barnets århundrade (1900). The book was also published in English in 1909 as The Century of the Child (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons).

Bäumer, ‘Die physischen Probleme’, pp. 385–395.

Ann Taylor Allen (2005) Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe, 1890–1970. The Maternal Dilemma (New York: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 103.

Ronald William de Angelis (1978) Ellen Key. A Biography of the Swedish Social Reformer (Dissertation, University of Connecticut), p. 184. Quotation: Key (1911), Love and Marriage (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons), p. 252.

Key's ethics of love is discussed thoroughly in Claudia Lindén (2002) Om kärlek. Litteratur, sexualitet och politik hos Ellen Key [On Love. Literature, sexuality and politics in Ellen Key's thinking] (Stockholm: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposion), pp. 263–273.

Gertrud Bäumer (1904) Ellen Key über Liebe und Ehe [Ellen Key on love and marriage], Die Frau, 2(12), pp. 65–72.

Dickinson, ‘Dominion of the Spirit’, pp. 394–403. See also Irene Stoehr (1986) Fraueneinfluss oder Geschlechterversöhnung. Zur Sexualitätsdebatte in der deutschen Frauenbewegung um 1900 [The influence of women or the reconciliation between the sexes. The debate on sexuality in the German women's movement around 1900], in Johanna Keyer-Kordesch & Annette Kuhn (Eds.) Frauenkörper, Medizin, Sexualität. Auf dem Weg zu einer neuen Sexualmoral [Women's body, medicine, sexuality. On the way towards a new morality concerning sexuality] (Düsseldorf: Schwann), pp. 159–190.

The problem between the individual and the society was at the centre of Bäumer's thinking. Schaser, Helene Lange and Gertrud Bäumer, pp. 131–135.

Key, Lebensglaube, pp. 290–362.

Gertrud Bäumer (1907) Für und wider Ellen Key. Kritisches zu ihrem Buch: ‘Der Lebensglaube’ [For and against Ellen Key. Critical ideas about her book: ‘Der Lebensglaube’], Die Lehrerin in Schule und Haus, 28(23), pp. 748–753; 29(23), pp. 777–780.

Dr. Fr. W. Foerster (1906) Bemerkungen zu Ellen Keys Lebensglaube, Die Frau 2(14), pp. 65–73.

Schaser, Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer, pp. 133–135.

Kinnunen, ‘Eine der Unseren’, pp. 119–120. See also Schaser, Helene Lange und Gertrud Bäumer, pp. 127–129.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tiina Kinnunen

Tiina Kinnunen is a Senior Lecturer at the Department for Geographical and Historical Studies at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research focuses on the history of first-wave feminisms in Europe, especially on Ellen Key and her reception and influence. Another topic of interest is gender and war, particularly the memory of the Second World War in Finland in a comparative context. She has also published on the history of historiography from a gender perspective.