| In the turbulent decades after World War I, both France and
Germany sought to return to an idealized, prewar past. Many
people believed they could recapture a sense of order and stability
by reinstituting traditional gender roles, which the war had
thrown off balance. While French and German women necessarily
filled men's roles in factories and other jobs during the war,
those who continued to lead active working lives after World
War I risked being called "modern women." Far from a compliment,
this derogatory label encompassed everything society found threatening
about women's new place in public life: a smoking, working woman
who preferred independence and sexual freedom to a traditional
role in the home. Society felt threatened by the image of the
"modern woman," yet also realized that conceptions of femininity
needed to accommodate the cultural changes brought about by
the Great War.
In Modernizing Tradition, Adam C. Stanley explores
how interwar French and German popular culture used commercial
images to redefine femininity in a way that granted women
some access to modern life without encouraging the assertion
of female independence. Examining advertisements, articles,
and cartoons, as well as department store publicity materials
from the popular press of each nation, Stanley reveals how
the media attempted to convince women that—with the help of
newly available consumer goods such as washing machines, refrigerators,
and vacuum cleaners—being a mother or a housewife could be
empowering, even liberating. A life devoted to the home, these
images promised, need not be an unmitigated return to old-fashioned
tradition but could offer a rewarding lifestyle based on the
wonders and benefits of modern technology. Stanley shows that
the media carefully limited women's association with the modernity
to those activities that reinforced women's traditional roles
or highlighted their continued dependence on masculine guidance,
expertise, and authority.
In this cross-national study, Stanley brings into sharp relief
issues of gender and consumerism and reveals that, despite
the larger political differences between France and Germany,
gender ideals in the two countries remained virtually identical
between the world wars. That these concepts of gender stayed
static over the course of two decades—years when nearly every
other aspect of society and culture seemed to be in constant
flux—attests to their extraordinary power as a force in French
and German society.
Adam C. Stanley is an assistant professor of history
at the University of Wisconsin, Platteville. |
