Women writers and fascism

College Literature, Spring 1998 by Godsall-Myers, Jean E

Gittens, Marie-Luise. 1995. Women writers and fascism. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. $39.95 hc. 185 pp.

While offering perhaps more insight to historians and social scientists than to literary critics, Women Writers and Fascism by Marie-Luise Gattens should not be summarily dismissed by scholars of literature. Indeed, Professor Gattens bases her study and conclusions on literary works and also refers to other sources to supplement her comments. Five literary texts are explicated, with one chapter dedicated to each text. Fourteen pages of notes follow the body of the book. The book concludes with a tenpage bibliography and a three-page index.

In the introduction, Gittens not only explains her intent but she also offers some guidelines for readers. She asserts, "It was my wish to link women and the political system and to break down the heirarchization that goes along with its division that prompted this study" (2). To that end, she chooses Virginia Woolfs Three Guineas as the control text for her experimental critique, because Woolf s essay is, in her estimation, "the most comprehensive attempt to theorize the significance of gender for fascism" (2). The remaining texts are by German women and include, in order, Ruth Rehmann's Der Mann auf der Kanzel: Fragen an einen Vater, Christa Wolf s Patterns of Childhood, Helga Schubert's Judasfrauen: Zehn Fallgeschichten weiblicher Denunziation im Dritten Reich, and Monika Maron's Silent Close No.6 (Stille Zeile Sechs). These five chapters enable Gattens to describe the way certain women responded, as members of families and of society, to their fascist government. Rather than limit her perspective to the past, the author pointedly applies her perspective to create some insight into the response of women to a more recent form of government, namely the socialism of the German Democratic Republic.

Readers would do well to ponder Gattens's introduction for several reasons. First, Gattens clarifies for readers that the interpretive nature of history calls for more than one perspective to exist, and hence that those who are outside the mainstream of discourse, namely women, deserve to voice their opinion and to have their perspective be considered. Second, GAttens connects the female historian in general to each of the texts. Third, Gattens connects the five texts to each other in the introduction, whereas throughout the chapters the texts are cross-referenced only fleetingly. In other words, the introduction focuses for readers the perspective Gattens intends to create within her own historical discourse.

With such guidelines in mind, readers can then appreciate the diversity offered by the female characters' responses to Fascism. According to GOttens, they attempt to understand their past as well as their present by coming to terms with various figures and organizations: their fathers (e.g., Rehmann), their mothers (e.g., Wolf), the church (e.g., Rehmann), the police state (e.g., Schubert), and academe (e.g., Maron). The women struggle against the power stucture horizontally, when the opponent is in authority, but they also struggle against forces vertically, when the opponent is a peer in the classroom or the social group. Such diversity is significant, for it helps to dispel the stereotype of all German women living through the Hitler era as being "the same" and responding "the same" to oppression. The varied roles and repressive forces also show just how pervasive fascism was, and for that reason there was no easy place to secure the forces of resistance.

Resistance, if it is to be effective, requires profundity. The women delve into their past and create a new perspective on the present, thereby resisting the oppression of pre-established historic views. The authors, as well as the characters they create, are about the task of freeing themselves from the bonds of the past. It is only when they do this, that they can plan for a better future. What makes Gattens's contribution to this formidable task significant is that she is similarly profound in her effort. She includes insights from many disciplines to support her perspective, bringing to bear political, psychological, sociological, and economic analysis on her already rich literary critique. She thus sets up readers to learn about fascism of the Third Reich in a way that they can also understand socialism as it existed recently in the German Democratic Republic. She then asks readers to consider the future role of women in the united Germany. Such a framework is important, if citizens are indeed to avoid the trap of choosing between only the Gestapo and the Stasi, and to attain full-fledged citizenship in a non-totalitarian state such as a democracy.

There is an abundance of information in this book. On the other hand, there were points where Gattens might have made reference to other significant scholarship on her subject: the chapter on women in Gordon Craig's The Germans or literature such as Anna Segher's Das Schilfrohr or Helga Schutz' Jette in Dresden could help readers contextualize the perspective offered by Gittens.