March 1982 Newsletter

WOMEN IN GERMAN

Number 27                                                
March 1982

Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but uns hat der winter geschat über al. January and February in Fort Wayne consisted mainly of snowstorms, cancellations, school closings and bus delays— all very pesky, and not conducive to efficiency. I hope you all received the calls for papers that Connie, Ric and I finally managed to mail in mid-February, barely in advance of some of the deadlines for receiving proposals. Thinking about all the deadlines to be met, and knowing how many obligations most of us have, I'm impressed all over again with WiG's accomplishments during the past months, and seeing them pile up for this newsletter helps me be optimistic about our plans for the rest of 1982 and beyond.

One thing that dealt the old optimism something of a blow was the letter Martha Wallach received from CHRISTA REINIG on March 1. It begins: "Hier ist leider Schlimmes passiert. Meine Freundin hat sich bei einem Unfall die Hand so schwer und dauernd verletzt, daß sie mich nicht begleiten kann, sondern umgekehrt der Fall eingetreten ist, daß ich für sie sorgen und ihr helfen muß." In short, Christa won't be able to be present at our October conference after all. Thud. So, the Steering Committee members did some fast phone-calling and thinking; we decided to ask the Goethe-Institute to invite LUISE RINSER, since she is someone WiG intended to invite several years ago (remember, it was the "Rinser fund" which became the seed-money for Margot Schroeder's visit), and also because her interest in the peace movement and other "Randbewegungen" fits into the program we have planned for October. The Goethe-Institute agreed to extend the invitation, so we can be assured of their support—provided, of course, that Rinser can accept an invitation at this relatively late date. We promise to keep you informed as things develop.

We also agreed that Martha should write to Christa Reinig expressing our sympathy and emphasizing that we hope she'll agree to be our guest at some future conference, when and if she feels able to make the trip. It's certainly disappointing that she can't come this year, but let's hope for better luck another time, and keep our fingers crossed that things will work out with Luise Rinser.

So much for bad news, now for an upper. As some of you already know, and are doubtless pleased to hear again, CHRISTA WOLF will be at Ohio State University during the spring quarter 1983 (March 2U to June 3). Gerhard Wolf will also be there, and the OSU Women's Studies program and German department are planning a number of events to coincide with their stay. One is a conference on women and fascism, to be held the last weekend in April 1983. (Ingeborg Drewitz, who'll be at U-Texas, Austin that semester, will be one

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of the participants also). Helen Fehervary is still working on the possibility of scheduling a Women in German day with Christa Wolf, along the lines we discussed at the WiG business meeting at MLA. She has promised to let WiG know as soon as she has some­thing definite to report. If you have questions on anything related to the Wolfs' stay at OSU, please call or write Helen.

Report on the Funding of Visits by Speakers from Germany

We owe thanks to the Goethe Houses of Hew York and Chicago, and to the Goethe Institute-Boston for generous support during the past year. Angelika Mechtel’s visit was funded by Chicago, Ingeborg Drewitz’ by New York. The Goethe Institute-Boston and the Goethe House New York had recommended to the Munich Goethe House headquarters that Christa Reinig’s visit be funded Gisela Dischner’s visit at the MLA convention was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and she was under no obligation to do other readings. If any of you wish to invite Wept German academics to your campus, the Forschungsgemeinschaft is a good place to apply for funds; this year, they funded three people who read papers at the MLA convention. As you know, the funding for Dischner came through very late, after we had already received contributions from individual WiG members. Thanks to all of you who contributed to the "Dischner Fund." Because the funding from the Forschungsgemein schaft did come, we are willing to refund your money if you want it back. Otherwise, we suggest that it be converted into a special fund to help students attend WiG conferences.

— Martha Wallach

Ingeborg Drewitz 1983 USA Visit

Ingeborg Drewitz will be at the University of Texas at Austin from the end of January until mid-May 1983. On April 7 8he will be in Boston and is able to schedule appearances elsewhere around this date. Contact her as early as possible if you want to invite her to your campus—her calendar filled up very quickly when the Goethe House was putting her schedule together for this January.

— Martha Wallaeh

MLA

WiG at MLA, December 1981

Our session "German Women Writers of the Romantic Period" was a big success. There were excellent papers and a lively discussion despite the late hour. We received much positive feedback: comments on the high quality of the papers, inquiries about our plans for MLA 1982 in Los Angeles; one woman asked "how do I Join you?" We can consider it an indication of our status at MLA that we were assigned the Regency Ballroom! And we filled it. Doubtless many of the new faces

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at this session were there because of Ingeborg Drewitz, who pre­sented a sensitive portrait of Rahel Varnhagen between the two ses­sions listed in the program. Funding for Drewitz’ visit came through too late for her name to be included in the printed program, but we improvised by printing posters, mailing them to WiG members and to German departments, and posting and distributing them at the convention. Besides the full house at our session on the 29th, we had a large crowd at the party we held in Elke’s room for our guests before taking them to dinner on the 28th. The party was so well attended that we are wondering if there are people who would like to share a suite at the next MLA convention, so that we might have more space for that kind of event. If you are interested in doing this, write to Martha Wallach (CCC, UWGB, Green Bay, WI 54301).

— Elke Frederiksen and Martha Wallach

POINT OF VIEW

Women in German — Live from the Regency Ballroom

Musings on the WiG MLA session

The WiG Romantic Extravaganza, organized by Elke Frederiksen and Martha Wallach, was as good as we thought it would be. It might just be the best WiG session we’ve ever had—great papers on pro­found topics, constructive and uncatty commentary on the papers from Helga Kraft and Edith Waldstein, and Ingeborg Drewitz and Gisela Dischner there as inspiration, women who are scholars and poets. But there were so many people there, sitting in neat rows, with a raised podium, that I had the uneasy feeling we were no longer the comfortable, down-home, frowsy, cheerfully disorganized small circle of friends that WiG used to be. And a good thing, too, as nice as those intimate sessions of twenty were. As much as we scurried about during the half-time break trying to make the pom­pous Regency Ballroom a livable, humane women’s space, talking and hugging, unruffling the Romantic good-old-boys who came to the ses­sion, I still sensed that something had changed. Let us face it, we’ve gone big time: while we are not yet as full of ourselves as, say, the Lessing Society, people now come to our sessions not because they are women, or because they want feminist analysis or a refuge from the MLA storm, but because the topics are significant, the papers consistently good and the discussion interesting. We have gained a lot, because they are listening to us now, but we are of necessity losing that sense of togetherness which those conven­tion sessions sometimes provided. Our very success in numbers makes the circle impossible.

If success has killed that tiny-room intimacy we used to have, we are still lucky enough to have a place to get recharged emotionally as well as intellectually—the Women in German October conference.

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It is doubly important to us now—as we try to warm up the cold, gloomy, chandeliered Great Halls of the MLA.

-- Jeannine Blackwell

SOPHIE MERAU

WiG at MLA 1981 -- Summary of "Courtesan as Role Model”

This paper dealt with the influence of Ninon de Lendos, a 17th century French courtesan, on Sophie Mereau. Mereau, the second daughter of Gotthelf Schubart, and Johanna Sophie Frederike Schubart, was born on March 28, 1770. She was educated at home in modern languages, music, and drawing. She was married to Friedrich Mereau, a law professor at Jena, from 1793-1801, and to Clemens Brentano from 1803 until her death in 1806.

Mereau was fascinated by the life and letters of Ninon de Lendos. She translated Lendos’ letters, which appeared in Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker’s periodical Erholungen in 1797. Her most important work on Lendos was an essay "Ninon de Lendos,” published in the journal Kalathiskos in 1802. In this essay Mereau sketches Lendos’ life as the attainment of full sexual and intellectual freedom. She held up Lendos as a personal model and a model for bourgeois women of her time, seeing in Lendos’ life a positive alternative to marriage.

Mereau struggled to attain the same freedoms which Lendos valued. Social pressures and domestic problems forced her to compromise her freedom and to neglect her work. After she divorced her first hus­band she was determined to remain unmarried, and only after dis­covering her pregnancy did she agree to marry Brentano. She described her marriage with him as containing elements of both heaven and hell, but mostly hell. With three pregnancies, one child to look after, various financial problems, and Brentano’s moodiness, Mereau had little time for herself or her work. It is ironic that someone so concerned with equality and sexual freedom finally suffered the fate of many other women of her time. On October 30, 1806 Mereau died after giving birth to her fifth child.

— Jackie Vansant

WIG WORKING

WiG Business Meeting, Dec. 29, 1981, MLA

1. The meeting was chaired by Sara Lennox. She announced that Marianne Burkhard and Linda Pickle have agreed to serve as co-chairs for the coming year.

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2. We discussed the WiG sessions for the 1982 AATG meeting, to he held in New York. Since there were no volunteers for a second coordinator of the proposed session "Fairy Tale Motifs in German Women’s Writing," the responsibility for finding one was turned over to the Steering Committee. (Obviously, this has since been done—see calls for papers mailed in February!)

3. Helen Fehervary announced Christa Wolf’s planned visit to OSU during the spring quarter 1983 (March 2H-June 3). Various possibilities for a WiG-sponsored event were discussed, including a more general conference (1-2 days) on women writers, to be co-sponsored by the OSU Women’s Studies program and other groups; planning a special one-day retreat with Wolf for WiG alone (pos­sibly but not necessarily in tandem with another, more general conference, or with the NWSA convention, which will be held in Columbus, June 1983). Those present agreed we should still go ahead with plans for the annual October conference in the Los Angeles area in 1983, including plans to invite an author, as decided last October in Racine. We also agreed to try to schedule an informal one-day WiG event in Ohio during Wolf’s visit, and Helen agreed to try to arrange this.

4. We discussed the 1982 MLA WiG sessions on Women and German Film, in response to Marjorie Tussing’s and Dorothy Rosenberg’s request for advice on choice of film(s) and/or filmmakers for the ses­sions. After much discussion, we agreed on the following, listed in order of preference:

tie 1. Käthe Kratz (Austrian feminist filmmaker; very accessible, according to Jackie Vansant, who sent a list of her films to Marjorie and is willing to initiate contact with her).

tie 1. Christine Perincioli (Die Macht der Männer ist die Geduld der Frauen; semi-fictional film about battering; very favorably reviewed, e.g. in Medium. Zeitschrift fur Hörfunk, Fernsehen, Film, Presse, Dez. 1978, pp. U2-U3) .

2. Heike Sander, known especially for her film Redupers and her work for the journal frauen und film.

3. Margareta von Trotta (Die Bleierne Zeit; Schwestern oder die Balance des Glucks; Das zweite Erwachen der Christa Klages; other films with Schlöndorff).

4. Helma Sanders-Brahms (Deutschland, bleiche Mutter)

5. Ulrike Ottinger (most recently, Freak Orlando--very mixed reviews in Courage, Dec. 1981, and Emma, Jan. 1982).

It was suggested that a "special event" status be requested from MLA for the film showing itself. (Helen Fehervary suggested WiG might consider purchasing some films to begin a feminist film resource for members. She agreed to look into this possibility).

5. Discussion of the 1982 WiG conference, Oct. lU-17, on Thompson’s Island in Boston Harbor. Martha Wallach reported on funding efforts; the Goethe Institute had indicated possible willing­ness to provide some support for Christa Reinig’s visit if

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additional speaking engagements for Reinig could be arranged. Reinig had indicated that she was willing to do a one-month Lesetour in the New England area. The Steering Committee would be responsible for finding someone to pursue and possibly coordinate this aspect of her visit.

6. New Business

--Barbara Wright reported on the Denver AATG workshop on non­sexist German instruction, indicating that valuable material had been presented to a disappointingly small audience, and suggested that WiG find a way to continue this project. (Barbara is working on this; see announcement elsewhere in this issue).

—Jackie Vansant reported that the Textbook Committee was solic­iting reviews of first- and second-year textbooks and critiques of first- and second-year German programs (see announcement elsewhere in this issue).

—Bonnie Beckett-Hoffmann announced the International Symposium on the GDR (June 18-2U, 1982, in Conway, NH).

— minutes taken by Joey Horsley

WIG 1982

REPORT PROM JOEY -- WiG 1982

Joey Horsley, who is responsible for making arrangements with the Thompson’s Island conference center and for conference registration, has the following information about cost: the basic price is $30. per day, which includes 3 meals and the overnight, as well as boat transportation to the island. The sliding scale we have had for other conferences still has to be worked out, but you can see it will be based on a cost of $90. for those attending the entire con­ference (Oct. lU-17). If you bring your child(ren), you will have to pay their lodging too. Child care will be arranged for those who need it.

The conference center requires that we pay, by August 15, a deposit of 20% of the total. Thus, if we had e.g. 60 people, the deposit would be ca. $1200.--and paying such a deposit would more than wipe out the WiG treasury at one swell foop. So, to deal with this problem, the steering committee proposes the following: all of you who are on the program in some ’’official" capacity (as coordinators, presenters, etc.) will be asked to register by August 1, 1982. (We are assuming it won’t make that much difference to most of you whether you pay your registration early or late, since you are already com­mitted to attending the conference). This advance registration will give us the money to pay the deposit and allow us to have a "normal"

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registration deadline of September 15 for everyone else. We felt that having an August 1 deadline for everyone would reduce atten­dance at the conference, since many people are away during the summer and don’t return until September. When the sliding scale has been worked out, we’ll send you the information. So that we can know who the program participants will be, all coordinators should contact Barbara Wright (U Connecticut, Storrs) no later than May 1, 1982.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Tobe Levin (University of Maryland, European Division) wants WiG members to know that Verena Stefan and Gabriele Meixner are willing and eager to be the guests of WiG at some future conference (Tobe suggests 1983). Verena Stefan of course needs no introduction, but some of you might not know (I didn’t) that Gabriele Meixner was a founding sister of Amazonen Verlag in Berlin before moving to Frauenoffensive to serve for 3 years as Geschäftsführerin; she had the major responsibility for French feminist writing, as Lektorin and translator. Gabriele and Verena have been working, with Tobe, on translating Adrienne Rich’s Dream of a Common Language. Both are, of course, intimately familiar with contemporary German women’s poetry, and would like to discuss with us their experiences trans­lating Rich, as well as the reception their translation will have received by 1983. (Being predisposed to grandiose ideas, I promptly envisioned a conference with Verena, Gabriele, and Adrienne Rich-- wouldn’t that be exciting, and wouldn’t that require even more, urn, Amazonian fund-raising efforts than we're facing now’. —Just a thought.) —Do send your reactions to Tobe’s suggestion.

AATG 1982

AATG/ACTFL, Nov. 1982, Mew York

As you know, we're hoping to have two WiG sessions during the 1982 AATG meeting: "Fairy Tales in the Classroom" (coord. Wilma Iggers and Bunny Weiss), and "Fairy Tale Motifs in German Women’s Writing" (coord. Jorun Johns and Ruth Bottigheimer).

In addition, Barbara Wright is working with an AATF member, Rebecca Valette, to propose a one and one-half day pre-conference workshop, an expansion of the one Barbara and Gabriele Wickert arranged for the Denver meeting last November. The program envisioned for this fall is tentatively entitled "Female and Male Stereotyping" and would be co-sponsored by AATG, AATF, and ACTFL, to attract a wider audience. Also, workshop participants would be able to earn graduate credit, through the University of Connecticut. The program, if it is approved, would be more or less as follows: (1) presentation of

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guidelines for analyzing stereotyping in teaching materials; (2) participants work in groups of two or three, each group analyzing a different set of materials (a textbook; standardized tests, film­strips, cultural films, etc.); (3) plenary session and discussion. Following the workshop itself, participants would be expected to write up reviews of the material in publishable form; reviews to be presented to publishers, and made widely available. Barbara and Rebecca are planning to encourage not only teachers, but also text­book authors, publishers, cultural attachés, and distributors of teaching materials to attend. Doesn't this sound good? If for some reason it isn't approved as a pre-conference workshop this year, we will probably try to find another way to present it—it's long past time to get really serious about sexist teaching materials'. If you have any questions or suggestions, contact Barbara Wright at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

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A relatively recent and easily accessible article on the impact of feminist research on the curriculum: "Women's Research Challenges Long-Held Beliefs," New York Times, Nov. 23, 1981« Evelyn Beck suggested that we make the most of "big media" articles such as this one when pushing for the integration of feminist materials into the general curriculum.

[cartoon]

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DENVER 1981 

REPORT — AATG/ACTFL, 1981 Pre-conference Workshop

The purpose of the Denver pre-conference workshop "Forward to Basics: Non-Sexist German Instruction at the Beginning Level," coordinated by Gabriele Wickert and myself, was to identify sex bias in German texts commonly used at the elementary level (high school and college), and to present corrective strategies for adapting existing texts to non­sexist use, enriching language programs with cultural materials on women and supplementing regular instruction with non-sexist games, exercises and readings. We also discussed ways to turn the fight against sexism in language teaching from an individual struggle into a department- or school-wide policy. Bibliographies, brochures on women from the GDR and FRG, and a list of significant women in German history were handed out.

After an introduction and panel presentation, we originally planned to break down into smaller working groups. However, low enrollment allowed us to form a roundtable discussion, and we all enjoyed the opportunity to work directly with each other. Helen Frink (Keene State College, NH) shared her "Checklist for Identifying Sexism in Language Textbooks" (reproduced here). Ursula Beitter (Hamilton College, Clinton, NY) dis­tributed copies of her rewritten fairy tales. Our favorite was "Aschenputtel auf der TH." Dinah Dodds (Lewis and Clark College, Port­land) demonstrated several games which push students to use their lan­guage skills creatively beyond the framework of the textbook. Karen Pederson (Minneapolis Public Schools) and I addressed the lacunae in our knowledge of notable women in German history, politics, science and culture.

At the end of the session we spent some time discussing the low atten­dance and ways to give the workshop again more effectively. Apart from the extra time and considerable expense for participants, it was sug­gested that including teachers of other languages and treating male stereotypes as well might help.

— Barbara D. Wright

Helen Frink’s Checklist is reproduced on the next two pages. If your department has a textbook selection committee, why not tear these pages out and hand them to the chairperson? (First, make copies for your col­leagues in French, Russian, Spanish . . .) Barbara suggests that in using this or a similar checklist, it would be helpful first to distin­guish four major ways in which the presentation of women can be biased, whether in dialogues, readings, exercises, vocabulary, illustrations, etc.: (1) by simply ignoring women--their number, occupations, respon­sibilities, and achievements; (2) by showing them only or primarily in a position of dependency on men—as girlfriend, wife; as assistant rather than leader; as observer rather than doer, etc.; (3) by showing them only in traditional roles with traditional characteristics and modes of behavior; (4) by treating them in a pejorative or degrading manner (whether a "traditional" portrayal or not). (Note: Barbara's categories are similar to those used by Audrone Willeke and Ruth Sanders:  (1) Exclusion; (2) Subordination; (3) Distortion; (4) Degra­dation. See "Walter is intelligent und Brigitte ist blond. Dealing with Sex Bias in Language Texts," UP 1978, No. 2, pp. 60-65.)

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Helen Frink

CHECKLIST FOR IDENTIFYING SEXISM IN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS

I. Exclusion and underrepresentation

A. Dialogues
1. Total number of dialogues in book
2. Number with only female participants
3. Number with only male participants
4. Number with females in dominant role
5. Number with males in dominant role

B. Readings
1. Total number of readings in book
2. Number which focus on important women
    Names of women subjects:

3. Number which focus on important men
    Names of men subjects:

C. Number of dialogues or readings devoted to current social, political, or economic status of women                                                                                       

II. Women in society

A. Women at work
1. Do women travel for study or professional reasons! Yes__No__
2. Are women shown at work? Yes__No__
3. What trades or professions are given for women?

For the remaining items, rank the book on a three point scale, where 1 means the item is not a feature of the book (non-sexist), 3 indicated the book shows some instances of bias for this aspect, and 5 indicates an unacceptable level of sexism; the feature appears repeatedly.

B. Social interaction: negative traits

1. Women appear in a role subordinate to men (e.g. getting a traffic fine, asking men for directions or help)    1  3  5  
2. Men control finances and money    1  3  5   
3. Women are shown as extravagant    1  3  5 
4. Women are engaged in the humanities, while men are involved in science, technology, politics, or business     1  3  5  
5. Women’s activities appear less interesting, exciting, or important than those of men 

1  3  5 
6. Women engage in traditional female activities, cooking, child care, etc.     1  3  5                            7. Women discuss ’’trivial” matters (appearance, health, fam­ily) while men discuss "serious" subjects (politics, economics, history, culture)      1  3  5
8. Women are more concerned with their physical appearance than men are   1  3  5

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Sexism in Language textbooks, cont.
Page 2
Helen Frink

III. Portrayal of women
1. Women are described in terms of their phsical appearance more often than men     1  3  5  
2. Women are identified by their relationship to men or family (wife, sister)     1  3  5  

Compared to men, women are characterized as:
3. Less intelligent     1  3  5  
4. More emotional    1  3  5  
5. More quarrelsome     1  3  5
6. Younger     1  3  5  
7. Physically smaller     1  3  5  
8. Suffering more from ill health     1  3  5  

IV. Sexism in Grammar and Vocabulary

1. Occupational terms are not given in the feminine for traditional male occupations (list examples for which no female equivalents are given)     1  3  5  

2. Occupational terms given in teh feminine identify traditional roles only (list examples for which no male equivalents are given)     1  3  5  

3. When both feminine and masculine forms appear (for family members, uccupations, etc.) the masculine is fiven first     1  3  5  

4. In presenting feminine and masculine forms appear (for family members, occupations, etc.) the masculine is given first for:
a. Parts of the body     1  3  5 
b. Items of clothing     1  3  5 
c. Personal grooming   1  3  5   

V. Sexism in Illustrations

1. How often are women pictured? Men?
2. How many pictures show only women? Only men? 3. How often is a female pictured in a dominant role (i.e., center, full-face, doing rather than watching?) a male?                                                 
4. How are women dressed? Men?
5. What are women pictured doing? Men?
6. What interpretations do captions or commentary on the illustrations offer?
7. What kind of information about women and men is offered in other illustrative material (graphs, charts, statistical tables, cartoons, advertisements, etc.)?

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WiG Textbook Committee

The textbook committee invites reviews of first- and second-year German textbooks, and also of programs for the first two yefcrs of German. If you would like to review a textbook for the committee but are afraid you’ll duplicate someone else’s work, write to Sandra and Jackie telling them which book you’d like to review and they’ll get in touch with you: Sandra Shattuck/Jackie Vansant, Dept. of Germanic Lang, and Lit., Univ. of Texas-Austin, Austin, TX 78712.

Guidelines suggested by the committee for reviewing a textbook: 1. How many women appear in the text? 2. What are the occupations of the women vs. the men? 3. How are they distributed throughout the text? 4. How are women portrayed? (e.g. are women described in terms of physical characteristics — "hubsch," etc.; are traits such as intelligence mentioned only for men?) 5. Are there other biases apparent? (age, class, etc.; example from Modern German: "Arme haben viele Kinder.") 6. Is the 3d sg. feminine pronoun sie equally represented in grammar exercises? 7. How would you rate the text overall?

Questions for reviewing programs: 1. What books are used for the first- and second-year program? 2. Is there a textbook selection committee? If so, is there any concern about sexist content? 3. Have you been able to eliminate sexist texts? If hot, is there a way to incorporate a critique of the material while using it in the classroom?

Sample from Jackie’s and Sandra’s review of Deutsch 2000 (detailed breakdown of roles)

Unit 1, "Wer ist das?"
2 women (Verkäuferin, Sekretärin)
1 man (Student)

Unit 2, "Im Studio"
3 women (Sekretärin, Verkäuferin, Ansagerin)
3 men (Quizmaster, Reporter, Student)

Unit 3, "Was sind Sie?"
2 women (Verkäuferin, Sekretärin)
4 men (Quizmaster, Student, Reporter, Flugkapitän)

Unit 4, "Im Supermarkt"
2 women (Lehrerin, Kassiererin)
1 man (Journalist)

Unit 5, "Im Restaurant"
no women
4 men (der Ober, 3 Gäste)

Unit 6, "Entschuldigen Sie, bitte. . ."
1 woman (pedestrian)
4 men (driver, 3 pedestrians)

Unit 7, "Mein Wagen ist kaputt"
1 woman (Sekretärin)
1 man (Chef)

Unit 8, "Fräulein Heim telefoniert"
2 women (Sekretärin, operator)
1 man (Chef der Werkstatt)

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FRAUEN ANTWORTEN AUF RASSISMUS

The following essay by Dagmar Schultz appeared as a kind of post­script to her report on the 1981 NWSA convention in the October 1981 isbue of Courage. If you want to read the entire report (5 pages), and don’t have access to Courage, send WiG a small donation and I’ll xerox it for you.

[drawing]

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Die Teilnahme an dieser Konferenz brachte mir zum Bewußtsein, daß die Auseinandersetzung mit Rassismus bei uns ebenso notwendig ist, aber in der Frauenbewegung noch weitgehend umgangen wird. Den meisten von uns ist klar, daß Rassismus gegen Ausländer und deutsche Farbige ein Grundzug unserer Gesellschaft ist und daß Antisemitismus nur deshalb weniger offensichtlich ist, weil Juden in Deutschland kaum (mehr) vorhanden sind. Aber wo machen sich Rassismus und Antisemitismus in uns bemerkbar? Wie wurde uns beigebracht bestimmte Vorurteile zu übernehmen? Wie können wir uns dagegen wehren, daß stereotype Bilder, die wir bewußt ablehnen, aus dem Unterbewußten in erfider Weise wieder auftauchen? Wie gehen wir mit solchen Gefühlen und Haltungen um? Und was sind die politischen Implikationen von Handlungsstrategien, die diesen Aspekt mit einbeziehen oder ihn ignorieren?
     Seit Jahren gibt es Projekte, die von Frauen für und teilweise mit Ausländerinnen entwickelt wurden - dort ist diese Diskussion ansatzweise geführt worden. Häufig ging es in diesen Projekten jedoch mehr darum, ein Informationsdefizit über Ausländerinnen zu füllen, als Vorutreile zu unersuchen.
     Wir haben uns bisher in weit geringerem Maße mit Rassismus und Antisemtismus auseinandergesetzt als unsere amerikanischen Schwestern. Zum Teil sicherlch, weil Ausländerinnen und deutsche farbige Frauen diese Kritik und Selbstkritik weniger energisch von uns fordern.
     Als Alix Dobkin ihre Konzerte damit einleitete, daß sie von ihrer Angst sprach, als Jüdin in Deutschland zu sein, war die Antwort des Publikums ein unwilliges, ungeduldiges Raunen: red doch nicht soviel, sondern sing - wir haben keine Lust, uns von dir Schuldgefühle für etwas einreden zu lassen, womit wir nichts zu tun hatten.
     Sicher, wir sind nicht schuldig für die Taten unserer Eltern, aber wir sind mit verantwortlich für das, was heute geschieht. Und unsere Gesellschaft ist nicht so beschaffen, daß eine Jüdin keine Angst zu haben braucht, in Deutschland zu sein. Die Geschichte lebt weiter und ist somit auch unsere Geschichte. Wenn eine jüdische Frau mit uns nicht über ihre Ängste sprechen kann, verneinen wir die Realität, die diese Geschichte für sie hat, und unsere Verantwortung für die Gegenwart. Auf diese Weise werden wir indirekt zu Komplizinnen von Kräfen, die übrigens auch irgendwann den sozialen Rassismus gegen uns als z.B. lesbische Frauen anwenden mögen.
   Was bedeutet es, wenn wir uns durch Türken bedrohter fühlen als durch Deutsche? Kommen deutsche Männer plötzlich zu gut weg? Deutsche Männer, die den Hauptprozentsatz von Vergewaltigern ausmachen, und die unsere Arbeits- und Lebensmöglichkeiten kontrollieren?
     Was steht dahinter, wenn wir von „Türkenfrauen" und „Türkenfamilien" sprechen? Würden wir je „Franzosenfrauen" sagen?
     Seit einigen Wochen treffen sich in Berlin Frauen, um diesen Fragen nachzugehen. Wir versuchen, uns darüber klar zu werden, was wir von Kindheit an an Antisemitismus und Rassismus mitbekommen haben, wann und wie diese Vorurteile oft ungerufen und unerwünscht wieder hochkommen. Wir stehen an den Anfängen einer komplexen Selbstuntersuchung und wissen nur, daß sie notwendig ist - für uns selbst, für unsere Beziehungen zu denen, die in der Gesellschaft diskriminiert werden und für unsere politische Arbeit. Wir würden uns freuen, wenn Frauen aus der BRD uns ihre Gedanken und Erfahrungen mitteilen. Für Berliner Frauen: die Gruppe ist weiterhin offen und wird sich zu Diskussionen und zur Planung von Veranstaltungen treffen. Am Sonntag, dem 11. Oktober sind wir um 18.00 Uhr im Frauencafé am Winterfeldtplatz (Winterfeldtstr. 38) und werden von unseren bisherigen Gesprächen und Überlegungen berichten
     Dagmar Schultz

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RESEARCH PROJECTS

Janis Murphy (Univ. Washington, Seattle) is writing her dissertation on the German dramatist Elsa Bernstein, who wrote during the period 1895-1910, mostly under the pseudonym Ernst Rosmer. Janis heard from a colleague that something about Bernstein had appeared in a WiG newsletter several years ago (prior to March 1980) – do any of you remember this? Janis is in corresponding with others address: Janis Murphy, [redacted]

Corry Moore (Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa) is doing research on Mädchenlektüre im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, focusing on three questions: Where did women attain literacy? What kinds of role models were presented to girls? Who wrote for a younger female audience? She hopes eventually to produce a book on this topic. Corry also sent a copy of a recent article: Cornelia Niekus Moore, ’’’Mein Kindt, nimm diß in acht.’ Anna Hoyers’ Gespräch eines Kindes mit seiner Mutter von dem Wege zur wahren Gottseligkeit als Beispiel der Erbauungsliteratur für die Jugend im 17. Jahrhundert,” Pietismus und Neuzeit, Band 6 (1980), I64-I85.

Renny Harrigan is reading "masses of popular literature of the Weimar Republic” for her NEH-funded research project in Berlin (though she sometimes thinks it might be more useful to write a "Schlüsselroman” about women in academe!) —Besides her many publications on women in Weimar literature, Renny has an article on West German cinema forthcoming in Jump Cut. She writes about the Film Festival in Berlin: "There are lots of women's films, but I’m no longer happy seeing them listed Just as "women’s films”—what are women’s films if not everything. And we'd never dream of lumping everything else together as "men's films.” The fine line between affirmation and cooptation ... we need autonomy, but we need more than "women" as a label to exist!”

Joan Moessner (Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks) is researching a chapter on Germans in Alaska, for a book (sponsored by the German government) on Germans in the American Northwest.

WIG 1981

New Ways of Reading
(This summary was received too late to be included in the last newsletter)

The women and men in Angelika Mechtel's stories "Die Träume der Füchsin,” "Kuckucksfrau,” and "Zweimal ein Sohn” seem to live ac­cording to such different principles that their desperate attempts at communication most often end in suicide or violence.

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Instead of showing us possibilities for new behavior patterns, Angelika makes us painfully aware of the enormous gulf between male and female roles through the dichotomy of concave and convex forms of behavior. The passive concave form is female, pliable to the demands of others to the point of giving up the self. Convex male behavior Juts out into space, acts in order to accomplish a goal even if the means are the destruction of the other. The polarity is so static that it leaves some readers hopeless, with a heightened awareness and no identification figure for a positive alternative in sight.- This polarity also frustrates some readers enough that they work toward their own synthesis.

In our session we criticized prescriptive work with literature which would blame Angelika for not writing positive role models. When we are fixated on identification figures, especially in women’s litera­ture, we become blind to deeper meaning possibilities within the text and expanding from the text. For example the frustration with the underlying concave-convex polarity in these texts can inspire asking about the images which might portray woman as a whole person.

We could reinscribe the ancient female symbols of the column and the spiral to show a grounded personality at the center of a social group on the one hand or to show a personality in constant inner (personal) and outer (social) development on the other. (For the historical usage of these signs see Cillie Rentmeister, "Das Ratsei der Sphinx. Matriarchatsthesen und die Archäologie des nicht odipalen Dreiecks,"in Weiblich-Männlich. Kulturgeschichtliche Spuren einer verdrängten Weiblichkeit, ed. Brigitte Wartmann (Berlin: Ästhetik und Kommunikation, 1980), pp. 151-193.)

Instead of supporting a monolithic view of femininity, the Moebius strip could spark awareness of the paradoxical continuum of male­ness and femaleness within personal wholeness. By taking a strip of paper, turning one end over and connecting the ends, one creates a surface in which Side A becomes Side B. (For the implications of this image see Sydna Stern Weiss ’’Dürrenmatt ’ s ’The Physicists’: The Moebius Strip as Structural Analogue," Science/Technology and the Humanities, 3, No. 2 (1980), pp. 98-107.)

We might look for these images of female personality in literature while considering the significance of their origin, potential and associations in modern society.

— Karen Jankowsky

Miscellaneous News from WiG members

OF WIG BORN.—word has reached us of the following recent births: a daughter, Linnea, in November 1981, to Nancy Vedder Shults (Linnea was with Nancy and Mark at MLA, and slept peacefully through a Brecht session . . .); a son, Lucas, to Vicki Williams Hill, in December 1981; a son, Tilman Ripp Achberger, on January 19, 1982, to Karen and Fritz Achberger. Happy parenting, folks!

* * *

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Irmgard Taylor (now full professor, and in her second year as chair of her department at SUNY College at Cortland) attended the First International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Haifa, Israel in December 1981, and presented a paper based on her monograph Dae Bild der Witwe in der deutschen Literatur (reviewed in the Nov. 1981 issue of this newsletter). She writes that the next Congress is tentatively planned in three years in Ireland or one of the Scandi­navian countries. Anyone wishing more information can write to Irmgard, or you can ask to be put on the mailing list by writing to: Marilyn P. Safir, Chairperson, Dept. of Psychology, University of Haifa, Israel.

CALLS FOR PAPERS

1. WiG in Boston, 1982.

—FEMINISTISCHE WISSENSCHAFT. Coord. Sara Lennox [redacted] and Kay Goodman (German Dept., Brown U, Providence, RI 02912). No deadline specified.

-RANDBEWEGUNGEN IM DEUTSCHEN SPRACHRAUM. Coord. Linda Pickle [edacted] and Brigitte Wichman [redacted]. Deadline was March 1.

--SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE. Coord. Angelika Bammer [redacted] and Jeanette Clausen [redacted]. Deadline is April 1, 1982.

2. WiG at AATG, 1982. FAIRY TALES IN THE CLASSROOM, coord. Bunny Weiss (Hamilton College, Clinton, NY 13323) and Wilma A. Iggefs (Mod. Lang., Canisius College, Buffalo, NY 1U208), and FAIRY TALE MOTIFS IN GERMAN WOMEN’S WRITING, coord. Jorun Johns (California State College, San Bernardino, CA 92^07) and Ruth Bottigheimer (Germanic L + L, 230 E. Pyne, Princeton U, Princeton, NJ O85HU). Deadline was March 1.

3. WOMEN AND GERMAN FILM, WiG at MLA, 1982. Deadline was March 1, 1982. Coord. Marjorie Tussing (FLL, California State U., Fullerton, CA 82634) and Dorothy Rosenberg[redacted]

* * *

Women and Film: The next issue of New German Critique is a special issue on film. It contains a discussion with Judith Mayne, Claudia Lenssen, and Helen Fehervary on Women and Film.

* * *

The MLA Commission on the Status of Women seeks participants for the following anticipated forum workshops and sessions for the 1982 Con­vention (unless otherwise indicated, all addresses are in the

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september 1981 PMLA Directory): Race and. Power, Carmen Salazar Parr, Los Angeles Valley College; Politics of Women's Bodies, Hortense Spillers, Dept. of English, Haverford College, Haverford, PA 190kl; Sexual Politics, Mary Jacobus, Cornell University; Black Women in Colleges, Deborah McDowell, Colby College. Please send papers or abstracts by 15 March.

MORE CALLS FOR PAPERS

The International Brecht Society is sponsoring two sessions at the 1982 MLA convention. The session topics, “Brecht and Socialism” and ’’Brecht and Women”, will be the topics of the next two IBS Yearbooks. The editors plan to select the best contributions for publication, so the more “finished” the papers are, the more likely they will be selected. Abstracts of 1-2 pages to each of the two chairpersons, no later than April 15, 1982.

Brecht and Socialism

Papers on any aspect of Brecht’s relationship to socialism, be it in his plays, poetry, prose, or his life. Abstracts to:

David Pike, German Dept.
Univ. of N. Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

and

John Fuegi, Comp. Lit.
Univ. of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Brecht and Women

Papers on the characterization or treatment of women or women's issues in any of Brecht's works, as well as any women in his life as it might have affected his work or productivity. Abstracts to:

K. Lew Thomas, Dance Dept. 
University of California   
Los Angeles, CA 90024   

and

Gisela E. Bahr, GREAL
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45O56

Participants must be MLA members or apply for membership before April 1, 1982.

* * *

The Denver Quarterly is planning a special issue devoted to Literary Images of Women, to appear in Winter 1983. Critical essays, short stories, and poetry are invited; translations will also be considered. Send submissions by June 30, 1982 to:

Sieglinde Lug, Guest Editor
Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literatures
University of Denver
Denver, CO 80208

or

Leland H. Chambers, Editor
Denver Quarterly
Univ. of Denver
Denver, CO 80208

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East-Central Europe, an interdisciplinary journal devoted to the study of the German Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, is assembling a Special Issue on the GDR. Manuscripts on all aspects of the contemporary GDR are invited, most especially studies on current themes in East German literature. Please send manuscripts in triplicate to:

C. Bradley Scharf, Editor, East-Central Europe
Dept. of Political Science
Seattle University
Seattle, WA 98122

ANNOUNCEMENT

The MLA Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession is , seeking two new members to be appointed for three-year terms 1982-85. This year the commission is particularly interested in applications from members in the Midwest. Members interested in serving on the commission should send their curricula vitae and letters describing their qualifications for commission work to either Madelyn Gutwirth, Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, West Chester State College, West Chester, PA 19380, or to Helene Moglen, Division of Humanities + Arts, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 950614. The dead­line for applications is 10 April, and appointments to the commission will be made by the MLA Executive Council in May 1982.

TRANSLATION

Helen Fehervary reminds us that an English translation of Kein Ort., Nirgends will be published by Farrar Straus + Giroux in 1982, pos­sibly in time for fall semester classes. Wolf’s Buchner-prize acceptance speech appeared in English in New German Critique 23 (Spring/Summer 1981). And if all goes well, an English translation of her essay “Berührung" (Foreword to Maxie Wander’s Guten Morgen, du SchSne) will be included in an anthology that Naomi Stephan, Dagmar Schultz, Edith Hoshino and Jeanette Clausen hope to have ready for publication by late 1982. (Notice I said "hope"—much remains to be done for this project).

Still speaking of translations: the lack of them continues to be a problem for most of us who want to teach women authors. For example, the only English translations of Christa Reinig’s work seem to be in DIMENSION: the chapter "Xenia" from Entmannung (vol. 9, No. 6, 1976) and miscellaneous short pieces and poems scattered in various issues of that journal. Ilze Mueller, a WiG member, has translated Reinig’s Müßiggang ist aller Liebe Anfang, and submitted it to Cleis press, which unfortunately is likely to turn it down,

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primarily because of the copyright fees, etc. they would have to pay Reinig's publisher, Eremiten-Presse. Another example is Ingeborg Drewitz—apparently none of her works are available in English!
Helen suggested that Drewitz’ book on Bettina von Arnim should be high on the list of works needing to be translated. Surely all of you could suggest any number of other high priorities—what may be most needed is expertise and connections/networking—getting (potential) translators in touch with receptive publishers, knowing how to bargain for lower permission fees, etc. Perhaps it’s time to establish a WiG committee on translation? What are your thoughts?

WiG Membership and finances

Early in January I took a couple of deep breaths and then an unprecedented (I think) step: I sent out notices to 107 WiG members whose subscriptions to the newsletter had expired. There was a respectable number of responses to this reminder, which was nice for ye olde WiG treasury, however, there are still about 75 people who didn’t respond. I haven’t deleted any unpaid members' names from the mailing list, though, except to stop mailing to those whose mail was returned marked "undeliverable" in September and November--see list of ’’Lost Wiggies” below. One reason is practical and financial: in order to get the bulk mailing rate (10.9 cents), we must have a minimum of 200 ’’mailing pieces” (post office jargon), and deleting 75 names would put us below 200. Another is that I know how mobile many of us are, whooshing back and forth across continents and oceans for research leaves, visiting appointments, and who only knows what all. Still, it seems unfair for paying members to subsidize a large number of non-paying readers (or non-readers, it's impossible to tell). I'd be glad for some suggestions as to what might be a reasonable policy. Still on the subject of mail and finances: we could get a much lower mailing rate (5.9 cents per ’’mailing piece”), as well as tax deductions for your contributions, if we had not-for-profit status. I vaguely recall that someone (Pat Russian?) investigated this possibility some years ago in Madison, and would like to know if anyone remembers why we didn't go ahead with applying for that status.

LOST WIGGIES

Mail for the following people has been returned marked “undeliverable." If you know where these people are, and if they still wish to receive the newsletter, please let me know.

Lorelei Allan [redacted]

Eva-Maria Bolte [redacted]

Anne Charlotte Briggs [redacted]

Kathryn Buck [redacted]

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Jamie Owen Daniel [redacted]

Roswitha Anna Flach [redacted]

Dr. I. Tschimmel  [redacted]

LIST OF DEADLINES

April 1, 1982: proposals for the session "Speaking the Unspeakable", WiG 1952 in Boston, to: Angelika Bammer [redacted] and Jeanette Clausen [redacted].

April 15, 1982: proposals for Brecht sessions at MLA 1982: Brecht and Socialism, to: David Pike (German Dept., Univ. of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 2751M and John Fuegi (Comp. Lit., Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742); Brecht and Women, to: K. Lev Thomas (Dance Dept. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA 9002U) and Gisela E. Bahr (GREAL, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056).

May 1, 1982: WiG 1982 coordinators provide information on their sessions (participants, if known; description; equipment needed, if any, etc.) to Barbara Wright, U. Connecticut, Storrs.

August 1, 1982: absolute final deadline for material to be included in the August WiG newsletter (this newsletter includes the conference program and registration information, so it must be mailed in early August).

Women's Studies International Quarterly, Vol. U, Ho. U (1981) is a special issue on the women's liberation movement in Europe and North America. The European countries covered are the Netherlands, France, the FRG, the GDR, Finland, Italy, Spain, and Portugal.

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SUBSCRIPTIONS/MEMBERSHIP

This is Newsletter 27. Read your label and renew when numbers match

Jane Goodwomon       27
Feminist University
Everywhere, USA

We held firm as long as we could, BUT the rising costs of every­thing made it impossible to continue to produce Women in German for $5.00. Therefore, we have raised the fee to $7.00; $3.00 for students and unemployed. If you can afford to, please con­sider becoming a supporting member ($15.00 or more).

Make checks payable to WOMEN IN GERMAN. Send your check and this membership form to: Women in German, Dept. of Modern Foreign Languages, Indiana U.-Purdue U. at Fort Wayne, Fort Wayne, IN 46805.

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