Julia Roos. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press , Reexamining Weimar Germany via the Politics of Prostitution. The key achievement of Julia Roos's meticulously researched Weimar through the Lens of Gende r lies in the way the author takes what seems at first glance a quite narrow historical issue--the regulation and legal status of prostitution in s Germany--and opens this up to explore such central historiographical questions as the perceived "crisis" or "failure" of Weimar democracy, the strength of the interwar German women's movement, and the rise of National Socialism.
By demonstrating not only how the reform efforts of Weimar female emancipists challenged the misogynist basis of state-regulated prostitution, but also how the subsequent backlash against these reforms helped to mobilize antidemocratic sentiments that ultimately contributed to the weakening of the republic, Roos's work succeeds in highlighting the integral importance of gender as a causal factor in Weimar "crisis" and change. The book consists of five main chapters, moving from the nineteenth-century origins of Germany's system of regulationism--a paradoxical arrangement whereby prostitution was officially illegal yet tolerated under police and medical supervision, and which placed restrictions on streetwalkers' mobility, place of residence, attire, and public behavior--through to the debates and legal reforms of the Weimar era that form the core of the analysis.
It concludes with an examination of how conservative reactions to these reforms contributed to the solidification of Nazi power. The RGBG dramatically altered streetwalkers' tolerated-yet-illegal status by repealing regulationism and decriminalizing prostitution in towns with populations over 15,, as well as introducing measures to prevent the spread of venereal disease, such as obligatory medical treatment for infected individuals, female and male.
It thus "abandoned the misogynist lie of woman's exclusive responsibility for the spread of STDs" p. Of particular significance for historians is Roos's reevaluation of the significance of Weimar feminism, which has frequently been dismissed as anti-individualist, maternalist, and largely ineffective. Roos puts forth a "more complicated" narrative p. As well as abolishing regulationism, this included the replacement of the authoritarian "morals police" with welfare-oriented programs for "endangered girls" and the establishment of a female policing service, leading Roos to conclude that "Weimar feminists were more successful at challenging established gender hierarchies and advancing women's rights than historians have often claimed" p.
Her work thus contributes to a broader trend within recent Weimar historiography toward emphasizing positive developments in women's status at this period, which also includes Kathleen Canning's reassessment of women's citizenship as a major break in German political history, Atina Grossmann and Cornelie Usborne's research into feminists' role in the abortion and sex reform movements, and cultural historians' emphasis on the ruptures in gender relations symbolized by the sexually and financially independent "New Woman.
