Soc Hist Med. 1999 Aug; 12(2): 271-92.

Gender and aesthetic norms in popular hygienic culture in Germany from 1900 to 1914.

Hau M.

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany.

The paper concerns the construction of gender norms in popular hygienic literature at the turn of the century. It argues that the formulation of aesthetic gender norms for women's and men's bodies was a response to social developments which were perceived as a threat to the middle-class ideology of separate spheres for the sexes. Concerns about the blurring of gender distinctions were expressed in the aesthetic idiom of the educated middle class. Aesthetic norms for each sex were established and contrasted with the degenerate body forms of contemporaries. The spectre of masculinized women and feminized men was raised, reflecting a deep-seated uneasiness about changing gender roles and identities. The increasing assertiveness of women as expressed in feminist activism was interpreted by anti-feminist authors as a sign of degeneracy. For these authors any articulation of self-interest by women was suspect. Strong sexual desires of women which could serve as the basis for the independent articulation of female sexual interests were denied or declared as abnormal. Feminist critics argued that it was the lack of economic and social independence of women which was the reason for the declining health and beauty of the female sex.