As a second year student of Comparative Literature, I launched myself into a series of online conferences. German is my chosen language of study as part of my Comparative Literature degree and so during the Summer of 2020, I seized the much awaited opportunity to attend the online student conference webinar: Gemeinschaft 2020. The English translation of Gemeinschaft is community. Four key speakers engaged in a series of talks, representing several universities and their current research topics. One of the first key speakers, Abby Ralston from King’s College London gave a talk on her research paper on the Evolution of German Women throughout the Weimar Republic. I was captivated to learn from this talk that before the First World War, women were predominantly domesticised and only a select few had jobs as seamstresses. The SPD advocated women’s rights to vote through advertisement in newspapers and publications that sparked the 1895 Movement of Women. In 1914, women would be expected to maintain the home and sustain Germany on the Homefront, as they were often employed in munitions factories and many sought employment as nurses and administrative staff. Despite the strong competence of women in these roles, the female civic duty was ultimately rejected by the Reich which instead felt that women and especially working women, should be assigned to more traditional roles to help promote the traditional family unit. Even though women had their own independent careers, Kaiser Wilhelm made no mention to grant women the right to vote. As a result of this decision, many women felt deceived and therefore developed a growing mistrust of the Reich. Hence, a vast majority of women made petitions and signs; they engaged in protests which included rallies and riots. By 1918, there were riots which spanned across the whole of Germany, from Berlin to Hamburg and even across to Munich.

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