Pursuing the moral state: the abolition of regulated prostitution and the German woman's movement before the first world war

Abstract

The first women's campaign against regulated prostitution in Germany (1880- 1886) was a response to both the rapid increase in prostitution in Germany and the inspiration of Josephine Butler's British repeal campaign. The German movement, led by Gertrud Guillaume-Schack, allowed women to question the social, political, and legal inequalities of their society and express a demand for an elevation of women's economic and social position. This campaign reflected both the German bourgeoisie's concern about moral disintegration and a sense of gender identity which supported a temporary alliance between bourgeois and proletarian women. The campaign effectively ended when the working women's associations sponsored in part by the antiregulationists were banned and Guillaume-Schack herself deported from Germany; however, abolitionism continued to exercise an important influence within the German women's movement.