The German Association of Female Citizens (german: italic=no, Deutscher Staatsbürgerinnen-Verband) is the oldest German
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
organisation, founded on 18 October 1865.
History
The association was created by
Louise Otto-Peters and
Auguste Schmidt
Auguste Schmidt, full name, ''Friederike Wilhelmine Auguste Schmidt, ''(3 August 1833, Breslau, then Germany now Poland – 10 June 1902, Leipzig, Germany) was a pioneering German feminist, educator, journalist and women's rights activist.
Life ...
in
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
on 18 October 1865. The first
SPD
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (german: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, ; SPD, ) is a centre-left social democratic political party in Germany. It is one of the major parties of contemporary Germany.
Saskia Esken has been t ...
chairman
August Bebel
Ferdinand August Bebel (22 February 1840 – 13 August 1913) was a German socialist politician, writer, and orator. He is best remembered as one of the founders of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP) in 1869, which in 1875 mer ...
was also present when the association was founded. It was originally named the General German Women's Association (german: Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein).
[
One example of their early work was when ]Maria von Linden
Maria von Linden (18 July 1869 – 25 August 1936) was a German bacteriologist and zoologist. She became one of the first women in Germany to be given the academic title of “professor”. She patented a type of bandage and won a prize for he ...
was refused full entry as a student to University of Tübingen
The University of Tübingen, officially the Eberhard Karl University of Tübingen (german: Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen; la, Universitas Eberhardina Carolina), is a public research university located in the city of Tübingen, Baden-Wü ...
. She was allowed by a vote of 8 to 10 to be allowed as a guest student. Her studies were financed and supported by this association. Linden would become one of Germany's first female professors.[Maria von Linden]
Rheinische-Geschichte.lvr.de, Retrieved 9 November 2015
The association adopted its current name in 1918. The German Association of Female Citizens is affiliated with the International Alliance of Women
The International Alliance of Women (IAW; french: Alliance Internationale des Femmes, AIF) is an international non-governmental organization that works to promote women's rights and gender equality. It was historically the main international org ...
.[André Böttger: Frauenwahlrecht in Deutschland - ein Rückblick. In: von heute an für alle! Hundert Jahre Frauenwahlrecht. Ed. by Marjaliisa Hentilä; Alexander Schug, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2006, p. 62ff.][Brockhaus Abenteuer Geschichte. Kalenderblatt 18./19. Oktober 2008]
See also
* Frauenwohl
Frauenwohl ("Women's Welfare") was a German women's society composed of philanthropic women who took as their work the devising of schemes for bettering the conditions of less fortunate women. It was founded by Minna Cauer in Berlin in 1888, who a ...
References
External links
German Association of Female Citizens
Liberal feminist organizations
Women's rights organizations
Women's organisations based in Germany
Feminism in Germany
Organizations established in 1865
{{Women's-History-stub