The Rhetoric of Weaving and Healing: Women's Work in Interwar Hungary, a Failed Anti-Democratic Utopia

Abstract: The concept of Hungary as a Volksnation was reaffirmed by the Treaty of Trianon (1920) which left Hungary with the urgent need to redefine the concept of citizenship. To redefine the role of women in the new Hungary the conservative political elite revived the concept of 'cottage industry' as a possible solution for both the pressing economic needs of women to seek for employment and as a response to the concept of the independent, wage-earning 'New Woman'. The metaphor of Hungary as a sick mutilated body after 1920 opened up space for possible alternative definitions of women’s role as healers for the first generations of university graduates. The example of women doctors shows the impossibility of harmonizing the rhetoric of employment with women's duties in the family. However, due to the Great Depression the concept of 'bread-winning woman' started to shed its ennobled connotation as wider social strata of women had to start some wage-earning activity. Those female professional

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource, 63-82 S.
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Preprint ; In: Yannitsiotis, Yannis (Hg.), Lampropoulou, Dimitra (Hg.), Salvaterra, Carla (Hg.): Rhetorics of Work. 2008. S. 63-82. ISBN 978-88-8492-555-8

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Rhetorics of Work ; Bd. 3 ; Creating links and innovative overviews for a New History Research Agenda for the citizens of a growing Europe: Thematic work group 4, Work, gender and society ; Bd. 3

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Sozialwissenschaften, Soziologie, Anthropologie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (who): SSOAR, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften e.V.
• (when): 2008
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Pisa
• (who): Edizioni Plus - Pisa University Press
• (when): 2008
• Creator: Pető, Andrea
• Contributor: Yannitsiotis, Yannis ; Lampropoulou, Dimitra ; Salvaterra, Carla

Further information

• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-71897-0
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:21 AM CEST