Long-neglected gender concepts from classics of political thought are now attracting attention again. In the case of Robert Michels (1867-1936), founding father of sociology, it is a whole book. "The Limits of Gender Morality", published by Frauenverlag in 1911, is a text that moves in the context of such important works as Lily Braun's or Clara Zetkin's and which resists narrowing down gender relations as a "women's question". Michels covered a wide range of topics, from the division of labor at home to contraception, pornography, puberty and sex education, pleasure and fun to fatherhood. Nevertheless: The first edition of Michels' "Limits of Gender Morality" was also the last.
A new edition is now available.
With it, the revision of a one-sided reception of this author is continued.
The only thing that is still well known today is that modern organizational sociology would be unthinkable without Michels' party research, because Michels combined social movement research and elite theory.
It is also known that he was meant when Max Weber spoke of the irrational "hazard" to which the German university exposed itself.
For the Italophile socialist Michels did not simply belong to the unfortunate cohort of private lecturers in the late Empire.
Despite Weber's advocacy, his habilitation was thwarted.
Born in Cologne, he only received a professorship as an emigrant: with Italian citizenship, first in Basel and in 1928 finally at the fascist party school in Turin.
Public hygiene discourses
It can be speculated whether a feminist sex reformer was also sidelined here. As it was, however, the de facto occupational ban gave way to an authoritarian commitment that was not at all present in the democratic and radical liberal early work. Ironically, as a seducer to fascism, Michels gradually gained influence in Germany.
"The Limits of Gender Morality" is not just written briskly.
Michels' comments on emancipation, equal rights and typical challenges in heterosexual couples and possibly married relationships, along with the roles of mother, father and parent, are characterized by a sensitive, self-deprecatingly light, and often loving tone.
My own experiences – starting with “erotic forays” through all kinds of countries to a scandal about his daughter, who was born much too soon after his marriage – characterize this summary of texts that have been published in part before.
There are also things that cannot be discussed
Because Michels appears more as an observer, also as a self-observer, instead of claiming scientific authority, he focuses on bourgeois milieus. Unlike in the smaller writings of the early and ardent social democrat Michels, the proletariat in The Borders stands on the margins. It appears, for example, in connection with the subject of poverty prostitution, as an object of exploitation for the bourgeoisie. Its "much-sung civilization" is "comparable in sexual terms to a beautiful backdrop behind which dirt and crime hide". A freer eroticism should all the more leave behind the purely medical view of the turn of the century, freeing instinctual life, gender relations and parental love from pseudo-pedagogical shame, theological morality of sin, corporate concepts of honor and popular hygiene discourses.
The blunt access is reflected in the order of the chapters. A basic part (“General erotic boundary problems”), which not least demands conceptual honesty, is followed by a self-explanatory trio: “extramarital”, “premarital”, “marital” boundary problems. Mutual intimacy of mature people is subjected to the categorical imperative: the "free will" of those involved trumps all, no matter how wild and natural the "hunger" may be.
However, there are also things that cannot be discussed, such as eugenic brutality. Although fantasies of masters and superhumans are derided, Michels considers an "anthropological" advancement of civilization through the elimination of "[inferior" people from the "sexual circulation" worth considering. And the beau delights in machismo. A chauvinistic look at women turns into an embarrassing mixture of peep show and men's joke. For example, the demure German woman falls short of the “smart” American, the “coquetry” of the French or the “pretty” Viennese Jew; there the at least "selfish" Berliner is stupidly compared to the thus declared homosexuality of men.
Finally, this re-edition is a measure of how serious the political science classics are in this country.
The hegemony of efficient manual introductions may reduce the amount of reading required.
However, if the originals are not available, learning to read independently will dwindle.
In this respect, too, the new edition is meritorious.
V. Streichhahn/H. Geske (ed.): "'The limits of gender morals' and other writings of Robert Michel on sexual morals and the women's movement before the First World War".
Enomoi Verlag, Berlin 2021. 286 p., hardcover, €26.80.