Gender and Rationalization: Questions about the German/American Comparison

Abstract

Women's historians have extended our understanding of modernization by examining early twentieth-century health, reproduction, and everyday life as important sites of rationalization. Despite major differences in their histories, a comparison of the impact of rationalization on women and gender relations in Germany and the United States proves revealing. In both societies, rationalization was harnessed to and eugenicist and racist goals, but women often actively sought expert assistance in the pursuit of modernity and individual empowerment. While the effects of rationalization in the United States were mixed, the “limit case” of Nazi Germany indicates the deadly potential of efforts to control reproduction.