Calliope Austria – Women in Society, Culture and the Sciences
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CALLIOPE Austria Women in Society, Culture and the Sciences 1 CALLIOPE Austria Women in Society, Culture and the Sciences CALLIOPE Austria Women in Society, Culture and the Sciences Future Fund of the Republic of Austria Sources of inspiration are female – Federal Minister Sebastian Kurz 7 A new support programme for Austrian international cultural work – Teresa Indjein 9 Efforts to create equality worldwide – Ulrike Nguyen 11 An opportunity for effecting change: fundamental research on the issue of women’s rights in Austria 13 biografiA – an encyclopaedia of Austrian women 14 Ariadne – the service centre for information and documentation specific to women’s issues at the Austrian National Library 16 Protagonists for celebration, reflection and forward thinking 1 Creating facts: women and society 23 1.1 Power and powerlessness: women in the Habsburg Monarchy 25 1.2 Women’s rights are human rights: the women’s movement in Austria 31 1.3 Courageous, proactive, conspiratorial: women in the resistance against National Socialism 47 2 Creating free spaces: women and the arts 61 2.1 Women and architecture 63 2.2 Women and the fine arts 71 2.3 Women and design/graphics/applied arts 85 2.4 Women and fashion/Vienna couture 93 2.5 Women and film 99 2.6 Women and photography 111 2.7 Women and literature 121 2.8 Women and music 153 2.9 Women and theatre 163 2.10 Women and dance 173 2.11 Women and networks/salonières 181 Creating spaces for thought and action: 3 women and education 187 3.1 Schooling and higher education by women/for women and girls 189 3.2 Women and the sciences 197 3.2.1 Medicine and psychology 198 3.2.2 Natural sciences 206 3.2.3 Humanities 217 3.2.4 Social, economic and political sciences 223 Notes 234 Directory of the protagonists 254 Overview of commemoration dates and anniversaries 256 Imprint 272 Anja Manfredi Re-enacting Anna Pavlova with Heidrun Neumayer, analogue C-print, 70 x 100 cm, 2009 Sources of inspiration are female Austria is a cultural nation, where women make significant contributions to cultural and socio-political life. The aim of CALLIOPE Austria is to raise awareness of these achievements and in particular to celebrate them. The programme showcases an impressive collection of outstanding women from Austria, from the 18th century through to the present day, who have left their mark on Austria and helped shape history. The current CALLIOPE Austria programme supports the Austrian cultural fora and representative bodies in their international cultural work by turning the spotlight more clearly on past and present women’s achievements for Austria as a cultural nation. I wish all those involved in the programme much success, and hope that this book will be an inspiration for those who read it. Sebastian Kurz Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs 9 Anja Manfredi Die Geste des Wendens, (“The Gesture of Turning”), analogue C-print, 100 x 70 cm, 2009 CALLIOPE Austria – Women in Society, the Arts and the Sciences A new support programme for Austrian international cultural work With CALLIOPE Austria, the cultural policy division of the BMEIA is proud to present a new priority programme designed to add new facets to Austrian international cultural work. The focus here is on a very important area in society, namely the contribution made by women. CALLIOPE Austria aims to increase the level of awareness of the achievements of women from Austria, and to support them when it comes to international cultural and academic cooperation. The BMEIA works internationally with around 6,000 projects annually in the field of arts and sciences. These initiatives are organised in over 90 countries, in approximately 2,700 geographical locations, making the BMEIA the largest, most multi-faceted event organiser for Austria in the world. Every year almost 4,500 partner institutions worldwide cooperate with Austrian international cultural initiatives. Here, it is gratifying to note that the level of funding for the project work provided by Austria from tax revenues is matched by the estimated value of funds provided by the international partners. Every year, around 8,000 creative individuals from the arts, academia and civil society, collaborating as participants with our highly valued network of representative bodies, are accompanied, supported or showcased by our projects abroad. Why the name “Calliope”? Calliope is the muse of academic study, philosophy and poetry and was revered by the Greeks as the oldest and wisest of the nine classical muses. There is much that we can discover and learn from the achievements of women from Austria. We should also not forget them, and in looking back, we can gain new perspectives on their lives. We can marvel at the creativity and innovative power of these women, and at their work towards establishing social cohesion and peace. The aim of CALLIOPE Austria is to increase levels of awareness and knowledge of remarkable women working in Austria in society, the sciences and the arts. Just as life means movement, so identity is far more a creative path than simply a state of being. For this reason, our aim is also to tell new stories about Austria, made possible through the ideas, achievements and biographies of women, and to take them to an international audience. Our hope is that in doing so we will open new doors. Austrian international cultural funding projects that are already well estab- lished, such as the music programme “The New Austrian Sound of Music”, which has been running since 2001, have shown that the initiative is worth the effort. The purpose of our international cultural work is to create access to opportunities for creative Austrian 11 artists throughout the world, and to provide evidence of Austria’s commitment to inter- national issues – including those for women. We focus on creating opportunities for cooperation abroad and on new ideas that emerge through contact with what appears “other”. All this is of particular importance for Austria, with its tradition of multilingualism and openness, and with the inexhaustibly dense historical fabric on which its present existence is founded. It is a question of integration: the integration of Austria beyond its borders into the wider world. In order to achieve this, it is not only large-scale, wide-ranging, clearly visible initiatives that are important. International cultural work is also geared towards what are perceived to be small-scale activities, encounters away from the well-trodden paths, and towards discussions and dialogue in a “new” world, in which opportunities for exchange, collaboration and active solidarity for those working in the arts and sciences are to be found. For women from Austria, the path has become easier to tread. Above all, they have the women to thank who, doggedly and with great effort, fought to create change step by step on a rocky path that they themselves had to forge. They were extremely courageous pioneers, who dared to break out and attempt to reshape their lives without reference to role models, let alone supportive networks. The German academic Sibylle Duda wrote in her foreword to the anthology Wahnsinnsfrauen (Incredible Women): “Self-determination, and possessing and exercising power are regarded as unfeminine. To move in territory tradi- tionally considered to be dominated by men generates diffuse fears. Male characteristics are idealised as the norm, while those of women, which have always been interpreted as bordering on the pathological, are devalued. (...) Women also still have to learn first to deal with new experiences and to live with their altered self.” The basis for all this is the ideal of freedom: for women and men to be able to use their capabilities; for society to permit them to do so and to value them for it, and that both may be valued in equal measure. My thanks go to Dr. Edith Stumpf-Fischer and Professor Ilse Korotin for the inspiration to begin this project and to Mag. Evelyn von Bülow who sug- gested the name “Calliope”. I also warmly thank MMag. Anna Gadzinski for her invaluable and extensive work on this project. She carried out the research and compiled the texts with creativity, persistence and meticulousness. We hope that CALLIOPE Austria will be a source of inspiration and a springboard for talking about the achievements made by women from Austria. We also hope that ideas will emerge out of it for lectures, readings, film screenings, discussion panels and much more, ideas which can also be included in projects in other countries. A female cosmos has been created containing the biographies of 165 women. We hope that it will encourage readers to explore an Austria that never ceases to fascinate, the Austria that the BMEIA also wishes to portray beyond its borders through its international cultural work. Teresa Indjein Acting head of the cultural policy division at the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs (BMEIA). 12 Efforts to create equality worldwide There is one phenomenon familiar to us almost everywhere in the world to a greater or lesser degree: women, their achievements and their voices. They are frequently accorded less value and weight than those of the male share of the population. As such, the range of ways in which this discrimination is manifest varies widely in the context of different cultures and societies. It encompasses unequal pay for the same work as well as inheritance rules that disfavour women, systematic violations of fundamental and human rights and – lest we forget – the millions of “lost” women and girls who are never even born due to a preference for sons. The goal of the major global women’s conferences of previous decades was to counteract these deficiencies.