‘Ah4 SCHLIMMSTEN IST'S, WENN AUCH NOCH FRAUEN DIE ROMANE SCHREIBEN’: SEXUAL POLITICS IN THE LITERARY WORKS OF LILY BRAUN

The article considers the work of the feminist and socialist Lily Braun (1865-1916) and argues that Braun's feminism was limited to freeing women from domestic burdens to work towards a socialist society, but did not address the traditional assumptions about gender roles which lay at the heart of women's subordinate role in society. Although Braun was considered by her contemporaries to be a radical (and still enjoys this reputation today), her view of gender relations was actually quite traditional in comparison with the ideas of some bourgeois feminists of her day. In her literary texts, Braun celebrated the norms of passive femininity and dominant masculinity, thus undermining the emancipatory impulse of her plitical work. Particular reference is made to her autobiography, Memoiren einer Smialzstin, and to the last novel she wrote, Lebenssucher, which are placed in the context of key points from her political texts on women's liberation.