Literature and Medicine I

26But surrender risks a loss of esteem – long-term rebellion, being successful, and being devoted to one’s profession permanently changes the way these women are perceived by men:

“Jetzt weisst du ja, wie lieb ich dich habe! Ein Stück meiner selbst, und nicht das wertloseste, habe ich mir ausgerissen, um es dir zu geben. Nun gehöre ich ganz dir, bin nichts mehr im Leben als deine Frau. Endlich!” “Arme Therese,” kam es gequält aus ihm heraus, “arme Therese! Ich bin entsetzt, wie ich dich so etwas konnte tun lassen. Das war ja gar nicht nötig! Das reinste Verbrechen! Wo du so an deinem Beruf hingst, ganz darin aufgingst! Er gab dir eine persönliche Würde, an die nicht zu rühren war. Wie konntest du das nur tun!” (Yver 307)

The same also happens to Ethel Rodd, the attractive “free” American studying in Paris (she is not a medical student). Ethel’s failure in her studies and in her engagement to a German officer leads to her complete personal collapse (after which she is treated by a woman doctor, sent for by another female student [Schirmacher 225]). Ethel decides to try to become more “feminine” again out of love. However, as soon as she gives up standing up to her conservative fiancé and visibly suffers under the effort of becoming more “feminine,” losing her liveliness and her charm by constraining herself (Schirmacher 77), the love and what little respect her fiancé has barely started to feel towards her (perceiving her as an individual or “man”) disappear.

27Like Therese, Ethel violates her own nature to adapt to what is “natural.” Her fate is even worse than Therese’s, however: Ethel loses everything, her prospect for a degree, her fiancé, and even her health and her beauty, having been only half-focused on her studies and thus failing her exams (hence the title Halb). Therese is criticized for her focus on her studies and her discipline; Ethel for her attempt to combine traditional femininity and her studies— no matter how hard they try, these women cannot win if they want both love and a profession.

28Josephine Geyer is a married woman and mother of four children, when her husband, a physician, is sent to prison for an unspecified crime. While he is away, she starts to study medicine in Zurich. Her father does not approve initially, but still wants to help his devastated daughter and thus ends up supporting her both morally and financially. Josephine is one of the few heroines to really suffer at university at the hands of men. While Else Ury’s fictional medical students are never attacked at university, Johanna Spyri’s Sina only has to deal with rudeness from extremely self-protective female students, and Colette Yver’s Therese is protected by her father’s position, Josephine is shocked and hurt by the disrespectful behavior of the anatomy professor and some male students toward the object of their study, a female corpse. When Josephine expresses her disgust, she is not only attacked by some male students but also criticized by her female fellow students for risking troubles for all of them in speaking out as she does (Frapan-Akunian 54-55).[2]For the strong reactions that this scene provoked at the real university hospital in Zurich, see Kraft-Schwenk 78-82. Josephine introduces compassion (an emotion reserved in – male – medical circles for nurses) into the academic environment. Despite being adversely affected by the bad manners and the cruelties of certain (German) professors and male students against not only female students but also against poor patients, both male and female, she graduates and, using her husband’s former surgery, works as a woman doctor. Josephine successfully establishes her medical practice but she loses her youngest child as well as her influence over her eldest son and almost over her daughter, too. She will not divorce her husband, who comes back to her after five years in prison, not even when she finds out that he writes harsh satires of educated women. When she finally breaks down twice, she feels “ingloriously overpowered” and embarrassed by the thought of her husband helping her:

Dann fragte sie Rösli: “Jemand war gut zu mir, stützte mich, führte mich. War es der Vater?” Und sie errötete bei dieser Frage, sah, dass auch das Kind errötete und nickte. [...] Und sie stützte den Kopf und schloss die Augen, und es war ihr wie einer ruhmlos Überwundenen. (308-09)

Her husband Georges gains strength from her breakdowns, however, which she realizes and tries to prevent:

Vor diesen anteilvollen Blicken, diesen mitfühlenden Worten floh Josefine, sie waren ihr die bitterste Bestätigung ihrer Schwäche. [...] Aber er wünscht es, er wünscht, mich heruntergekommen zu sehen.’ Und sie hielt sich steif aufrecht und bemühte sich, ruhig und heiter auszusehen, wenn Georges in der Nähe war. (305-06)

Arbeit has a mildly positive ending – Josephine decides to continue her work. But she pays for it, forgoes her secret love, remains married to a man she dislikes, and has massive problems with her children. There must be failure surrounding a woman doctor: If she does not give up her profession, failure in private life is the consequence.

29The subject of failure turns up more than once in Hermann Hoster’s Viele sind berufen. While the exotic Genia does not seem to care for her profession anymore at the end of the story, a minor female character is given a pass in an unofficial third examination after the first two attempts fail: she will not pose any threat to men’s business. The examiners can afford to be generous since she will not rival a man; she is not ambitious:

Sie war früher Lehrerin, aber das hat sie nicht befriedigt. Sie ist ohne höheren Ehrgeiz, nur in einem ganz kleinen Walddorf hat sie praktizieren wollen und bei ihrer Schwester wohnen, die dort als Lehrerin amtet, sie hat sich das sehr schön ausgemalt, es ist kein Arzt in der Nähe, sie wird keinem etwas wegnehmen, sie ist mit wenigem zufrieden. Der nächste Arzt wohnt drei Stunden entfernt, ein sehr alter Herr schon, und vielleicht trinkt er auch ein bisschen. [...] Das Fräulein ist ein guter Mensch. Sie wird sich in ihrem Dorf, wenn es nachts bei Wetter, Sturm und Regen zum viertenmal an ihrer Tür läutet, nicht mit einer faulen Ausrede drücken, sie wird keine Appendicitis verschleppen, und wetten, dass sie nicht trinkt! (338)

This “Fräulein” has got her excuse; she is allowed to practice her profession by the goodwill and generosity of men; not being ambitious and failing without their help, she poses no danger to them.

The Need for an Excuse

30Women who start to study need explanations and excuses for their decision. As the following passage from Studierte Mädel suggests, they might justify it by saying it is better to do something useful instead of just killing time until getting married; or at least they could support themselves if they were to stay unmarried, as about half the female population did (Weedon 47):

“Warum soll deine Schwester nicht irgend etwas lernen,” hörte sie Günther Berndt weiter sprechen, “besser, als wenn sie die Zeit totschlägt und herumflaniert. Auch Frauenstudium hat sicherlich seine Berechtigung – ach Unsinn, Mensch, rede doch nicht von den paar Gramm Gehirn, die der Frau fehlen, sie haben ohne dasselbe doch schon genug geleistet. Ich habe alle Achtung vor diesen tüchtigen Frauen, ich verehre sie – aber lieben – niemals – nie kann ein man ein studiertes Mädel lieben oder sie gar begehren; solchem emanzipierten Frauenzimmer fehlt eben jeder Reiz des Weibes!” (Ury 22)

This passage refers to socio-biological arguments against higher education for women as found in Paul Julius Möbius’ notorious publication, Ueber den physiologischen Schwachsinn des Weibes (1900). It also indicates the prejudice against “feminine” women who become unattractive, i.e., unsexed, by studying (Swenson 85).