ABSTRACT
Public hearings on sexual harassment, such as the case of Anita Hill in the United States, or the so-called “groping affair” in Austria, have also shown that the women involved were stigmatized as culprits for having broken the informal code that prohibits sexuality or sexual activities in the public sphere. Even though the history of women’s movements is considered a “classical field” of historical women’s studies in Austria, this is primarily directed to the study of women and their associations and only rarely addresses gender relations in parties or political milieus. The context of the lives of the first generation of female representatives will be analyzed on the basis of prosopography to identify the political precondition specific to women. The first female members of Parliament intended to intervene in existing gender relations and change the asymmetrical power structures on the level of institutionalized politics through parties and parliament—in other words, to engage in “classical” women’s politics.
