The impact of Rosa Luxemburg on women in politics

Luxemburg and Von Bingen

Germany has a history of being a nation of strong people with strong wills. They are categorized as individuals who work for the greater good of their country even when it means self-sacrifice. Hildegard von Bingen and Rosa Luxembourg were both important women from Germany who changed much of the way that people lived and thought in their homeland. Both women were living in a society where women were systematically oppressed by members of the male gender and yet were able to overcome the sanctions put upon them due to their gender. History has painted them as activists but they both also had ambition which was necessary in order to overcome the large chasms between their desires and what was available to women of the eras. Although separated in time by some seven centuries, the women shared many characteristics, including intelligence, bravery, and a willingness to face conflict if it meant improving the society in which they lived.

Hildegard von Bingen is one of the most famous nuns in history. Besides being a bride of God and performing her tasks through the church, Hildegard opened up the possibilities for women throughout her country. Within the Benedictine church, women were highly marginalized, as were most women of the twelfth century. Women of that period had only the chance to marry well in order to achieve autonomy. Obviously, such a thing was impossible if a woman chose to enter the clergy. In her lifetime, Hildegard worked to expand the role and the responsibilities of women in the church and in so doing set the stage for women to be empowered in other roles as well. She believed that women as well as men had the right to do God's work and was able to achieve but also was a woman of ambition who pushed herself so that she could create and establish her own convent.

Rosa Luxemburg lived in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. Although she was a woman at a time when women were supposed to be seen and not heard, she vocalized her many objections to the ways that the country was being led under German Wilhelmenism. Luxemburg was both a socialist and a Marxist who believed that the government was impeding the ability of the people to achieve social mobility and instead were intentionally leaving a large number of people without sufficient assets to support themselves. She was completely against the First World War and tried to get others to join her anti-war cause to a great deal of success. The power of Luxemburg's speeches and her ability to convince others to follow her forced members of the opposition to imprison her repeatedly and eventually led to her assassination. Being one of the few historical women to die for a political cause shows exactly to what level she had risen and the danger she posed to those in power.