Androcentric patterns of thought and behaviour continue to shape everyday practices within marriages and partnerships in (late) modernity, just as they become effective in professional contexts. The resulting disadvantages for women can be illustrated particularly well in the case of academic marriages. Using Herta Blaukopf (née Singer, 1924–2005) and Kurt Blaukopf (1914–1999) as an example, this article provides a reconstruction of their ›scholarly partnership‹, paying particular attention to gender and class – two intersectional dimensions that profoundly influenced both their domestic and professional lives from the very beginning of their marriage and family formation. The reconstruction of the partnership draws on library and archival sources which were compared with qualitative interview data from contemporary witnesses. Our findings reveal the persistence of traditionally conservative, entrenched gender perceptions, routines and practices within this bourgeois marriage, all of which had a tangible impact on the partners’ professional opportunities in the academic field. By examining the different modes of reception associated with the scholarly achievements of Herta and Kurt within today’s still androcentric culture of remembrance, we demonstrate that gendered asymmetries within intimate relationships can exert long-term negative effects upon women and their professional trajectories.
Viehböck et al. (Tue,) studied this question.