„Nőkérdés” és női iránymutatás: Pályaválasztási tanácsok lányoknak a Horthy-korszakból
“The Issue of Women” and Female Guidance: Career Advice to Girls from the Horthy Era

Summary/Abstract: In important issue in the Horthy Era was the so-called “issue of women”, which meant that due to changes in lifestyle the role of women had to be redefined, and at the same time society had to deal with increasing number of female students in higher education and women in intellectual careers. The expression signifies that these phenomena were considered a significant problem at the time. Higher education was available to women, but only with serious restrictions, for example they couldn’t study law and engineering. Therefore, their career options were also limited. This study examines how women helped their fellow women in choosing schools and careers. We present three extremely popular publications or series of publications containing career advice: a volume of the Magazine of Working Women (Dolgozó Asszonyok Lapja), which was relatively liberal; the books of Jolán Gergely, who believed in educating girls using Catholic principles; and the career advice articles of the Hungarian Women’s Review (Magyar Női Szemle), the magazine for women with university degrees. All of these publications advised choosing a career, so they thought it to be natural that a middle-class woman would move on to higher education, and even start working if necessary. They encouraged women to be independent and to start their own ventures, mainly so that they don’t take secure jobs from men. They advised “ladies” to be resourceful, attentive, and make use of niche markets, even if it would mean disrespecting traditions.

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