Austrian Ingeborg Bachmann’s short story “A Step Towards Gomorrah,” tells the story of a lesbian relationship, but still adheres to traditional Austrian gender roles. The main character Charlotte’s husband Franz still conforms to these traditional gender expectations, as well. Women in this story are confined to World War II gender and marriage ideals. However, Charlotte tries to escape these traditional systems, but all fails. After conforming to traditional gender and marriage ideas for years, Charlotte tries to escape the system through dominance in lesbianism.

Post-World War II culture again saw an upsurge of the traditional family values. Perhaps Austrians had to succeed on the home front because they did not succeed on the war front. The man was again the leader of the family while the wife was the woman who bent to her husband’s wishes.

In “A Step Towards Gomorrah,” Franz, the husband, practices a benevolent dominant sexism for the purpose of a pre-defined structure for living. Although Charlotte gets only minimal input in the planning of their lives, this-- taken with the following quote and others-- is comforting to Charlotte because this life is simple. Additionally, Franz performs his role as a man in arguing and making up, which Charlotte also finds comforting. Franz provides structure and order in spousal relations as well as in their lives.

Charlotte herself seems to regard women as inferior to men therefore thinks she shouldn’t control her life with a man. This attitude seems to be contrary to what Charlotte wants, at least for a time, in that she is not admired in the way she wants to be. Charlotte regards women as inconsequential in comparison to men—she calls them weak beings to men’s strength. Additionally, Charlotte doesn’t see herself as in control of the marriage as a woman. Charlotte makes few decisions in the marriage-Franz decorated the whole apartment and picked out the furniture—and rather than planning anything about their lives, she can only offer opinions from which Franz can pick and choose.

The theme of “women as inferior to men” is seen throughout the piece and is experienced by Charlotte firsthand in her role as “dominant man” to her lover Mara’s “submissive woman.” She doesn’t seem entirely satisfied with this arrangement, however, and considers an arrangement with Mara being the Charlotte to her Franz in a new (“new”) scenario.

Charlotte is terrified, but contemplates leaving a traditional marriage and continuing her lesbian relationship long term. For a period of time, Charlotte says that she is no longer married. She doesn’t know why she was ever with men or why she couldn’t have a woman live with her in her apartment. She and her girlfriend Mara share kisses and Charlotte seems to seriously contemplate leaving her life with her husband. This “overcoming” seems to be Bachmann’s study in seeing what would happen if traditional gender roles were non-issues in a relationship. She also seems to examine how society would function after the break-down of gender roles in same-sex relationships, or, on a larger scale, in opposite-sex relationships.

Despite the central relationship being between two women, however, roles of male and female are still assumed in the relationship and therefore it still followed the same rules as men and women did. Charlotte assumes the role of the dominant person in the relationship—traditionally the role of the man. With a woman in her arms, her body seemed bigger and stronger, or more like a man’s. Her girlfriend Mara is the traditional female in the relationship—she wears her emotions on her sleeve and she asks Charlotte to tell her, Mara, what to think. By keeping the same stereotypes and gender-specific roles in a lesbian relationship, Bachmann illustrates that lesbianism isn’t a way for Charlotte to overcome traditional gender roles and behaviors.