In his preface to the Archiv für Frauenkunde, Max Hirsch described as the most significant contrast the past century has created the «contrast of both sexes, the convulsion of the relation between man and woman». Hirsch prophesized a changing in the middle classes because of these new conditions «whose development will depend on the social position of the woman». He also associated his observation of change with the demand on scientists to take the problems arising out of the changes seriously.

It is beyond doubt that «such a tremendous movement, born out of the zeitgeist, cannot be violently supressed».
If there is «some kind of order to be established among the chaos of conflicting processes» then, according to Hirsch, «the essential condition needs to be the study of the unknown on whose decision all possible answer depends: the woman herself».

He defined as the assignment of the Archiv to «stimulate and to encourage the study of women in all fields of human knowledge and observations and, by the cooperation of representatives of all branches of science the creation of a real Study of Women». To the sciences Hirsch held relevant for the task belong: «medicine, biology and hygiene (individual and social, industrial, racial, reproductive, school, and tropical); physiology and pathology; embryology; genetics, genealogy, psychiatry, psychology, criminalogy and forensic medicine; administration, legislation, principles of law, insurances; anthropology, ethnology and early history; sexology; social science and statistics; philosophy, cultural history, paedagogics, history of art and literature». They all should, so Hirschfeld, interact in order to «secure the basis of the study of woman in all her understanding and expressions of life».