Hedwig Dohm was born in the Prussian capital Berlin to assimilated Jewish parents, and her father was baptized as a Christian.

She joined the Frauenwohl ("Women's Welfare") association founded by Minna Cauer as well as Helene Stöcker's League for the Protection of Mothers (Bund für Mutterschutz).

Hedwig Dohm publicly spoke out against the patriotic fever on the eve of World War I, publishing pacifist articles in the communist journal Die Aktion edited by Franz Pfemfert.

Helene Lange judged in 1925: "The disrespect and self-confidence with which Hedwig Dohm wielded her witty pen against men was too unfamiliar to many women who had been brought up in the fear of the Lord.

"[5] In The Antifeminists[6] from 1902, Hedwig Dohm uses humorous language to uncover the ideologies of the thought leaders and opinion makers of her own time and exposes their contradictions and fear of the female gender as a stupid defense of claims to power.