The situation of Dutch women during Renaissance and EnlightenmentThe Republic of the Seven United Provinces, known as the Netherlands, was created through the Dutch War of Independence, which began in 1568 and ended with the Treaty of Westphalia. Women had a limited number of rights, including the right to enter contracts and the right to control their own dowries. However, they were still legally subordinate to men. They had no right to an education, to own property, or to participate in government.
Early to Mid-19th centuryIndustrialization in the Netherlands brought jobs to both men and women. Labour unions began organizing by the mid-19th century. Middle class women also began to find paid employment, first in nursing. The first department store in the Netherlands opened in 1860, and women began finding jobs as retail clerks. Kindergartens, which had been pioneered in Germany, spread quickly in the Netherlands and needed a workforce of trained young women to staff them. To train young women to teach primary school, middle schools for girls were established in 1867. Young women with academic promise could petition for the right to be admitted to an all-male secondary school. Universities were closed to women until 1871, when Aletta Jacobs gained admittance to study medicine.[4] She graduated as Europe's first modern woman physician. Jacobs also became prominent in the women's suffrage movement in the Netherlands. She opened the first women's birth control clinic in Amsterdam in 1882.
1917 to 1960Women won the right to stand for an election as a candidate in
1917. They gained full suffrage in 1919. This was relatively early compared to most other European nations; only Finland and Sweden had given women the vote earlier. Women had in part gained the vote to a political compromise "
package deal" between
socialists,
liberals, and "
confessionalist" parties. The confessionalists supported state funding for private schools, typically belonging to a religious denomination. This compromise system in Dutch politics was known as Pillarisation. In the years after women's emancipation, the confessionalists came to dominate moral discourse in the Netherlands, and legislation in support of confessionalist moral views was enacted (
prostitution banned, 1912;
abortion prohibited, 1911; a
dvertising for contraception criminalized).
A healthy economy and a rising standard of living characterizes life in the Netherlands during the 1920s.
Women, however, faced a backlash against women's rights which reached into the workplace. Women's rights groups multiplied. The international feminist organizations gained larger memberships as women worldwide continued to struggle for emancipation.
Dutch women were active in such international organizations as:
- League of Nations;
- International Labour Organization;
- International Council of Women;
- IWSA/IAW, the International Women's Suffrage Alliance, after 1926 called
the International Alliance of Women.
A plaque tribute to Dutch wives who persevered during the Hunger Winter of 1944-5.Women were praised for their resilience throughout
the Hunger Winter of
1944-1945 when
food and fuel were blocked by the Nazi military. A period of conservatism followed for several years, but two notable legal milestones were achieved during the 1950s: in
1955, the law changed so t
hat women could no longer be forced from civil service jobs after marrying, and in
1956,
married women became legally competent.
A costume demonstration by the feminist group Dolle Mina (Mad Mina), 1970.The Netherlands todayThe Netherlands has been described as having "
the most extensive and comprehensive [sex equality apparatus] in Europe"; this is largely due to the appointment of
a State Secretary to oversee an
Emancipation Council launched in
1977, and its implementation of policies at the local level with help from
feminist activists recruited into government positions. Women of colour have seen the need to create new organizations to advance gaps in meeting their needs:
a Moroccan women's group was formed in 1992, and
a Surinamese women's group was formed in 1996.
Women in the Netherlands work less in paid employment than women in other comparable Western countries:
Nearly 60% of Dutch working women aged 25-54 worked part-time in 2001, compared to 15% in the United States, 25% in France and 35% in Germany; but where 25% of French women working part time say they want to work full-time, just 4% of Dutch women do.Despite the government identifying this as a social problem in the 1990s, and introducing tax incentives to encourage women to find more paid employment, the opposite happened, and women found a way to use the tax incentives to reduce their working hours. In terms of balancing work and home life, parental leave is much more generous in
Sweden, for example.
There is currently a great deal of debate in the Netherlands over whether women simply prefer to care for their children themselves and work reduced hours, or if higher costs are holding women back from seeking further employment. Economist, lawyer and journalist Helen Mees wrote a book exploring the issue of women's low employment rate, called Weg met het deeltijdfeminisme (Away with Part-time Feminism) in 2005. She identified differences between Dutch and American culture that partially explain the discrepancy in working hours between women in the two nations. In her book, Mees discusses the American "
marketization" of much of women's former household duties, such as using businesses for laundry, eating out, having groceries delivered, and other services, which are rarely available in the Netherlands. Childcare is the largest expense for two-income families in the Netherlands, and since it is customarily paid by the hour, this may provide an incentive for families to reduce childcare costs by having the mother do more child-minding and less paid employment.
www.rnw.nl/english/article/dutch-women-are-unfriendly-and-unfemininewww.nytimes.com/2007/06/06/arts/06iht-happy.1.6024209.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2012/12/35_of_women_still_dont_have_a.php
