The Second Feminist Wave

[pieter]

Feminism is and was a strong force in Dutch society and politics in the seventees, eightees and ninetees. I wonder how influential Feminism was and is in for instance the Polish, American and German societies.

A famous feminist Pioneer in the Netherlands was Joke Smit, she started the "Second Feminist Wave" in the Netherlands.

Joke Smit



Joke Smit started the so-called "second wave" of feminism in The Netherlands by publishing "the dissatisfaction of women" ("Het onbehagen bij de vrouw", De Gids 1967) an article about the frustration of many women with their role in society as nothing but wife and mother. She argued amongst others for equal opportunities, equal wages for men and women, the right to having an abortion and good and accessible child care facilities for working parents. A "redistribution of paid and unpaid labor" among men and women was her goal.

Together with Hedy d'Ancona she founded the "Man-Vrouw-Maatschappij" (MVM, "Man-Woman-Society") a feminist pressure group. She disliked extra-parliamentary or extra-institutional actions and dedicated herself and MVM to changing society by gaining support among political and social leaders.

At her untimely death in 1981, she was disappointed and angry that despite her untiring work for the feminist cause so little of her ideas had been put to practice yet.

[pieter]

The radical feminst group Dolle Mina, with the slogan "Boss in my own abdomen"


Dolle Mina demonstration for free distribution of the anti-conception pill

Dolle Mina (Mad Mina) was a 1970s Dutch feminist group which campaigned for equal rights for women.

[pieter]

Hedy d'Ancona



Hedwig (Hedy) d'Ancona (born October 1, 1937 in The Hague) is a Dutch politician, geographer and sociologist.

Government career

She was the Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport and State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment for issues concerning women's liberation. She also served in the European Parliament and in the first chamber of the Dutch parliament, for the Labour Party.

Private sector

Outside of government, she is known for starting the feminist monthly Opzij as well as the special interest lobbying group, Man-Vrouw-Maatschappij (Man-Woman-Society), which she co-founded with Joke Kool-Smit.


Feminist magazine Opzij


d'Ancona in her activist years

Oxfam

From April 1995 through June 2004, d'Ancona was Chairwoman of Oxfam Novib (Oxfam Netherlands), serving also as Vice-Chairman of Oxfam International during part of her tenure.

Links:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opzij
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisca_Dresselhuys

[pieter]

American feminism


German feminism in Punk rock form

[pieter]

[pieter]

^{_{Partia Kobiet}}

The Women's Party (Polish: Partia Kobiet, PK) is a Polish political party which claims to represent the interests and concerns of women. It was registered on 11 January 2007 and is led by the well-known author Manuela Gretkowska. In the 21 October 2007 National Assembly election, the party won 0.28 % of the popular vote and no seats in the Sejm or the Senate of Poland.

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuela_Gretkowska / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuela_Gretkowska
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiktor_Osiatyński / web.ceu.hu/legal/osiatynski.htm
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidia_Popiel / ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Попель,_Лидья
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayah / en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayah_(singer)

[pieter]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_poland

^{_{Seventh wave (1989–now)}}



That situation changed only with the fall of the Communist state in 1989. New democratic Poland experienced the seventh wave of feminism and was suddenly confronted with concepts of Western second-wave feminism that at once met with fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. Western feminism has often been erroneously identified with the prior Communist reproductive policy, similar in some aspects, and feminism for that reason has often been regarded as ’suspect’.
In the beginning of the 1990s, Polish feminist texts often used the aggressive rhetoric related to feminist publications of the interwar period. That kind of ‘striking’ argumentation was more adequate in that epoch of violent polemics about prohibition of abortion. After the Polish government introduced the de facto legal ban on abortions (on January 7, 1993), feminists have changed their strategies. Many Polish feminists since that event have adopted argumentative strategies borrowed from the American ‘Pro-Choice’ movement of the 1980s. In Polish feminist texts, the mixed argumentation of ‘lesser evil’ and ‘planned parenthood’ has prevailed. In fact this argument is contrary to the feminist ideology and has proved ineffective. The ban on abortions has appeared immovable. Both sexual education in schools and state funding of contraceptives have been strongly suppressed since 1998. But Polish feminism is seemingly undergoing change; new feminist books include Agnieszka Graff’s Świat bez kobiet (World without Women) (2001), which directly points out the contemporary phenomenon of women’s discrimination in Poland; and Kazimiera Szczuka’s Milczenie owieczek (Silence of the Flock) (2004), which passionately defends abortion and often takes positions directly related to the interwar period and radical French feminism, thus renouncing the hitherto dominant ‘moderate’ American argumentative strategies.



Ewa Dąbrowska-Szulc expressed the necessity of changing the Polish feminist stance as well: "We [feminists] have lost a lot by these lessons of an appeased language we are still giving each other".

pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminizm_w_Polsce