Feminism

Feminism

Feminism has already been going on for ages, but the feminism that we are going to tell about started around 1870. The word feminism comes from the Latin word femina, which means ‘woman’. Feminism also means: belief in the social, political and economical equality of the sexes and the movement around this belief.

Before feminism

For already hundreds of years the man was believed the head of the family and the woman was there for having children, to take care of the children and of the house. For ages women have lived under the pressure of men, though the men aren’t the ones to blame; it once started this way and never changed, until a certain point in history where women just couldn’t hold it any longer, while knowing they could have a better future.
It all started during and after the industrial revolution. Because of the industrial revolution much work was replaced by machines and the domestic system, with work for the whole family, was over. The men worked in the factories and the women had to stay at home, due to the French Code Civil saying women had nothing to say about their children and possessions and weren’t allowed to have paid work. Because of that, married women totally depended on their husband and the unmarried women depended on the care of their family. The women got bored and finally had the time to think about their rights. Women had also no political rights and were often discriminated by men, because they weren’t allowed to have good education. Women started to realise that they also had the right to speak up. They united and the ‘feminism-period’ began.

Aletta Jacobs is born.

First flow of feminism

Around 1870 the real feminism was on its way. Many women met at feministic events and fought for their rights. There were two groups of women: the women from the working class (wives of hard working men, having little money) and the women from the middle class (wives of men with good jobs and enough money). The working-class-women wanted the right to have paid work so that they could earn more money for their families and that they could support their husbands also financially. The middle-class-women weren’t in need of money or work and in the beginning they were not real feminists. Later these women wanted the right to vote.

Aletta Jacobs: the first woman going to college to become a doctor.

Several women set up ‘Vereniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht’, also by Aletta Jacobs.

Women get right to vote in the Netherlands.

Women get the right to have paid work, but only until they got married. Then they have to become a housewife and take care of the children.

End of first flow

Feminism got less popular and at the end of the 20’s and the beginning of the 30’s the economical crisis began in many countries. There were too little jobs and men thought they had the right to have the jobs first. Now women had lost some of their rights, because many countries suffered from an economical crisis and couldn’t allow the women to work. The attention was spent on the economical crisis and many women fell in the old pattern again.

Aletta Jacobs dies.

Aletta Jacobs

Aletta Jacobs was born on the 9th of February, 1854 in Sappemeer in Groningen. Her father, Abraham Jacobs, was a Jewish doctor and her mother, Anna de Jongh, took care of their 11 children. When Aletta was very young, she already knew she wanted to be a doctor, but women could not have high education and could not become a doctor. Aletta Jacobs ignored these rules, encouraged by her father. After finishing primary school, she was the first girl ever to go to the HBS, for higher education. In 1871 she was the first woman to go to college to become a doctor. In 1878 she finished college and started her medical practice in Amsterdam. The years after that, she helped women and fought for equality in every kind of way. From birth control to the right to vote; she did everything for feminism, stood by by her husband Carel Victor Gerritsen. Aletta got pregnant and gave birth to a son, who died only one day later. After that lost, she never got children again. In 1905 Carel died and in the years after Aletta travelled a lot, spreading feminism. On the 10th of August, 1929 Aletta Jacobs died, but with the satisfying thought that (almost) all her goals were reached.

Crowd of women, demonstrating

The start of the Second Flow

The Second Flow of feminism officially started in 1965, but in the Netherlands it started a little later. In November 1967, to be exact, Joke Smit wrote an article titled ‘Het onbehagen bij de vrouw’. This article appears in ‘De Gids’ and meant the beginning of the Second Flow in the Netherlands. In this time the only right of a woman was her dresser. The themes of the Second Flow were still: labour, politics and education.
Labour because only 16% of all women had a paid job and in women were not treated the same. The got less paid and their promotion chances were far less as those of men. And it was absolutely not possible for a young woman with children to get a job or work. This is why feminists wanted redistribution of paid and non-paid labour, shortening and more payable crèches.
Politics was a theme to because only 15% of the Second Chamber were women and it was not even possible for women to become minister. Feminist also wanted changes in the way of education in the Netherlands. The reason for this is that girls did not had those good results on school in comparison with the boy. Not because the boys were simply smarter, but because the teacher did not learn the girls that much because they thought that was less important. Girls did not needed a good carrier, they just needed to find a husband marry him and get kids.
But this time three other themes were added too: sexuality, marriage and family. When a woman is sexually active she would directly be seen as a slut. When a man is sexually active he was ‘a real man’. Feminist wanted this to change, because it didn’t make any sense at all. Feminists also wanted to make it easier for women to commit abortion and they also wanted to struggle for the contraceptive pill.
Females had to be nothing else then the commercial-sight of a sexually attractive woman and also a happy housewife and mother.

MVM

The ‘Man Vrouw Maatschappij’ was set up. This was the first organisation of the Second Flow in the Netherlands. Man could also be a member of this organisation. The ‘Man Vrouw Maatschappij’ put pressure on the political and social organisations. They wanted the same rights on paid labour and similar development opportunities. The MVM often worked together with the ‘Rooie Vrouwen’.

Dolle Mina

Feminists set up the organisation ‘Dolle Mina’. This was a spontaneous action group with a lot of left-handed women as their members. Because of their playful actions they were famous quiet soon in the Netherlands, but also in a lot of other counties. The Dolle Mina’s played an important role in the publication of feminism and made the people realise what was happening and what they thought. Their first performance was in January 1970.

Radical Feminism

A new phase of feminism appeared. This was called radical feminism and came from the VS. The feminists did not wanted to work together with men anymore and worked on the development of a culture against them.

It gradually goes down with the ‘Dolle Mina’s’ after this time.

Paarse September

The first radical-feministic action group ‘Paarse September’. This group attacked the heterosexuality, because this was the only weapon by the keeping of the inequality of the balance of power between men and women. So lesbianism must be a political chose for feminists. Really often there was said: “Je gaat toch niet met je onderdrukker in bed?” (You don’t make love with your oppressor, do you?). At this point the women and gay movement could fight together and the organisation grew quickly.

The ‘Dolle Mina’s did not exist anymore by now.

The end of the 70’s

This was the time that the radical feminism, which is by the way the last period of this flow, reached it’s top and the political lesbianism got more members. Everywhere in the country there were women houses, women café’s, women bookstores, women living groups, women EVERYTHING.
The women of the publishing business ‘De Bonte Was’ thought that real feminists were not supposed to work with men and must not be paid for their feministic activities. While the feministic socialistic groups wanted to work together with men and wanted to be paid because they thought this was good for the independence of women.

Strike

About 30.000 to 50.000 women went demonstrating and joined a national strike day against the proposed Abortion law who was not totally as they wanted it to be.

The end of the Second Flow

The end of the second flow does not have an exact date, but it was about in the mid 80’s when the actions of feminists became less and less.

Now

At the moment we can not really imagine those radical feministic fights and activities. It is unbelievable that only ten years ago there happened so much more with this movement. At the moment there are no feministic activities, movements or fights. This makes it seem that it is going well with the women in the Netherlands, but if we look back to the demands of the Second Flow much of them are still not solved.
Especially in the Arabian world women are still oppressed most of the times. There, it is normal that men are the bosses and they tell their wives what to do. This has to change, because those women are not treated in a fair way. So were stays the Third Flow? Or did it already begin?