About the feminist Joke Smit and some curiosities of the Netherlands

The feminist and politician Joke Smit and her work marked the beginning of the second wave of feminism in the Netherlands. This article will describe a little bit of her life and contributions, together with a few features of the Netherlands that I already could observe in the time I’ve spent here. First of all:

You do not know what to write about? Just look around

I didn´t know who Joke Smit was and when I moved where I am currently living, I just looked up and saw a memorial for her at the entrance of the building.

Moving of houses is super common in the Netherlands until you find an apartment or a good room for rent (something for long term with registration, a mandatory procedure if you want to stay in the country). Most people move many times in their first one or two years, with the exception of a few lucky ones who quickly meet the right person at the right moment. Also, during August and September, Utrecht gets crowded with students about to start their new academic year, looking for a place to live as well.

So that when I found this tiny room where I can stay long-term or at least until something better comes, I didn´t hesitate to say yes. And there was Joke Smith, looking at me from the top of the entrance.

Finding a place in the Netherlands is a tough task

There is a real housing crisis in the Netherlands (and I may write further about it). The access to rent an apartment for someone just arrived who does not yet have a network of people is co-opted by online subscription-paid platforms and real estates, which only accept applications through online forms.

Last year, the government introduced a few changes in housing laws. It tried to encourage buying over rental, and even municipalities may prohibit purchase for rental investment in some areas. In fact, limits on rents have discouraged real estate investors, reducing the supply of rental housing and making access to a place more difficult.

Trying to find a house is spending hours at the front of your computer, getting your spam folder full of automatic replies, and notifications telling you that the next viewing for a house is full. There can be more than twenty people for an inspection of a small room (!), and prices are usually crazy.

Joke Smit, a renowned feminist

In 1967 Joke Smit published her work Het onbehagen bij de vrouw (The discontent of women) in the literary Magazine De gids. This essay is considered the beginning of the second wave of feminism in the Netherlands, and it describes the frustration of Dutch married women, with their lives reduced to maternity and house work. After that, she will continue publishing articles about a large number of topics, like access to political life and education for women, women´s rights, lesbianism, feminism and socialism, among others.

Let´s remember that this stage of development of the feminist movement -the second wave- will ask if something as the feminine exists by itself (and leave this question open, never try to find a closed answer), with Simone de Beauvoir´s The second sex as a foundational text (“You are not born a woman, you become one”). With a wide range of demands, the movement will focus on seeking political, cultural and social equality between women and men.

After the publication of Smit´s first and influential article, she and Hedy D’Ancona founded together the feminist organisation Man Vrouw Maatschappij (MVM – Man Woman Society). After the establishment of Dolle Mina in 1969, another feminist group with Marxist roots, MVM became more radical in its demands, deciding to exclude men from the membership and avoiding traditional hierarchical structures.

Joke Smit is also known for having pushed the debate that women had to work the same number of hours as men, while at the same time seeking an equitable distribution of household duties.

She had a short and intense life (1933-1981), dedicating it to teaching, journalism, and working as an editor. She also joined the Partij van de Arbeid (Labor Party), and represented it at the municipal government of Amsterdam between 1970 and 1971. She died at the age of 48 of breast cancer.

More reasons to write about Joke Smit:

1. When I googled her name, I found a lot of reviews about Adam Smith and Will Smith. But very little information about her.

2. Besides Wikipedia, the articles about her life are only in Dutch.

3. Her work is in Dutch.

A story full of brave women

Dutch women played an important role in the resistance against nazi occupation during the Second World War. Some of them, like the sisters Tuus and Freddie Oversteegen and their friend Hannie Schaft in Schoten, Haarlem, went so far as to seduce Dutch collaborators with the nazis to take them into the forest and kill them.