Abstract
Women from foreign worker sending countries—women who organized inside male-dominated immigrant organizations in the 1970s—clashed with European feminists in the 1980s on the topic of prioritizing patriarchy (i.e. men’s oppression of women).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Gloria Wekker, “What’s Identity Got to Do with It? Rethinking Identity in Light of the Mati Work in Suriname,” in Female Desires, eds. Evelyn Blackwood and Saskia E. Wieringa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). See also the works of gender scholar Saskia E. Wieringa in this anthology. Additionally: Pieternel Onderwater, “Wij zijn geen ‘zielige vrouwtjes’! Een onderzoek naar de houding van de Turkse vrouwenbeweging in Nederland ten opzichte van het seksedebat tussen 1970 en 2008” [“We are not ‘Pathetic Females’! A Study of the Attitude of the Turkish Women’s Movement in the Netherlands Regarding the Sex Debate, 1970–2008”], (Masters thesis, Utrecht University, 2008); Vilan van de Loo, De vrouw beslist: de tweede feministische golf in Nederland [“The Woman Decides, the Second Feminist Wave in the Netherlands”], (Wormer, NL: Inmerc, 2005), especially 182–197.
- 2.
Wekker, ibid . See also Ellis Jonker, “Embodying Otherness While Teaching Race and Gender at White European Universities,” in Teaching “Race” with a Gendered Edge, eds. Brigitte Hipfl and Kristín Loftsdóttir (Utrecht: ATGENDER, 2012), 63–68.
- 3.
Wekker (n 1), 121–122. She also contrasts “conformity between partners” (i.e. socioeconomic, age) with the age-structured system among Afro-Surinamese women who love women (mati).
- 4.
Marlou Schrover, “Multiculturalism, Dependent Residence Status and Honour Killings: Explaining Current Dutch Intolerance Towards Ethnic Minorities from a Gender Perspective (1960–2000),” in Gender, Migration and Categorisation: Making Distinctions Between Migrants in Western Countries, 1945–2010, eds. Marlou Schrover and Deirdre M. Moloney (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013), 235.
- 5.
“The Report of the Workgroup for Legal Rights and Government Policies” (undated); IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988).
- 6.
Trouw, 10 March 1981, p. 9. Cited in Schrover (n 4), 238.
- 7.
Schrover (n 4), 239.
- 8.
Historian Judith Surkis—who has written about gender and law in France and in (former) French colonies—has emphasized the hypocritical ways that Europeans have criticized “Muslims” in Europe for supposed backwardness. For instance, many French people reacted severely to a case of a Muslim couple who sought an annulment on the grounds that the woman lied about being a virgin at marriage. Even though both agreed that this was an acceptable way to dissolve their marriage, they were met with accusations that they had displayed non-European customs regarding chastity. But ironically, the annulment law was based on French Catholic traditions, not Islam. Thus, in this case of the residence permits, Surkis would highlight the “sociohistorical and juridical contexts” of the laws, and those who challenged the laws demonstrated the “critical and uneasy boundary between…citizenship and foreign nationality, secular and religious law, and colonial and postcolonial” history. Judith Surkis, “Hymenal Politics: Marriage, Secularism, and French Sovereignty,” Public Cultures 22:3 (2010): 535.
- 9.
Rita Chin, “Turkish Women, West German Feminists, and the Gendered Discourse on Muslim Cultural Difference,” Public Cultures 22:3 (2010): 558.
- 10.
Ibid , 567.
- 11.
Rikke Andreassen, The Mass Media’s Construction of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Nationality. An Analysis of the Danish News Media’s Communication About Visible Minorities from 1971–2004 (PhD dissertation, Toronto, Department of History, University of Toronto, 2005).
- 12.
“Multiculturalism” as an ideology and policy for managing cultural diversity and immigration affected both the Netherlands and Denmark in the 1980s. Policies passed in Amsterdam in 1981, but the national “Minorities Bill” passed in 1983. These new minority policies granted subsidies to strengthen immigrant organizations, often along ethnic lines. For a European perspective, see Margit Fauser, Migrants and Cities: The Accommodation of Migrant Organizations in Europe (Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012), 15; especially “Chapter 5: Migrant Organizations in Established Immigration Contexts.” Dutch subsidies “specifically target[ed] women’s immigrant organisations, of which [the Dutch government] felt there were too few”; Marlou Schrover, “Pillarization, Multiculturalism and Cultural Freezing: Dutch Migration History and the Enforcement of Essentialist Ideas,” BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review 125 (2–3 January 2010): 343–345; and Schrover (n 4), 234–235. One could also argue that Dutch “multicultural” policies were actually an extension of pillarization, that is, they encouraged groups to live apart, together; see the penultimate paragraph of Chapter 2.
- 13.
I Am Curious (Yellow), 1968, directed by Vilgot Sjoöman (Grove, 1967).
- 14.
Gloria T. Hull, et al. (eds.) (New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1982).
- 15.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, 140 (1989): 139–167. Although initially a legal term, “intersectionality” was soon adapted by scholars in many disciplines; for an early historical study of intersectionality, see Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, “African-American Women’s History and the Metalanguage of Race,” Signs 17:2 (Winter 1992): 251–274. For an early example of “intersectionality” to a European audience, see—originally in German—Manuela Thurner, “Subject to Change: Theories and Paradigms of U.S. Feminist History,” Journal of Women’s History 9:2 (1997): 122–146.
- 16.
van de Loo (n 1), 182–197. Also cited in van de Loo: Kongresbundel winteruniversiteit vrouwenstudies [“Conference Papers of the Women’s Studies Winter University”], (Nijmegen zj, 1983); Troetje Loewenthal, “De witte toren van vrouwenstudies” [“The White Tower of Women’s Studies”], Tijdschrift voor Vrouwenstudies 4 (1984): 5–17; Maayke Botman, Nancy Jouwe en Gloria Wekker (eds.), Caleidoscopische visies. De zwarte, migranten- en vluchtelingen-vrouwenbeweging in Nederland [“Kaleidoscopic Visions: The Black, Migrant and Refugee Women’s Movement in the Netherlands”] (Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen Publishers, 2001).
- 17.
van de Loo (n 1), 182.
- 18.
van de Loo (n 1), For more on Sister Outsider, see “Er ontbreekt altijd een stuk van de puzzel. Een inclusief curriculum gewenst” [“There is Always a Missing Piece of the Puzzle: An Inclusive Curriculum Desired”] in Botman, Jouwe and Wekker (n 16).
- 19.
van de Loo (n 1), 193. The Center was located at Singel 260, but closed in 1990; Stichting ZAMI filled some of the void. The Black Women’s Bibliography is now filed under “Pattipilohy Project” at the (Dutch) International Archive and Information Center for the Women’s Movement (IIAV).
- 20.
Wendy Chapkis, “Review: Dutch Perspective,” The Women’s Review of Books 2:7 (April 1985): 13. She reviewed the following: Anja Meulenbelt, Joyce Outshoorn, Selma Sevenhuijsen and Petra de Vries (eds.), A Creative Tension: Key Issues of Socialist-Feminism, an International Perspective from Activist Dutch Women (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1984).
- 21.
Drude Dahlerup, “Is the New Women’s Movement Dead? Decline or Change of the Danish Movement,” in The New Women’s Movement: Feminism and Political Power in Europe and the USA, ed. Drude Dahlerup (London: Sage Publications, 1986), 217–245. Quote from page 221; see also 219.
- 22.
(Student paper) Barbara Wessel, “Het MAN in KMAN” [“The MAN in KMAN”] (June 1982); via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 601 (Pieces of the Moroccan Women’s Association Netherlands [MVVN], with pieces from other women’s movements, 1982–1996).
- 23.
Ayse Kudat and Mine Sabuncuoglu, “The Changing Composition of Europe’s Guestworker Population,” Monthly Labor Review (October 1980). Data on Dutch immigrant sex ratios adopted from “Fact Sheet on the Netherlands,” Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Recreation and Social Welfare, the Netherlands, 1979, via Kudat and Sabuncuoglu, ibid , 12–13. They report that the Yugoslavian community was 45% female out of a total of 13,800; the Turkish population was 35% female, out of a total of 76,500; the Moroccan population was 22% female, out of a total of 42,200; and the Tunisian population was 20% female, out of a total of 1,500.
- 24.
Kudat and Sabuncuoglu, ibid , 8.
- 25.
Data on women’s dominance in Swiss employment fields via Annuaire Statistique de la Suisse, 1978; via Kudat and Sabuncuoglu, ibid , 12–13. Also, immigrant women were likely to work in the clothing industry and leather crafts.
- 26.
Annemarie Cottaar and Nadia Bouras, Marokkanen in Nederland: de pioniers vertellen [“Moroccans in the Netherlands: The Pioneers Tell”] (Amsterdam: J.M. Meulenhoff, 2009), 27.
- 27.
Cottaar and Bouras, ibid , 107. In the 1970s, Benaich worked for a medical company, met and married her husband (another Moroccan whom she met on the street in Zandvoort), moved to a house, and gave birth to three children. Cottaar and Bouras admitted that it was unfortunate that Benaich’s was the only working woman’s narrative they included, but that there were other Moroccan women in her position: Cottaar and Bouras, ibid , 267.
- 28.
Zm [Zafar Malik], “Danish Language and Pakistani Ladies,” FAB (10 October 1972), 11. The Centre was located in Gladsaxe, outside Copenhagen. At this time, the Pakistani page was in English.
- 29.
“…In order that women can also become enlightened on what is important to know when living and working in a country where you do not understand the language”; via “Danes on Foreign Workers—Odds and Ends,” FAB (10 December 1972).
- 30.
There is some inconsistency with when HTKB officially formed. According to the IISG finding aid, HTKB was established in 1974: IISG, “Finding aid to HTKB Archives,” last accessed October 2016 via http://www.archivesportaleurope.net/ead-display/-/ead/pl/aicode/NL-AmISG/type/fa/id/http_COLON__SLASH__SLASH_hdl.handle.net_SLASH_10622_SLASH_ARCH02025#sthash.wZSGS5I6.dpuf.
- 31.
Schrover (n 4), 235
- 32.
Schrover (n 4), 236.
- 33.
“Sewing Classes” in HTKB Report. “HTKB: Turkse Vrouwen Verening in Nederland” (undated, Winter 1982–1983), 4; via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 573 (Pieces of and on the HTKB, 1976–1989). See also “Evaluation of HTKB activities: 1982/1983” (1983); IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988).
- 34.
“KMAN Annual Report 1983–1984”; via IISG, KMAN Collection, Folder 580 (Annual reports, work and policies of the KMAN. 1977–1994).
- 35.
Onderwater (n 1), Chapter 3.
- 36.
Women squatted a large building in Copenhagen in 1979, and opened Danner House for battered women that year; crisis centers then emerged in five or six other Danish towns by 1985. Dahlerup (n 21), 233–234.
- 37.
She moved to Germany in 1970 as a teenager, worked as a cashier, and eventually moved to Denmark and worked for a vacuum cleaner company. She was married with two children in Denmark. Her title, in Danish, was talskvinde.
- 38.
She was already married and had a child in Turkey, but lived solo in Denmark, where she had been since 1973. Her title, in Danish, was tillidskvinde for de kvindelige arbejdere.
- 39.
CHP, GL, AH [Christina Hee Pedersen, Geske Lilsig and Anne Houe], “Danish and Foreign Workers Must Stand Together,” Kvinder 22 (October/November 1978), 3–5.
- 40.
Pedersen et al., ibid , 3–5.
- 41.
Piril Kazancı, Fragen Project: Analysis of Turkish Feminist Texts (Amsterdam: ATRIA, the Institute on Gender Equality and Women’s History, 2013), 32–35.
- 42.
Sirin Tekeli, “The Turkish Women’s Movement: A Brief History of Success,” Quaderns de la Mediterrània 14 (2010): 119–123. See also: Sirin Tekeli, “Women in Turkish Politics,” in Women in Turkish Society, ed. Nermin Abadan-Unat (Leiden, Brill, 1981), 293–311.
- 43.
IKD/PWO, “8th of March Statement” (1 March 1983), via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988). “Office Abroad: Elmegade 10, 4th—DK 2200 Copenhagen N.”
- 44.
Kenan Evren (PWO President), “On this 8th of March…” (signature campaign); via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988).
- 45.
Progressive Women’s Organization, “8th of March Statement” (1 March 1983); via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988).
- 46.
“IKD Demonstration, July 1979” in HTKB Report. “HTKB: Turkse Vrouwen Verening in Nederland” (undated, Winter 1982–1983), 10; via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 573 (Pieces of and on the HTKB, 1976–1989).
- 47.
Tekeli, “The Turkish Women’s Movement” (n 43), 120–121.
- 48.
Metin Denizmen, “Dear friends…” (cover letter for dissemination of speech at the International Anti-Nuclear Conference, Amsterdam, February 1982); via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988): “The army came with armored cars and helicopters” to occupy the factory, before putting three-hundred workers into detention. He reiterated the purpose of labor strikes: “Turkish workers, peasants, and employees want[ed] to improve their lives, freedom and democracy,” but instead they faced military brutality.
- 49.
Samen Tegen Atoom Raketten (STAR), (Amsterdam, 27 February 1983); via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988).
- 50.
Onderwater (n 1), Chapter 2.
- 51.
Kvindernes U-landsudvalg (KULU), “History,” last accessed September 2016 via http://www.kulu.dk/. KULU worked with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs’ development organization, Danida.
- 52.
Kvinder 32 (June/July 1980), 16–18. Translation of U-landskvinder
- 53.
The issue shows several areas where Danish women and foreign worker women might collaborate: from working conditions (and labor unions), to schools (and child-raising) to stress (and mental health), to adult education. The magazine ends with a cartoon, “A Day in the Life of a Pakistani Interpreter,” which shows her balancing work and family and helping foreign worker women who are less integrated than she; Kvinder 22 (October/November 1978).
- 54.
Wessel (n 22), “2. Positie van de buitenlandse arbeider in Nederland (grove schets)” [“2. Position of the Foreign Worker in the Netherlands”].
- 55.
Wessel (n 22). Wessel’s essay has no page numbers.
- 56.
Cited in Wessel (n 22).
- 57.
Christina Hee Pedersen interview (March 2014).
- 58.
Onderwater (n 1), Chapter 2.
- 59.
Vrouwen voor Vriendschap, Samenwerking en Solidariteit tussen Kulturele Minderheden en Nederlanders [“Women for Friendship, Cooperation, and Solidarity between Cultural Minorities and the Dutch”], “Internationale Vrouwendag 7 Maart 1982” [“Schedule for International Women’s Day 7 March 1982”]; IISG, KMAN Collection, Folder 601 (Pieces of the Moroccan Women’s Association Netherlands [MVVN], with pieces from other women’s movements, 1982–1996).
- 60.
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, “Statement” (7 February 1983); via IISG, HTIB Collection, Folder 367 (Documents concerning the HTKB, 1974–1988).
- 61.
Joyce Outshoorn, “The Feminist Movement and Abortion Policy in the Netherlands,” in The New Women’s Movement: Feminism and Political Power in Europe and the USA, ed. Drude Dahlerup (London: Sage Publications, 1986), 66.
- 62.
The poster—in Arabic and Dutch—calls for “Equal rights for women in all socio-cultural and political spheres,” and “an independent residence [permit] for Moroccan women.” KMAN Collection, Folder 601 (Pieces of the Moroccan Women’s Association Netherlands [MVVN], with pieces from other women’s movements, 1982–1996).
- 63.
Women of KMAN Workgroup, “Rabea’s Speech,” and “Speech on the occasion of international women’s day, 8 March 1982”; via IISG, KMAN Collection, Folder 601 (Pieces of the Moroccan Women’s Association Netherlands [MVVN], with pieces from other women’s movements, 1982–1996).
- 64.
Wessel (n 22).
- 65.
Onderwater (n 1), Chapter 2.
- 66.
C.S. [Camilla Skousen], “Most Choose to Divorce!” [Interview with Rosa Labarca], Kvinder 32 (June/July 1980), 16–18. The quotation begins, “In Chile they’ve done cleaning work their whole lives without getting paid for it. Here they get an hourly wage, and that is a positive experience for them.”
- 67.
Drude Dahlerup and Monique Leyenaar, Breaking Male Dominance in Old Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 152.
- 68.
e.g. CHP interview; A.M. interview (September 2014); K.L. interview (March 2014).
- 69.
CHP interview.
- 70.
Rosa Inés Labarca Olmos interview (August 2015).
- 71.
“Analyse van HTIB, MVVN, ST. ZAMI”; IISG, KMAN Collection, Folder 601 (Pieces of the Moroccan Women’s Association Netherlands [MVVN], with pieces from other women’s movements, 1982–1996).
- 72.
“KMAN Annual Report 1983–1984”; via IISG, KMAN Collection, Folder 580 (Annual reports, work and policies of the KMAN, 1977–1994).
- 73.
Schrover argued that the (local and national) governments’ role in funding certain women’s groups led to infighting and sometimes the end of an organization; this was the case for HTKB in 1995, though the Amsterdam branch (ATKB) remained. Labarca conveyed to me that there was a downturn in women’s activities, and “also for immigrant groups…[and] women’s groups spread out.” Dahlerup in 1986 questioned if the “the new women’s movement was dead”; Dahlerup (n 21), 234–235.
- 74.
Frescia Carrasco interview (August 2015).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Shield, A.D.J. (2017). “All of that talk about feminism was very hard to understand”: Immigrant Women and European Feminism, 1974–1985. In: Immigrants in the Sexual Revolution. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49613-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49613-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49612-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49613-9
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)