The first sign of the woman’s rights movement manifested itself in the Netherlands in 1846. At that time a woman appeared in public for the first time as a speaker. She was the Countess Mahrenholtz-Bülow, who introduced kindergartens (Fröbelsystem) into the Netherlands.
In 1857 elementary education was made compulsory in the Netherlands. At that time this instruction was free, undenominational, and under the control of the state; but in 1889 it was partly given over into denominational and private hands. The secondary schools for girls are partly municipal, partly private. Most of the elementary schools are coeducational; in the secondary schools the sexes are segregated; in the higher institutions of learning coeducation prevails, the right of girls to attend being granted as a matter of course. Girls were admitted to the high schools also without any opposition. These measures were due to Minister Thorbecke. Thirty years ago the first woman registered at the University of Leyden. Women study and are granted degrees in all departments of the universities of Leyden, Utrecht, Gröningen, and Amsterdam. In the elementary, secondary, and higher institutions of learning, there are fewer women teachers than men, and the salary of the women teachers is lower. Women are now being appointed as science teachers in boys’ schools also. The government is planning measures opposed to having married women as teachers and as employees in the postal service. The women’s clubs are vigorously protesting against this. Women serve as examination commissioners and as members of school boards, though in small numbers. The city school boards rely almost entirely upon women for supervising the instruction in needlework. Since 1904 two women were appointed as state school inspectors, with salaries only sufficient for maintenance.
In the Netherlands there are 20 women doctors (31 including those in the colonies), 57 women druggists, 5 women lawyers, and one woman lecturer in the University of Gröningen. There are three women preachers in the Liberal “League of Protestants.” Since 1899 4 women have been factory inspectors; 2, prison superintendents; 2, superintendents of rural schools. Thirty-four are in the courts for the protection of wards. Women participate in the care of the poor and the care of dependent children. The care of dependent children is in the hands of a national society, Pro juventute, which aided in securing juvenile courts in the Netherlands. Especially useful in the education and support of workingwomen has been the Tessel Benefit Society (Tessel Schadeverein), which is national in its organization.
It will be well to state here that the appointment of women factory inspectors was secured in a rather original manner. In 1898 a national exhibition of commodities produced by women was held in the Hague. In a conspicuous place the women placed an empty picture frame with this inscription: “The Women Inspectors of all These Commodities Produced by Women.” This hastened results.
The shop assistants of both sexes organized themselves conjointly in Amsterdam in 1898. There are two organizations of domestic servants. The Dutch woman’s rights advocates proved by investigation that for the same work the workingwomen—because they were women—were paid 50 per cent less than men. The “Workingwomen’s Information Bureau,” which was made into a permanent institution as a result of the exhibition of 1898, has been concerning itself with the protection of workingwomen and with their organization. The women organizers belong to the middle class. The Socialist party in the Netherlands has been organizing workingwomen into trade-unions. In this the party has encountered the same difficulties as exist elsewhere; to the present time it can point only to small successes. Two of the Socialist woman’s rights advocates are Henrietta Roland and Roosje Vos. Henrietta Roland is of middle-class parentage, being the daughter of a lawyer; she is the wife of an artist of repute. Roosje Vos, on the contrary, comes from the lower classes. Both of these women played an important part in the strike of 1903. They organized the “United Garment Workers’ Union.”
In spite of the fact that a woman can be ruler of the Netherlands, the Dutch women possess only an insignificant right of suffrage. In the dike associations they have a right to vote if they are taxpayers or own property adjoining the dikes. In June, 1908, the Lutheran Synod gave women the same right to vote in church affairs as the men possess. The Evangelical Synod, on the other hand, rejected a similar measure as well as one providing for the ordaining of women preachers. An attempt to secure municipal suffrage for women failed, and resulted in the enactment of reactionary laws.
In 1883 Dr. Aletta Jacobs (the first woman doctor in the Netherlands), acting on the advice of the well-known jurist—and later Minister—van Houten, requested an Amsterdam magistrate to enter her name on the list of municipal electors. As a taxpayer she was entitled to this right. At the same time she requested Parliament to grant her the suffrage in national elections. Both requests were summarily refused. In order to make such requests impossible in the future, parliament inserted the word “male” in the election law.[66] These occurrences aroused in the Dutch women an interest in political affairs; and in 1894 they organized a “Woman’s Suffrage Society,” which soon spread to all parts of the country. The Liberals, Radicals, Liberal Democrats, and Socialists admitted women members to their political clubs and frequently consulted the women concerning the selection of candidates. The clubs of the Conservative and Clerical parties have refused to admit women. At the general meeting in 1906 a part of the members of the “Woman’s Suffrage Society” separated from the organization and formed the “Woman’s Suffrage League” (the Bond voor Vrouwenkiesrecht,—the older organization was called Vereeniging voor Vrouenkiesrecht). Both carry on an energetic propaganda in the entire country, the older organization being the more radical. In 1908 the older organization made all necessary preparations for the Amsterdam Congress of the Woman’s Suffrage Alliance, which resulted in a large increase in its membership (from 3500 to 6000), and resulted, furthermore, in the founding of a Men’s League for Woman’s Suffrage (modeled after the English organization). The question of woman’s suffrage has aroused a lively interest throughout the Netherlands; even the Bond increased its membership during the winter of 1908 and 1909 from 1500 to 3500.
In September, 1908, there were two great demonstrations in the Hague in favor of universal suffrage for both men and women. The right to vote in Holland is based on the payment of a property tax or ground rent; therefore numerous proposals in favor of widening the suffrage had been made previously. When a liberal ministry came into power in 1905, it undertook a reform of the suffrage laws; in 1907 the Committee on the Constitution, by a vote of six out of seven, recommended that Parliament grant active and passive suffrage to men and women. But with the fall of the Liberal ministry fell the hope of having this measure enacted, for there is nothing to be expected from the present government, composed of Catholic and Protestant Conservatives. As has already been stated, propaganda is in the meantime being carried on with increasing vigor, and in Java a woman’s suffrage society has also been organized. A noted jurist, who is a member of the Dutch Bond voor Vrouwenkiesrecht, has just issued a pamphlet in which he proves the necessity of granting woman’s suffrage: “Man makes the laws. Wherever the interests of the unmarried or the married woman are in conflict with the interests of man, the rights of the woman will be set aside. This is injurious to man, woman, and child, and it blocks progress. The remedy is to be found only in woman’s suffrage. The granting of woman’s suffrage is an urgent demand of justice.”
SWITZERLAND[67]
| Total population: | 3,313,817. |
| Women: about | 1,700,000. |
| Men: about | 1,616,000. |