Joke Smit

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Joke Smit in 1974

Johanna Elisabeth "Joke" Smit (born August 27, 1933 in Utrecht , † September 19, 1981 in Amsterdam ) was a Dutch suffragette and politician. The article she wrote Het onbehagen bij de vrouw , which appeared in the literary magazine De Gids in 1967 , is considered to be one of the triggers of the “second wave” of feminism in the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s.

biography

Private background

Joke Smit was born in 1933 as the eldest of six children of a Calvinist couple from Utrecht. During the Second World War , both parents were active in the Dutch resistance . After the war, Smit attended a Christian high school, but gave up the Christian faith at the age of 16. During this time, their political and philosophical views were significantly shaped by the emerging French existentialism in the 1950s . After finishing school, Smit studied French language and literature at the University of Amsterdam . At university she also met her future husband Constant Kool, with whom she had an open marriage from 1956 and - very unusual for the time - signed a prenuptial agreement . For the time of their marriage, she adopted the double name Kool-Smit. Together with Kool, Smit raised two children, although the actual paternity of their second child remained unclear. The relationship with Kool lasted until 1974, but was never officially divorced. Nevertheless, she dropped her double name this year. After completing her studies, Smit initially worked as a French teacher for some time.

Suffragette

In 1962 Smit went to Paris for a year, where she worked as a foreign correspondent for several Dutch magazines, including Het Parool and the NRC Handelsblad . As a women's rights activist, she first appeared in 1967 as a consultant for the Nederlands Instituut voor Volksontwikkeling en Natuurvriendenwerk . Here she addressed topics such as disadvantage on the labor market and the lack of educational opportunities for women. She also called for the right to abortion for every woman, which in 1967 was still a taboo subject. Through this reading she came into contact with the feminist politician Hedy d'Ancona , who recommended her to the magazine De Gids as an author for an article on the subject of “Discomfort in Today”. Inspired by the 1948 published philosophical work The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir put them in this article entitled Het onbehagen bij de vrouw (German: "The discomfort of the woman"), the sometimes contradictory situation of women in everyday life the end of the 1960s Dar: Smit explained that, although women were offered greater sexual freedom through the birth control pill, they should, according to the will of society, primarily use them to “make themselves available” to their husbands. She also pointed out that women continue to be solely responsible for running their households, even if they have a parallel job. The general situation and position of women have not changed significantly in the past 50 years, housewives are still "a herd of vacuum-sucking cattle".

The theses of the article were very well received by the Dutch women, which is why Smit and d'Ancona founded the feminist action group Man Vrouw Maatschappij (German "Mann-Frau-Gesellschaft", MVM for short), which initially emerged as an emancipation movement for both the Understand the rights of women as well as men. In its early days, the MVM was able to win a large number of new members and set a political tone: for example, the legalization of abortion and the legally prescribed equal pay for women and men are considered the successes of the MVM. With the addition of new members, the group became increasingly radicalized, which is why Smit resigned the chairmanship in 1970 and declared that he could no longer fully identify with the group's goals. Subsequently, she turned primarily to politics. So she joined the Social Democratic Partij van de Arbeid in and was from 1970 to 1971 member of the Municipal Council of the city of Amsterdam. Furthermore, from 1971 onwards she worked as an editor of the scientific party journal Socialisme & Democratie . She also sat on several commissions and advisory boards, including the program council of the Nederlandse Televisie Stichting and the emancipation commission set up by the Dutch government in 1974, which dealt with issues of equality for women.

End of life

Towards the end of 1980, Smit was diagnosed with an incurable form of lung cancer. Once diagnosed, she began recording her memoirs on a series of tapes. Joke Smit died on September 19, 1981 in Amsterdam. Her tombstone bears the inscription: “Befers, weest moedig, scherpzinnig, eendrachtig” (German for example: “Sisters, are courageous, astute, harmonious”).

Awards and honors

Joke Smit (left) receives the Annie Romein Prize (November 30, 1979)

During his lifetime, Smit's commitment to the Dutch women's movement was recognized with various prizes and honors. For example, in 1979 she was the first recipient of the Annie Romein Prize , which the feminist magazine Opzij awards to people who have made a special contribution to the emancipation of women. In her acceptance speech, she took up the role of women in the “first wave” of Dutch feminism and stated, among other things, that, in her opinion, women had underestimated the power of patriarchy .

After her death, some streets and squares in the Netherlands were named after Smit. Furthermore, since 1986 the Dutch Ministry of Education has awarded the Joke Smit Prize for women's emancipation to two winners. On the one hand, a person is honored for their life's work (endowed with € 10,000), while on the other hand, a so-called “encouragement prize” ( Dutch Aanmoedigingsprijs ) of € 1,000 is awarded. The winner of the latter award is determined in each case through a public survey.

Works

In addition to Het onbehagen bij de vrouw, Smit wrote a large number of other articles that were published in three anthologies. The last of these volumes did not appear until 1984, a few years after her death:

  • Joke Kool-Smit: Hé plus, ze houen ons eronder. A book for vrouwen en oudere meisjes . AW Bruna, Utrecht / Antwerp 1972, ISBN 978-90-229-1504-2 .
  • Joke Smit: De moeder van Marie kan méér. Bundled articles 1971–1975 . AW Bruna, Utrecht / Antwerp 1975, ISBN 978-90-229-1645-2 .
  • Joke Smit: He is a land waar vrouwen sake; teksten 1967–1981 . Ed .: Jeroen de Wildt, Marijke Harberts. Feminist Uitgeverij Sara, Amsterdam 1984, ISBN 978-90-229-1645-2 .

literature

  • Marja Vuijsje: Joke Smit. Biography of a feminist . Atlas Contact, Amsterdam / Antwerp 2008, ISBN 978-90-467-0813-2 .

Web links

Commons : Joke Smit  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Joke Smit: Feminist and Journalist. In: isgeschiedenis.nl. Retrieved June 4, 2019 (Dutch).
  2. ↑ Mineke Bosch: The Meaning of a Kiss - Different historiographical Approaches to the Sixties in the Netherlands . In: Ingrid Bauer, Hana Havelková (eds.): L'Homme. European Journal of Feminist History . No. 2/2009 . Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20361-0 , p. 58 .
  3. ↑ Geschiedenis Werkplaats. In: encyclo.nl. March 10, 2007, accessed June 4, 2019 (Dutch).
  4. ↑ Jeroen de Wildt: A biographical schets van Joke Smit. In: jokesmit.nl. Retrieved June 4, 2019 (Dutch). Originally published as the introduction to the anthology Er is een land waar vrouwen willen wonen; teksten 1967–1981 .
  5. ↑ Joke Smitprijs voor vrouwenemancipatie ( Memento from January 12, 2019 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 4, 2019 (Dutch)
  6. ↑ Bundels Joke Smit. In: wxs.nl. Retrieved June 4, 2019 (Dutch).
personal data
SURNAME Smit, Joke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smit, Johanna Elisabeth (full name); Kool-Smit, Johanna Elisabeth (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch feminist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Utrecht
DATE OF DEATH September 19, 1981
Place of death Amsterdam