Wilhelmina Drucker

Young Wilhelmina Drucker
Older Wilhelmina Drucker

Wilhelmina Drucker (née Wilhelmina Elizabeth Lensing; Amsterdam, 30 September 1847 - Amsterdam, 5 December 1925) was a Dutch politician and writer. One of the first Dutch feminists, she was also known under her pseudonyms Gipsy, Gitano, and E. Prezcier.

Life

Drucker was one of two daughters born to the seamstress Constantia Christina Lensing and the banker Louis Drucker but her father refused to marry her mother or to legally recognise their children, meaning Wilhelmina grew up in difficult circumstances. She took up the same profession as her mother and from 1886 onwards attended meetings of the Sociaal-Democratische Bond, the De Unie union, the Nederlandsche Bond voor Algemeen Kies- en Stemrecht (Dutch League for General Suffrage) and the freethinkers' association De Dageraad. In the following years socialism had a major formative influence on her. She argued from her personal experience against a wider background, analysing and understanding the social mechanisms affecting women and thus able to conceive of what action to take to bring about change. Under a pseudonym, she wrote a book attacking the double standards of her father's morality in only recognising children born to him by a richer woman.

Wilhelmina Drucker with her portrait painted by Truus Claes in 1917 on the occasion of Drucker's seventieth birthday.

She also began a lawsuit against her half-brother, the liberal politician Hendrik Lodewijk Drucker, who had received an inheritance from Louis - she won it in 1888 and thus gained financial independence. Immediately after this she and other women from radical and socialist circles set up De Vrouw (The Woman), a weekly magazine for women and girls. In 1889 Drucker founded the Vrije Vrouwen Vereeniging (VVV, or Free Women's Association), which in 1894 developed into the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Women's Rights Association). In 1891 Drucker represented the VVV at the International Socialist Labor Congress in Brussels, the second congress of the Second International, where she and delegates from Germany, Austria and Italy called for a resolution that the manifestos of all countries' socialist parties' should include a call for full legal and political equality of men and women - this resolution was adopted by the congress.

In 1893 Drucker and her right-hand-woman Dora Schook-Haver founded the weekly magazine Evolutie (Evolution) - this lasted until 1926. Drucker also lectured throughout the Netherlands, got involved in the establishment of several women's trade unions and in 1897 became a member of the newly founded Vereeniging Onderlinge Vrouwenbescherming (OV, or Women's Mutual Protection Society), which worked for the rights of unmarried mothers and their children. Drucker stated that the OV should be a militant organisation uniting all women - married or unmarried, with or without children - to work in the public sphere for women's rights and against unjust laws and outdated morality.[1] She explained her thinking and ideas on the mission and role of the OV, laying the foundations for later activist organisations such as Blijf van mijn Lijf (literally 'Stay away from my body, a network of women's shelters) and Vrouwen tegen Verkrachting (Women against Rape). The feminist group Dolle Mina, set up in 1969, was called 'IJzeren Mina' (Iron Mina) in a feminist variation of Drucker's nickname.

Works

Note and bibliography

  1. ↑ (Dutch) Article Myriam Everard on the website for the Biografisch Woordenboek van het Socialisme en de Arbeidersbeweging in Nederland (BWSA).

External links