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 German-Jewish banker Louis Drucker. 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.

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 (VOV, or Women's Mutual Protection Society), which worked for the rights of unmarried mothers and their children. Drucker stated that the VOV 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. She explained her thinking and ideas on the mission and role of the VOV, 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). For her militant calls for action to achieve women's equality she was nicknamed 'Ijzeren'(iron) or 'Dolle'(mad) Mina, monikers that gained even more traction after her staging of a symbolic public burning of women's corsets. The highly publicised activist feminist group Dolle Mina, started in 1970, was named in honour of Wilhelmina Drucker, which was celebrated by a public brassiere-burning ceremony in Amsterdam.

Works

• (in Dutch) Over vrijen en trouwen, waar velen van houwen - [S.l.] : [s.n.], 1905. - p. 138-139
• (in Dutch) Vrouwenarbeid in het verleden en in het heden: rede gehouden op de Algemeene Vergadering van den Nationalen Vrouwenraad in Nederland op 26 April 1906 te Groningen / Wilhelmina Drucker. - [S.l.] : [s.n.], 1906. - 10p.
• (in French) Autour du travail de la femme - Amsterdam : [s.n.], 1911. - 14p.
• (in Dutch) Moederschap : sexueele ethiek / M. Cohen Tervaert-Israëls, J. Rutgers, G. Kaptein-Muysken, W. Drucker, Ch. Carno-Barlen, Est.H. Hartsholt-Zeehandelaar, Titia van der Tuuk, Martina G. Kramers, C.C.A. de Bruine-van Dorp, Lod. van Mierop, S. van Houten, J.C. de Bruïne ; Nationaal Comité voor Moederbescherming en Sexueele Hervorming. - Almelo : Hilarius, 1913. - 158p.
• (in Dutch) Waarom kiezen de vrouwen niet mee? - Amsterdam : Vrije Vrouwenvereeniging, 1915. - 2p.
• (in Dutch) Waarde voorstander(ster) / M.W.H. Rutgers-Hoitsema, Martina G. Kramers, W. Drucker, M.J. de Soete. - [S.L.] : Vereeniging "Nationaal Comité in zake wettelijke regeling van vrouwenarbeid", 1916. - 1p.
• (in Dutch) Geen blinde volgelingen: opgedragen aan de leden der Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht / J.S.R. Baerveld-Haver, Wilhelmina Drucker, Nine Minnema, Jacoba F.D. Mossel, M.S. Wiener. - Amsterdam : [s.n.], 1916. - 19p. Xeroks
• (in Dutch) De verbetering van het recht der vrouw. Par. 1. De Vrije Vrouwenvereeniging - Amsterdam : Elsevier, 1918. - 14p. Overdruk uit: De vrouw, de vrouwenbeweging en het vrouwensvraagstuk. Encyclopaedisch Handboek deel II onder redactie van C.M. Werker-Beaujon, Clara Wichmann en W.H.M. Werker p. 136-149.
• (in Dutch) Rapport van de Enquête-commissie, ingesteld door het Comité van Actie tegen het ontslag der gehuwde ambtenaressen / Wilhelmina Drucker, W. Willink-Altes. - [S.l.] : [s.n.], 1928. - 3 p.
• (in Dutch) Internationaal Archief voor de Vrouwenbeweging: jaarboek = Yearbook International Archives for the Women's Movement : I. - Leiden : Brill, 1937. - 175p. with photographs