Ode to Mathilde Wibaut - Berdenis van Berlekom | Your ideals go far beyond mere suffrage

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Dear Wibaut, Dear Mathilde,

In 1939 the Wibautstraat in Amsterdam became a reality. You will have experienced it consciously, you were 77 years old at the time. Florentinus Wibaut himself, after whom the street was named, had been dead for three years by then. I am curious to know what it meant to you, that street, whether it kept Floor's memory alive, whether you found it a tribute to your husband, or perhaps a lot of fuss about nothing. For me, the existence of the street has always been a beacon of our family history. Not because of its beauty - for a long time Wibautstraat was called the ugliest street in Amsterdam - but because of its existence. The street's existence gives (literally) name, visibility and honor to history. A statue of Florentinus also followed, which was placed when you had already passed away, Mathilde, you did not live to see it. On his birthday in 2019, as a great-great-grandchild of yours, I was allowed to reopen the statue, the statue had been placed on a new pedestal and risen in the median strip.

Many socialists today are still deeply impressed by the merit of Floor Wibaut, and in speeches at the opening they recalled his decisive socialist legacy. It was in that year, 100 years after the introduction of women's suffrage, that I first really immersed myself in you Mathilde. As your great-great-granddaughter, I feel a responsibility to tell your story and honor your legacy, because your struggle is my struggle, and that struggle is still not over.

A book about Floor Wibaut states that you did not live in his shadow. Yet historiography has chosen to pay scant attention to your story. As often happens by the way, hence this initiative of the Amsterdam Museum and the writing of this ode. Women have been deliberately written out of history because for a long time men determined which history made it into the historiography. In addition, they also never bothered to listen to women and consider them as equal human beings and this has direct consequences for today. When we do not begin to hold current narratives up to the light, we help perpetuate the same simple narratives. When we keep repeating that women have not made history because they are insignificant, how can women ever be taken seriously. 

There are many examples that show that the collective memories of history are simplified by adhering to only one narrative. And the shocking thing is that this produces inequality, populism and a narrowing of our tolerance. 
It was decided after World War II that national resistance would become the narrative, not that the Netherlands had contributed most effectively of all European countries to the deportation of Jews. 
The Netherlands has never had a female prime minister before, even though there have been five female prime ministers at the helm. But since this is about the Caribbean part of the kingdom, doesn't this count? 
And what about the 40 years of struggle and dedication it took before women's suffrage came about? 40 years! Just as women had to keep silent and virtuous at that time, so more than 100 years later we keep the story of the women's movement quiet, by paying virtually no attention to it in the history books.
If we only selectively tell, and endlessly repeat, repeat, repeat the oversimplified stories, then those stories become true and form our collective memory. As long as we continue to lean on incomplete stories, because we don't like complexities, how will we move forward?

The complexities in your struggle are a good example of this. Often the first feminist wave is flattened into a struggle for women's suffrage and right to higher education. And the feminists of that time are now blamed for only having an eye for the women of class. This is a direct result of selective telling; this story has become the lore. This story has received the most emphasis because (even today) it is still the people in power who can most determine what makes it into the historiography and what does not.

I regret not knowing you earlier, Mathilde. You were a staunch socialist and radical feminist. Recently my mother gave me several pamphlets published between 1900-1928, following speeches you made. Pamphlets that were full of fire, with sharp observations and where you argued very clearly that the struggle could not be over until everyone had equal rights. You mainly campaigned for the rights of women workers, (the proletarian woman) that they were entitled to education, well-paid work and above all the right to vote. 
You joined the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiezenrecht (founded by Wilhelmina Drucker in 1894 and then strengthened by Aletta Jacobs) in 1895 and the Sociaal-Democratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP) in 1897. 

In your own words, you gradually find out that struggle waged by the Women's Suffrage Association is only a struggle for the elite, which has no regard for the workers. Thus you describe the struggle that “was waged by the women of the bourgeoisie as a struggle for so-called ladies' suffrage and used more and more at the same time as a defense shield against Universal Suffrage, as a brake against the working class moving forward.” You continue: “It was about a constitutional amendment, about the infamous Article 80, which excluded workers and women from suffrage. The women wanted to remove the word “male,” the workers the word: “welfare.” But the Association for Women's Suffrage only attached importance to the first requirement. The prosperity requirement, in its view, could safely remain valid.”
Enough reason for you and your fellow socialists to stick to your ideals and turn their backs on the Women's Suffrage Association in 1899 and continue the struggle for suffrage for all through the Union of Social-Democratic Women's Clubs.

Your ideals went far beyond mere suffrage. Among other things, you pointed out the importance of women's economic independence - with the right to equal pay and paid work - and you saw through capitalism's exploitation of women's unpaid work in the home. Crucially, you saw women's self-determination in choices around motherhood. When and how many children a woman wanted to have was up to her. And that included unwed mothers. I savored your trial engagement including contraception, in which you took the space to really get to know each other well before getting married. So that when marriage followed there was a convincing yes because you knew what you had in each other, both in bed, and at the table, and in thought. I very much hope that you enjoyed in equality the sexual freedom that you encouraged outside of marriage in your book “Becoming Marriage.

Your book “Memoirs,” which you wrote shortly before your death, was published in 1976 by the red women of the Labour Party. Memoirs about the socialist women's movement, or the “Struggle for Liberation. Liberation from capitalist and sexual domination. You end this book with the question, “Is the struggle now in 1952 accomplished?”

I think the best way to honor you is to join you in analyzing where we made big mistakes. Because just as you could ask yourself in 1952 whether the battle was now over, I can tell you that in the year 2025, in which we celebrate Amsterdam's 750th anniversary, there is still a lot to fight for. The inequality of opportunity for anyone who deviates from the norm (white heterosexual cisgender men) is always there. I recently read a passage by Bell Hooks, professor and radical socialist and feminist from America, born in 1952, who gave me a lot of insight into obtaining women's suffrage. Her definition of feminism is the perfect tool for dissecting your struggle. hook's definition of feminism is as follows: 'feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression.' Sexism disadvantages or discriminates against someone based on their sex. Coming from hooks' definition, this means that feminism is not anti-man, (there are still people who believe that) but encourages everyone - both men and women - to be anti-sexist in thought and action. This is quite a challenge, because everyone grows up in a world where sexist thinking and acting is unconsciously taken for granted. And to reverse that, it is not enough to be non-sexist, it is necessary to be anti-sexist.

If we now go back to the achievement of women's suffrage in 1919, we can read that you already sensed that something was wrong. “And suddenly, almost unnoticed, our demand was granted. It had happened so wonderfully, as if, with enormous effort, a beautiful ship had been equipped to sail the wide seas, and one unexpectedly saw this ship piloted into murky, stagnant water.” This is what you write in your memoir about the birth of women's suffrage. You give words to a decision that was apparently made blasé. A foresight. Because with the acquisition of women's suffrage, 40 years of persistent struggle came to an end.  However… the sting of sexist thinking was not removed here. In fact, the reason that women's suffrage was introduced was to put women in the driver's seat for a while. After the last day of the First World War in November 1918, Pieter Jelles Troelstra, SDAP leader, proclaimed a workers' revolution. The incumbent politicians, afraid of communist fighters, responded by accelerating their approval of women's suffrage. Women would be unlikely to be revolutionary (which is laughable, given their previous fear that women would be too emotional to vote). Women were simply used as pawns for the interests of men.

Viewed through the definition of hooks, it becomes clear that the intention was never to actually see women as equals. As full-fledged and therefore to give them equal rights. No, the prejudices against women even formed the basis for equal voting rights, and you can hardly call that anti-sexist. And because the sting was not removed at that time, and women's rights were granted for impure reasons, this not only meant progress (obtaining rights), but it gave an extra hard blow. And you have experienced a lot of that. How it was made impossible for women to work for pay through all kinds of royal decrees and other antics, while no one cared about the working-class women. How politicians made money available for the establishment of higher education for boys, but for girls the money had to be coughed up by the community itself. And so on.

I can now choose a romantic look at what has become possible over the past 100 years. That's pretty impressive. Women today hold top positions in business and politics, have access to education, have premarital sex and have rights that were once unthinkable. But you, Mathilde, knew that true equality is not just about the visible victories. It's about the rights and dignity of all women, not just a privileged few. The price of inequality continues to be paid by women, especially the poorest and most vulnerable and often women of color. The Global Care Chain ensures that women in poverty do the unappreciated work of those at the top. Today, women still bear the burden of invisible oppression.

And every time there are new scandals that surprise people and provoke outrage. While it's not that surprising. We live in a white racist capitalist patriarchal society (in the words of bell hooks) and if we don't do anything about the roots of this system, if we don't remove the sting from it, then we shouldn't be surprised that toxic metals are found are put into tampons. Or that more babies die around birth for women of color. That women and young girls experience sexual harassment on the street, at work and in public transport. That a woman is murdered every eight days in a relationship and that this hardly makes the newspapers.

How different it would have been if women had really been considered equal when granting women's suffrage. That at the time (and now) people really listened to what women had to say. Imagine, Mathilde, that your words had been followed up when you argued: 'that there should be a reduction in working hours for men, so that they can participate in housework, raising children and caring for children.' 

Unfortunately, it has been mainly women who have fought the battles over the past century and men have not recognized what they have to gain by looking at the privileges that benefit women. Because because women are only viewed as inferior, men have not realized that they have also been denied rights. For example, it was exactly 100 years after the introduction of women's suffrage that men only received an extension of three days in maternity leave. Three extra days to bond with your baby! Three days! After a century of emancipation, the man has not yet realized that he too benefits from emancipation.

The opportunities that existed were missed by not taking the sting out of obtaining women's suffrage. Only with anti-sexist thinking can we see the discrimination based on gender that still exists today. And that works both ways. Simply moving towards a masculine standard ensures that the richness of all those other perspectives is forgotten. 
When Floor Wibaut was once waiting for the train to Amsterdam in Middelburg and met a business associate there, the associate greeted him with: 'You must be traveling third class.' Floor replied: 'No, of course not, you don't understand anything about socialism: we strive to allow everyone to travel first class.' In other words, not a step down for Floor and his associates, but working towards a future in which everyone has the same privileges. The mistake of Floor, and therefore of the standard, is to define everything outside the standard as a step down. Because Floor, an important celebrated socialist, did not recognize his own grandchildren when he met them on the street. Tell me that that is the benefit of being the norm and whether he would not have gained more from really listening to your words, Mathilde. That it is a loss if you only meet your children on Sundays, because as a man you are expected to get your identity from paid work.

Mathilde, your vision and struggle are still needed. We cannot be satisfied with only superficial progress. We must continue to fight for a world where women have equal rights not only on paper, but also in their daily lives. A world in which fathers are given time to care for their children and thus experience pleasure and meaning. Where the invisible burden of unpaid work is shared equally, and where every person can live safely and healthily.

Because it makes history and the stories so much more layered, so much more complex when all perspectives are taken into account and there is richness there. Today, testosterone is still dripping from the walls, 86% of the street names in Amsterdam are names of men. The municipality still too often lacks vision and financial ambition. Because once again, in order to be able to tell the women's story properly, we now have to rely on unpaid labor to write those stories. Ironic don't you think?  If we want to make women and their history visible, for social awareness and to increase the representation of women, then the public space is a powerful tool. Not just a museum, no matter how good the initiative is.

Who we honor says something about which stories we find important to tell. History is not only written by men, but the history books and street names make you believe otherwise. And the men who were able to make history did so by the grace of their partners, because without unpaid work by women there is no possibility of paid work.  To find someone praiseworthy we must know someone. Now only the few who read this ode are enriched by 'knowing' Mathilde Wibaut - Berdenis van Berlekom. I hope in the near future that you, Dear Wibaut, and many other women, will be brought out of the shadows by sharing the streets. Let an image of you rise on Wibautstraat, and not in the shadow of Floor, but in equality.

Let all the invisible women who stood behind their husband, father or son become visible by honoring them posthumously in public space. For gender equality we need a catalyst, because those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. Let history be visible. Let's share the street!

With deep gratitude and awe,

Your great-great-granddaughter, 

Mirte Wibaut