Ode to Vrouwen van Amsterdam | Women of Amsterdam, this city belongs to us!

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Good evening all,

Hello women of Amsterdam!

I have just awarded former Chancellor Angela Merkel on behalf of the city with the Gold Medal, Amsterdam's highest award. She is in our city to bring attention to her book. Her book titled Freedom.

Growing up in the GDR assuming a relatively happy childhood, Merkel discovered after German unification what she missed there. The freedom to shape your own life. To develop in your own strength and become who you want to be.

The promise of that freedom is also the essence of our city. The Amsterdam Museum understands that. And that is why Judikje, Margriet, Imara and everyone at the museum created this exhibition to mark Amsterdam's 750th anniversary.

Because we also measure the freedom of our city by the freedom of women.

Over the past centuries we have fought for, among other things, the right to vote, the right to a career, the right to be the boss of our own belly.  It's all not long ago: my grandmother was laid off because she got married. My mother was discouraged from studying and had to stop working when she had me. When I was pregnant with my twins in 2003 - and at the time the only female group chairman - a respected newspaper that adorns itself with the motto Lux et Libertas (light and freedom) wrote that this showed I did not have the ambition to be a political leader.

These are the little stories that every woman carries with her.

But sexism was also until very - and sometimes still is - recently part of our legislation and government actions. One of the most shocking facts: only from 1991 was marital rape criminalized in our country.

And still our freedom is not a peaceful possession.

Still femicide is a threat to all women. Just last year, 43 women were murdered by their male partners. Moreover, an ultra-conservative wind is blowing through the world and also in our country. Influencers such as Andrew Tate are making young men think that women should go back to the nineteenth century. Some women fall under the influence of this thinking and as so-called trad wives glorify their subordinate role.

A toxic mix of religious fanaticism and radical right-wing thought threatens women's freedom.

And do you also notice how women who speak out in public debate, especially women of color, are unnecessarily attacked harshly and personally?

Also by men who call themselves very freedom-loving and are at the forefront when gender inequality in other - and I mean Islamist - countries needs to be criticized.

As Virginia Woolf wrote: “The history of men's resistance to women's emancipation is perhaps even more interesting than the story of emancipation itself.

It is no coincidence, then, that these views all too often go hand in hand with anti-democratic and anti-right-wing tendencies.

With Muslim hatred, anti-Semitism, queer hatred and other forms of discrimination.

The bottom line is this: Where there is misogyny, our open society is threatened, and where our open society is threatened, misogyny is never far away. Where women's voices are heard, our city becomes freer.

That is why this exhibition is one of the finest gifts to the birthday city. The museum brings women out of the blind spot of history. After all, there would have been little to celebrate without all those women who helped build Amsterdam in past centuries. Many, most, remain anonymous in our history, the more we admire those who managed to break away from the often compelling anonymity and make a name for themselves.

Haesje Claes, the 16th-century founder of the city's old men's and women's home. Jakoba Mulder, architect of the Amsterdam forest. Her portrait is one of the museum's finest works. And think also of the amazing Noor van Crevel, the mastermind behind the Stay of my Body houses.

And let's not forget the Amsterdam resistance women. Like Frieda Belinfante who was on her way to becoming the first female conductor in the Netherlands. Until the Germans invaded and she and other artists planned the attack on the population register.

And Henriette Pimentel, a progressive educator who managed to save the lives of countless Jewish children. But was herself murdered by the Nazis.

And then, of course, there are the women whose extraordinary talent is essential to the identity of Amsterdam. Annie M.G. Schmidt, Major Boshardt, Sylvana Simons.

The promise of freedom is at the heart of emancipation movements such as feminism. From that fire, Joke Smit wrote her famous essay beginning with the words: there is a country where women want to live. From that fire, Hedy D'Ancona pursued politics. Dear Hedy, without you I too would not be standing here.

The Amsterdam Museum belongs to the whole city.

Through personal odes, all Amsterdammers were able to contribute to this project. Not only to look back, but also to shape our future.

In the words of writer and feminist Rebecca Solnit, “The stories we tell about who we were and what we did shape us in what we can and will do.

Women of Amsterdam and all who love our free city, let us revel in the small, big, compelling and hopeful stories. Of the women to whom we are indebted. Women who have made our city freer for all.

Let us be determined never again to let narrow-mindedness and machismo hold us back.

Let us write new stories that say: we are this city. This city is ours!

Thank you.