The Dutch feminst movement. What happend since the flourishing years in the 1980s?

The Dutch feminist movement

What happened since the flourishing years in the 1980s?

Author: Anne van Veen (s4375963) Supervisor: Prof. dr. M.H. Leyenaar Second reader: Dr. J.M. Joachim

Institute: Radboud University Nijmegen School of Management

Comparative Politics and Society (COMPASS) Word count: 18724

Abstract

This purpose of this study is to analyse the Dutch feminist movement and decide if the movement can be as successful as it was in the 1980s. It is now an interesting time for the feminist movement because of the rise of the populist radical right parties. During the 1980s the Dutch feminist movement was subsidized, bureaucratized, coordinated and embedded in the government. Furthermore, the different feminist movement organizations worked together and had a good relationship with the political system. This study categorizes the success factors that influence the success of a feminist movement into four categories; structure of the movement, political context, public opinion and available resources. To analyse if the success factors from the 1980s still apply, this study compares the Dutch feminist movement from the 1980s to the feminist movement in the 2010Fs and presents the differences and similarities between those two periods. There are clear differences and especially the structure of the feminist movement weakened in the last 30 years, but also the political context and the type of resources have changed.

Preface

The master thesis that is lying in front of you concludes six months of research on the Dutch feminist movement and is the final product of my Master of Science education in

Comparative Politics and Society.

It was not difficult to decide on the subject of my thesis. Studying a subject for this amount of time requires motivation. Therefore, the subject had to align with my personal interests. During my bachelor in Public Administration and my master in Political Science, it became clear that feminism is of personal interest and that I would succeed in studying this subject for half a year. Some parts took a little bit more time than expected and the process had its ups and downs, but in the end, it all fell into place.

I would like to thank a few people who helped me writing thesis. My first word of thanks goes to my supervisor at the university, prof. dr. Monique Leyenaar. I would like to thank her for the discussions, countless meetings, repeatedly reading parts of my thesis and giving valuable comments. Moreover, she helped me to make the subject concrete and how to study this kind of research. Second, I would like to thank my roommates and friends who had to write their master thesis as well. Together we complained, studied until deep in the night and gave each other feedback. “Imagine that you have to do this on your own” became our most said sentence the last months and I’m glad that it only had to be an imagination. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for their support. My father, feminist as he is, suggested the subject and helped me with the impressions about the feminist movement in the 1980s. Furthermore, they helped me when I got stuck, were critical on my use of the English language and asked a lot, almost to the point of irritation, whether studying succeeded. Eventually, it did and I want to thank them for motivating me during this period.

Index

Abstract...2 Preface...3 1 Introduction...6 1.1 Relevance...7 1.2 Outline...7

2 The feminist movement as an example of a social movement...8

2.1 Social movements...8

2.2 Feminist movement...9

2.3 Capacity of a social movement...10

2.3.1 Political context...10

2.3.2 Public opinion...12

2.3.3 Structure of the movement...12

2.3.4 Resources...14

2.4 Challenge for the feminist movement...16

2.5 Conclusion...17

3 Methodological framework...19

3.1 Operationalization...19

3.2 Data resources...21

3.3 Research method...21

3.4 Reliability and validity...22

4 Feminist Movement in the Netherlands, between then and now...23

4.1 The Dutch feminist movement...24 4

4.2 Structure of the movement...25

4.2.1 Coordination of the movement...25

4.2.2 Focus of the feminist movement...29

4.3 Political context...31

4.3.1 Openness of the political system...31

4.3.2 Presence of political allies...33

4.4 Public opinion...36 4.5 Resources...39 4.5.1 Moral resources...39 4.5.2 Cultural resources...41 4.5.3 Human resources...43 4.5.4 Material resources...44

4.6 Current challenge for the feminist movement...45

4.7 What are the main differences?...47

5 Conclusions...49

5.1 Results...49

5.1.1 Structure of the movement...51

5.1.2 Political context...51

5.1.3 Public opinion...52

5.1.4 Resources...52

5.2 Implications...53

5.2.1 Feminist movement in the future...53

5.2.2 Suggestions for further research...54

Literature...56

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“Women generally excel less in a lot of professions, they have less ambition and are often more interested in family-like things” This is a quote from the party leader of Forum van de

Democratie (FVD), a Dutch populist party. When a reporter asked him if this wasn’t a sexist

statement, he told the reporter: “no, because it is true.” (Thierry Baudet, 2017). This party, FVD, seams to get more and more votes in the Netherlands and in the last provincial elections, they were the biggest party. Not even twenty years ago, in 2003 at a conference in Rotterdam, the Dutch Minister of Social affairs made the statement that the emancipation of native Dutch women was essentially completed. Hearing the statements about the ambitions of women and the completion of emancipation from leading Dutch politicians, one wonders what happened with the feminist movement nowadays.

Looking at the history of the feminist movement, one could say that the 1980s are the most flourishing years for the movement. At that time many autonomous women's organizations were established and political organizations started to work together on the advancement of women. As a result, these organizations achieved unprecedented successes. They brought more women into parliament and put the emancipation policy prominent on the agenda (Post, Oldersma & Outshoorn, 2006). Is the emancipation of women, this year exactly 100 years after the introduction of women's suffrage which was the final piece of the first

feminist wave, indeed completed or are the lack of attention and the backward ideas of Baudet the result of a waning feminist movement? Baali, van Os and Kingma (2018) from the feminist organization WO=MEN write that the current level of emancipation is a problem and that it is time for a change. The political participation of women isn’t equal to the political participation of men in the Netherlands, just like in many other countries in the world. Only 36 percent of the parliamentarians are women, and only 37.5 percent of the ministers are women. Thereby, there never has been a Dutch female prime minister. This reflects a global trend. Of the 149 countries surveyed, only 17 have had a female head of state, while 18 percent of global ministers are women and 24 percent of parliamentarians are women (Baali, van Os en Kingma, 2018). This suggests that the emancipation and that the feminist movement can still book some successes, but is this still possible?

According to Post, Oldersma and Outshoorn (2006) the problem is the diversity and multitude of organization forms and goals and do we nowadays have to speak about feminist movements instead of using the term feminist movement. Van der Wiel (2019) writes that without any hierarchy in the movement and feminism being about everything, that diversity is a strength but also a weakness because there is no clear goal. Relevant questions for this study are: what happened since the flourishing years of feminism in the 1980s? Is the feminist movement still able to influence the political agenda? The research question of this thesis will therefore be:

To what extent is a feminist movement in the 2010s still capable of influencing the political agenda? Do the success factors that explained the success of the feminist movement in the 1980s still apply in the 2010s?

1.1 Relevance

Feminism receives a large amount of attention in the media. Think for example about the

MeToo movement or public debate on the wage gap. Researching the capability of the

feminist movement in the Netherlands in influencing the political agenda and comparing this to the 1980s, can tribute to understanding what leads to a movement being successful and whatnot. Emancipation is not yet completed and the feminist movement can possibly book more successes. Determining the capacity of a feminist movement and collecting information about the success factors for influencing the political agenda can help the movement in the future. Furthermore, this research will provide more knowledge about the capability of a feminist movement in influencing the political agenda. This increases the insight in social movements since a feminist movement is a social movement.

1.2 Outline

The structure of this thesis is as follows. After this introduction, the second chapter provides a review of the literature considering the success of social movements and more specifically of a feminist movement. Issues such as political context, the structure of the movement and resources are central concepts in this chapter. Furthermore, this chapter summarizes the indicators in a conceptual model and gives an discusses a current challenge for the feminist movement. The third chapter presents the methodology and operationalization of the empirical part of this research. The fourth chapter discusses the feminist movement in the 1980s in the Netherlands as well as the feminist movement nowadays and analyses the differences and similarities. The thesis ends with a conclusion in which the results are summarized, the research question is answered and in which the results are placed in a wider societal and scientific context.

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This chapter explores the different indicators that influence the success of a social movement, and more specifically the success of a feminist movement. The first part of the chapter discusses the literature on social movements in general, where in the second part the focus is on women’s movements. Thereafter I review the different variables that influence the success of a social movement; the political context, public opinion, structure of the movement and possible resources. At last, this chapter summarizes the indicators in a conceptual model.

2.1 Social movements

This paragraph aims to provide a clear understanding of what a social movement is, starting with discussing a definition from Tarrow: "collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity feelings in sustained interaction with elites, opponents, and authorities." (Tarrow, 1994, pp. 3-4). This definition can be divided in two parts. First, a social movement needs people with common purposes and solidarity feelings, because social movements are made up by people that want to change the world. The second part of the definition shows that a social movement is in interaction with elites, opponents and authorities. According to Johnston (2014) is a key characteristic of a social movement that they often mobilize and work outside of the established political and institutional channels. Examples of social movements are the labor movement, the environmental movement, the gay-rights movement and the feminist movement. The last paragraphs in this chapter will elaborate on the characteristics of a feminist movement as an example of a social movement.

To explain the study of social movements, I use the work of Charles Tilly (1978). He distinguishes three different categories of social movements. The first category consists of studies about the group that makes up the collective action. The second category consists of studies about the events that are part of the collective action, also called the performances of the social movement and the third category consist out of studies about the ideas that guide

these events. According to Johnston (2014), these ideas are the ideational-interpretative sphere of a social movement and is used to examine the goals and demands of the movement. This research combines these different categories to determine the capacity of a feminist movement because it looks at the groups that are included in a feminist movement, the events that are part of their collective action and the ideas behind these events.

Diani and McAdam (2003) state that social movements often do not work alone, but are linked in network structures. According to them, for defining a social movement it is important to look at the environment around the social movement. This because for determining the capacity of a social movement it is required to look at effects in the environment. To study the environment of a social movement it is important to know the difference between a social movement and a social movement organization (SMO). Examples of SMO’s are Greenpeace or the National Organization for Women. These organizations are not the same as the movement itself but are part of the movement. Greenpeace, for example, is part of the climate movement, but the climate movement is not only Greenpeace. Social movements can thus include important SMO’s, but can also include small groups or people who encourage each other to follow the goals of the movement.

2.2 Feminist movement

Feminist sociologists do not seem to distinguish women’s movements theoretically from other kinds of social movements and thereby use the existing theories about social movements to define feminist movements. However what is still exceptional about the women’s movement that it is led by women and for women. Katzenstein and Mueller (1987) argue that women’s movements/feminist movements -these being the same in their analytical framework- are characterized by a variety of issues but a unity of purpose: that of the total transformation of societies’ public and private gender institutions. In this sense, then, a women’s/feminist movement exist worldwide (or at least, “First-world-wide”), and is characterized by a uniquely comprehensive agenda worked on by women in different times and places (Katzenstein and Mueller, 1987).

According to Katzenstein, (1998) the assumption that what holds for one social

movement also applies well to others, is wrong. She uses the example that freedom fighters in nationalist movements make use of violent protests or civil disobedience, but that this doesn’t describe the women’s movement. The feminist movement and her political activism rarely use violent activism and only sometimes demonstrative protest activities (Katzenstein, 1998). So some movements use different resources than other movements, but also within a movement there exist differences between different traditions. For the feminist movement, most scholars use the division between three different kinds of feminist approaches. I use the first two dimensions of Hutchings (2007) to explain the differences between two separate traditions within feminism. The first, which includes both socialist and liberal feminism is based on the claim that women should be included in the category of humans alongside men. In the case of social feminism, this means that women’s work and the ways they get paid should be the same as that of men. In the case of liberal feminism, this means that women should have the

same rights as men regarding law, politics and at their workplace. The second tradition, the radical feminism, is based on the centrality of sexual differences. In contrary to the first tradition, radical feminist wants to recognize the women’s differences and their special needs (Hutchings, 2007). Together these two traditions and their social movement organizations and other groups form the social movement for women or feminists. Some scholars use the term 'feminist movement' while others use the term 'women’s movement'. I prefer the term 'feminist movement' and I will use this concept for my research.

2.3 Capacity of a social movement

To determine the capacity of a social movement it is important to distinguish different

indicators. The variables that play a role in the success of social movements and thus feminist movements are the political context in the country of the movement, the public opinion, the structure of the movement and the resources (Kriesi, 1989, Gamson, 1990, Giugni, 1998). The next paragraphs will explain the different variables and describe why they are of importance in determining the success of a social movement.

2.3.1 Political context

This paragraph explains in what way the political context can play a role in determining the capacity of a social movement. When talking about the relationship between the capacity of a social movement and the political context many scholars talk about two aspects: the system of alliances and oppositions of the social movement and the structure of the state. These scholars stress the importance of social movements having powerful allies both outside as inside the institutional arena. Lipsky (1968) for example states that social movements are dependent on other parties and organizations to be successful in the long run. Kitschelt (1968) also argues that the success of a movement is strongly dependent on political opportunity structures, which is a political process approach and pays “systematic attention to the political and institutional environment in which social movements operate” (Della Porta, 2006, p. 16). Tarrow (1983) and MacAdam (1996) unite the various factors of these scholars and come up with different indicators that determine the success of a social movement. Two of their indicators are useful for this research: the degree of openness/closure of formal political access and the presence or absence of elite allies. These two indicators can be interrelated, but together they can explain the success of a social movement to become part of the political system or influence policies and the political agenda (Kriesi, 1989).

The first indicator is the openness of a country’s political system to social movements. In other words, to what extent the political system can move in a certain direction because of the interests of a movement. Tsebelis (1995) describes the openness of a political system as the number and accessibility of veto players within a political system. These veto players can be actors and institutions of whom an agreement is required to change the status quo. The accessibility of the veto players is connected to the level of decentralization of the political system. The more a political system is decentralized, the more veto players providing ‘access points’ to citizens or organizations outside the politics. Decentralization of a political system also means that single veto players have less power to act according to movement’s interests, but more important, decentralization implies an increase in the variation of different

viewpoints of policymakers, providing increased possibilities for movements to find supportive policymakers on the basis of their shared interests (Kriesi, 2004).

The second indicator of the political context is the presence or absence of political allies to social movements. Political allies are people or organizations that have the same interests. For researching the presence or absence of political allies it is important to take a

look at the party system. The presence of heterogeneous political parties increases the likeliness for movements to have political allies and to change the political system or put something on the agenda. Also, the number of parliamentary parties is positively associated with grassroots participation in policy processes (Beyeler & Rucht, 2010). An important note is that party systems are not static because every election brings realignment within party systems. These changes affect the ability of the movement to find political allies for two reasons. First, realignment creates uncertainty among political actors that may trigger them to actively seek support from ‘outsiders’ such as movements. Secondly, realignment implies a shift in the representation which may align political actors with the movement’s interest. Both consequences of elections can enhance or limit the movement’s ability to have political allies through which participation in policy processes or changing the political agenda can be achieved (Kriesi, 2004). The logic holds that the success of a movement increases when the movement faces a favourable political actor configuration. Applying this to the feminist movement it is to expect that there are more feminist political allies when there are more left-wing parties in the political system. This because left parties tend to be more sensitive to the exclusion of social groups and more likely to adopt gender quotas to address the imbalance of power in political representation (Dahlerup, 2007).

2.3.2 Public opinion

The second indicator that influences the success of social movements is the number of people that is in favour of the ideas of the movement. Social movements, particularly when they express themselves through their most typical form of action, public demonstrations, address their message simultaneously to two distinct targets: the power holders and the general public (Giugni, 1998). On one hand, they press the political authorities for recognition as well as to get their demands met, at least in part. On the other hand, they seek public support and try to sensitize the population to their cause. At the same time, the most common political targets of contemporary movements, namely local or national governments, pay particular attention to public opinion (Giugni, 1998). Van Dyke et al (2005) studied the women’s movement in the United States and found that of the recorded protest events, only forty percent of these events were aimed at governments, while sixty percent were explicitly aimed at the general public. It is thus important to take the public opinion into account when talking about the ability of the feminist movement in influencing the political agenda.

Gamson and Wolfsfeld (1993) distinguish four interpretations of the relationship between public opinion and legislative change. The first one is a public opinion interpretation, stating a direct relationship between public opinion and legislative change. The second one is an interpretation that sees public opinion as filtering the impact of outside events on

legislative action. The third interpretation is an elite behavior interpretation, according to which public opinion is affected by legislative elites and at last, a social movement interpretation, whereby change in legislation results from the joint action of social

movements, public opinion, and media coverage. The latter appears as the most plausible interpretation, for not only does it take into account both movement actions and changes in public opinion, but it also acknowledges the fundamental role of the media for movement mobilization and outcomes (Gamson and Wolfsfeld, 1993). To study the public opinion about a certain topic or social movement, it also can be helpful to take a look at different media articles that covered events that are related to the topic or movement. When these different media are positive about the ideas of the movement it is plausible that the public opinion is also more positive.

2.3.3 Structure of the movement

The structure of the movement can be seen as the organizational base of a social movement. 14

The structure is there to create mobilization, but can also have the purpose of creating a collective identity, spreading information inside the movement or satisfying the personal interests of the leaders. Gamson writes in his Strategy of Social Protest (1990) about different dimensions of the structure of the movement that can determine how successful the movement is.

The first dimension is the difference between a single issue or a multiple issue movement, which is also called the focus of a movement. Gamson (1990) concludes that groups with single-issue demands were more successful than groups with multiple-issue demands because the groups with a single-issue can spend more time on that one issue. This means that the feminist movement can be more successful when, for example, their only demand is to get equal voting rights.

The second dimension is the use of selective incentives. People often need incentives to join groups or a movement. Three different incentives are purposive, material or solidary incentives. Solidary incentives are the feeling of belonging to a group, companionship and the pleasure of working together. Purposive incentives are the benefits that come from serving a cause or principle. An example of material incentives can be money ls research showed that the use of selective incentives was positively correlated with success (Gamson, 1990). The third dimension is the use of violence. According to Gamson (1990) there are about five general conditions under which violence is correlated with success, but the use of violence is for this research not that relevant because the feminist movement since the 1980s rarely uses violence in their protests or activities (Katzenstein, 1998). Therefore in this research, the third dimension is the level of centralization. Successful social movements are the ones that are bureaucratized, centralized and unfractionalized and according to Gamson (1990) these are the most important factor for creating a successful movement.

The last dimension of the structure of the movement is the type of leadership. Leaders of social movements are mostly decision-makers within the movements. They carry out complex activities that are crucial for the movement because there are a lot of choices to be made. The quality of the decision-making process can influence the success or failure of the movement (Giugni, 1998). Most movements don’t have one leader, because it is often not one organization, thus for this dimension, I use the types of leadership in social movement

organizations (SMO’s), because of big SMO’s being important for the movement itself. According to Goldstone (2001) bridge leaders and organizers are leaders within social

movement organizations that contribute to the success of a social movement. He writes (2001, p.158) that: ‘‘Bridge leaders are those neighborhood and community organizers who mediate between top leadership and the vast bulk of followers, turning dreams and grand plans into on-the-ground realities.’’ And organizers are people who in addition to building connections between members of a challenging group and helping them develop organizations, also engage in a leadership activity. Bridge leaders and organizers affect movement success through their work within the movement, mobilizing the support necessary to carry out collective action tactics, which result in concrete gains for the movement (Goldstone, 2001). The formal leaders of the social movement organization are crucial to internal movement dynamics and they are important in influencing elites outside the movement. Successful formal leaders may become ‘‘elite challengers’’ who have connections to elites in other sectors such as political parties, unions, and mass media (Schmitt, 1989). Leadership teams are essential in making strategic decisions, and the success of the movement depends on the creativity, imagination, and skills of these leaders. Movements are more likely to succeed if they attract leadership teams with diverse backgrounds, skills and viewpoints. Quality

decisions are likely to emerge from a collective of such leaders who set the creative process in motion through concerted deliberations and brainstorming (Ganz, 2000). The feminist

the big organizations can play a big role in making strategic decisions for the movement as a whole.

2.3.4 Resources

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, the fourth indicator for determining the success of a social movement is the number of resources available for the movement. Giugni (1998) has extensively analysed different types of resources that social movements require to process and distribute information to influence politics or people. These different resources can be divided into moral resources, infrastructural resources, cultural resources, social-organizational resources, human resources and material resources. The availability of diverse kinds of resources to social actors can improve effective collective action (Giugni, 1998). For this research, only the moral, cultural, social-organizational, human and material resources are discussed.

The first category is moral resources. Moral resources are about legitimacy, solidary support, sympathetic support, and celebrity. Of these, legitimacy has received the most theoretical attention. Scholars see the importance of legitimacy as a link between cultural contexts on the macro level and the organizational processes on a microlevel. They claim that actors who copy institutionally legitimated features for their movement have an advantage on groups who weren’t necessarily an admirer of the movement. Another type of moral resource is the involvement of role models. Including role models or celebrities within the movement can lead to more members or more admiration for the movement (Giugni, 1998). A role model within the women’s movement, for example, is Aletta Jacobs who was at the head of the Dutch women’s suffrage.

The second category is cultural resources. Cultural resources are artifacts and cultural products such as conceptual tools and specialized knowledge that have become widely known. These resources include knowledge about how to carry out specific tasks like organizing a protest event, holding a news conference, running a meeting, forming an organization, initiating a festival, or surfing the web. A key difference between cultural and moral resources is that cultural resources are widely available and accessible for use

independent of favourable judgments from those outside the movement. This category of cultural resources includes movement or issue relevant productions like music, literature, magazines, newspapers, and films and videos. Cultural products like these facilitate the recruitment and socialization of new members and help movements maintain their collective action success (Giugni, 1998)

The third category is social-organizational resources. This resource category includes both intentional and unintentional social organization (Coleman 1990). Intentional social organization is created specifically to help social movement goals. By contrast, unintentional social organization is mostly created for nonmovement purposes, but movement actors can gain access to other types of resources through it. Recruiting volunteers for example. The two resources are further distinguished by how movement actors gain access to them. Resources embedded in the unintentional social organization must be appointed, while access to intentional social organization is more collaborative and potentially less problematic. Both forms of social organization have proven crucial in explaining the success of a movement. Moreover, it is to expect that the social change preferences of those groups with easier access to these resources would be more likely to be mobilized than those of groups with constrained access. There are three general forms of social-organizational resources: infrastructures, social networks, and organizations. Infrastructures are the social-organizational equivalent of public goods like postal service, sanitation, or civil infrastructures like roads, sidewalks, and traffic lights that facilitate the smooth functioning of everyday life. Infrastructures are

non-proprietary social resources. By contrast, access to social networks and especially groups and 16

formal organizations and thereby the resources embedded in them can be controlled (Giugni, 1998).

The fourth category is human resources. This kind is more tangible than the other resources that are discussed so far. This category includes resources like labor, experience, skills, and expertise. Leadership is also included because it involves a combination of other human resources included here. Human resources are about the added value to the social movement like experience, skills, or expertise, known also as human capital (Becker, 1964). A key issue in whether the availability of skilled individuals will help the success of the movement hinges on how their expertise fits with what the movement needs. For example, a prominent physician may have little more to offer than a high-school intern if a movement needs someone to evaluate the methodology of an environmental equity impact assessment, and the high-school intern may be the best choice to recruit six volunteers to distribute fliers (Oliver and Marwell, 1992). Similarly, a famous actor participating in a protest contributes no additional human resources than the other people there, but from the standpoint of moral resources, this evaluation would be different.

The last category is material resources. This category combines financial and physical capital, including monetary resources, property, office space, equipment, and supplies. Monetary resources have received the most analytic attention and there are good reasons for that. Money is a necessity. No matter how many other resources a movement mobilizes it will incur costs and someone has to pay the bills. Material resources also have received much analytic attention because they are generally more tangible, more proprietary, and in the case of money more fungible than other resource types (Giugni, 1998).

2.4 Challenge for the feminist movement

So far I have reviewed the indicators and explanations for the success of a social movement. At the beginning of this chapter, I already explained that a feminist movement is a specific social movement, so almost the same success indicators apply. In the introduction was already stated that in the Netherlands the feminist movement was successful in the 1980s, but now, with the radical right party, FvD, as one of the biggest parties, it is an interesting time for the feminist movement. In this paragraph, I discuss one of the current challenges for the feminist movement: the rise of the populist radical right parties. The populist radical right is with their nativist struggle in favour of traditional family roles. Consequently, most populist radical right parties will solely support policies that support women in their role as mothers and wives. Other policies concerning women, such as women’s emancipation, are not likely to be supported by the populist radical right (Mudde, 2007). Spierings and Zaslove (2017)

researched the gender gap at radical right parties and stated that we should be careful in naming these parties as Männerparteien, as Mudde (2007) does, because the populist radical right parties, despite their traditional views on gender issues, still draw a large minority of their votes from women. More important for this research is that they also state that populist radical right parties indeed support policies that include women in their role as mothers and wives. With the populist radical right parties being on a rise (Rooduijn, 2015) this could be a challenge for the feminist movement. Parties such as the Front National (FN) in France, the

UK Independence Party in Britain and the Dansk Folkeparti in Denmark all attracted about

25 percent of the votes and became the biggest parties within their respective countries (Döring and Manow, 2015). In the Netherlands, the far-right party Forum voor Democratie (FvD), whose leader is quoted in the introduction of this research, was at the last provincial election the biggest party. The next chapters will discuss whether this new challenge influences the success of the feminist movement in the Netherlands.

2.5 Conclusion

In this chapter, I explained the features of a social movement and a feminist movement as an example of a social movement. Also, the chapter talked about the different indicators that correlate with the success of a feminist movement in changing the political agenda. These indicators are summarized in figure 1. These different indicators can be categorized into four categories: political context, public opinion, the structure of the movement and resources. The political context is about the political system in a country and how willing the politicians are to move according to the movement’s interest. If a country is more decentralized it should be easier for the movement to change the agenda. Furthermore, the movement needs to find political allies within the system (Kriesi, 1989). Furthermore, public opinion is also an

important indicator for the success of a movement, because movements are often aimed at the public opinion (Giugni, 1989). The third category is the structure of the movement. Features of this indicator are the focus of the movement, the level of centralization, the type of leadership and the number of incentives (Gamson, 1990). The last category is the number of resources that is available for the movement (Giugni, 1998). For this research, the moral, cultural, social-organizational, human and material resources are discussed.

In figure 1 the different indicators are summarized in a conceptual model. These different indicators influence the success of a social movement and thus the ability to influence the political agenda. In the chapter hereafter, these indicators are operationalized. Furthermore, feminist movements do face nowadays a challenge. There is a rise of populist parties, which take the feminist movement often less seriously. Chapter 4 analyses the feminist movement in the Netherlands between the 1980s and now and discusses if the feminist movement can book the same successes as it did in the 1980s and if the rise of the populist right parties is indeed a challenge for the Dutch feminist movement.

18 Success of a feminist movement Openess political system Presence of political allies Public opinion Single issue-multiple issue Selective incentives Centralization Leadership Moral resources Cultural resources Social-organizational resources Human resources Material resources Public opinion Political context Structure of the movement Resources

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As explained before, this research is a comparative research of success indicators of the

Success of a feminist movement Openess political system Presence of political allies Public opinion Single issue-multiple issue Selective incentives Centralization Leadership Moral resources Cultural resources Social-organizational resources Human resources Material resources Public opinion Political context Structure of the movement Resources

feminist movement in the 1980s and the success indicators of the feminist movement

nowadays. Do the same success indicators still apply? To answer the research question these success indicators are applied to the feminist movement in the Netherlands. In this chapter, I explain how the research is being conducted and which methods are used. In the first

paragraph, the different variables are operationalized. The paragraph thereafter describes the type of research, the method and the resources. The chapter ends with a section about

reliability and validity.

3.1 Operationalization

This paragraph explains the operationalizations of the different variables which are based on the theoretical framework and the conceptual model. These operationalizations are set out in table 1. In the first column, the different concepts are listed. The second column gives the stipulative definition. At last, the third column indicates the operationalizations of the different concepts..

Concepts Definition Operationalisation (in the

Netherlands in 1980s and 2000s) Coordination

of the movement

Coordination of the movement includes the organizational bases of the

movement and her SMO’s

- Bureaucratization - Collaboration

- Institutionalized in the government Focus To what extent does the movement

have one issue to fight for or multiple issues

- Types of feminism

- Single issue / multiple issues Selective

incentives

The incentives that people have to join the movement. It is about material, purposive and solidary incentives. For the feminist movement especially the solidarity and purposive incentives are important factors.

- Overall public acceptance of the feminist movement

Leadership Leadership teams are essential in making strategic decisions, and the success of the movement depends on the creativity, imagination, and skill of these leaders

- Presence of charismatic leaders - Acceptance of leaders by political allies

Openness political system

To what extent the political system is able to move in a certain direction according to the movements interests. It is about the number of veto-players and accessibility of players

- Decision making structure - Electoral system

- Level of decentralization of the political system

Presence political allies

Presence of people or parties that have (almost) the same interests or ideas as the movement. For the feminist movement this means presence of left-wing parties

- Attitude of the politicians towards gender equality (election programs) - Amount of women in parliament

Public opinion

The opinion of the public about the movement or their ideas. For the feminist movement this means the opinion about the level of emancipation

- Attitudes of the people - Media coverage

Moral This category includes legitimacy, - Celebrities that are member of 20

resources solidary support, sympathetic support, and celebrity. For the feminist

movement role models can be an important factor.

ambassador of the movement

- Amount of women member of SMO’s

Cultural resources

Includes tools and knowledge that are widely known, but also cultural products that can support the movement.

- Movies that are used or created by the feminist movement

- Music that is used or created by the feminist movement

- Newspapers that are used or created by the feminist movement

Societal-organizationa l resources

Infrastructures, social networks, and organizations.

- Structure of the movement (Size, amount of SMO’s)

Human resources

This category includes resources like labour, experience, skills, expertise and leadership

- Amount of experienced / high educated members/leaders

Material resources

This category combines financial and physical capital, including monetary resources, property, office space, equipment, and supplies. For the feminist movement financial capital is the most important factor.

- Wealth of the feminist movement

Table 1: Operationalization of the different indicators

3.2 Data resources

The last column of Table 1 shows the operationalization of the different indicators which are conducted of the theoretical framework. For the political context, I analyse government documents on the electoral system and level of centralization. To find out the attitude of the politicians I look at the different election programs of the parties that formed the cabinet in the 1980s and the parties that form the cabinet now. By searching at the word emancipation or women, I analyse whether the election programs talks about women’s policies. Furthermore to analyse the public opinion in the 1980s and now, Imanalyse the Emancipation Monitors from every year and use surveys to find out about the thoughts about gender equality. The third and fourth groups of indicators are about the structure of the movement and available resources. For these indicators, I analyse different documents, articles and studies about the feminist movement in the 1980s and now. Thereby, I look into the archives from the largest feminist movement organizations. These different resources are listed in appendix 1

3.3 Research method

The research will focus on the feminist movement in the Netherlands and looks at the movement during the 1980s compared to the 2010s. I chose the 2010s because for some indicators it is difficult to collect information about the recent years. It is a comparative research over time to see if the success indicators from the 1980s still apply to the feminist movement in the 2010s. A large number of variables that are available that explain the success of a social movement can’t be expressed in numbers or percentages. This makes the

research unsuitable for quantitative analysis because for quantitative research it needs a standardized method. Quantitative methods are bound to chosen categories and coding schemes and are, therefore, in fact, insensitive for contexts (Gerring, 2008). To examine context a more personal role of the researcher is required. Therefore, I argue that qualitative content analysis with a case study approach (Gerring, 2008) is the best way of studying the capacity of the Dutch feminist movement to influence the political agenda. In practice, the content analysis consists of a textual analysis in which a variety of resources will be read carefully, and in their proper context. I discussed this variety of resources in paragraph 3.3

Resources.

3.4 Reliability and validity

The transparency and explanation of the methodological framework ensures an increase in the reliability of the research, but in this study, the generalizability and therefore the external validity is limited, because the research only focusses on the feminist movement in the Netherlands and every feminist movement works at their way, so it is difficult to generalize results from this research to other countries. On the other hand, the operationalization in table 1 ensures a structured operationalization of the different concepts which can be used for researching feminist movements in other countries as well.

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In the introduction, I wrote that the feminist movement experienced flourishing years during the 1980s. The movement was successful in influencing the political agenda and feminist organizations got off the ground (Post, Oldersma & Outshoorn, 2006). Twenty years later, the minister of emancipation, de Geus, concluded that the emancipation was completed. But is this true? Although more than half of the first-year students are female, the output on the labor market is still far behind and the Emancipation Monitor of the Social and Cultural Planning Office states that less progress has been made in the past four years than in the preceding period of four years. Furthermore, there is stagnation or even a decrease of the emancipation, measured by the under-representation of women in senior positions in business, university and political and administrative decision-making, and by the inequality between the income of men and women for similar work (Fogteloo, 2007). This would mean that the emancipation is yet not completed and that the feminist movement can still book successes in influencing the political agenda.

The question that runs through this thesis is if the feminist movement is still able to book the same successes as it did in the 1980s. And whether new parties, like the populist radical right parties, diminish these successes. This chapter is about the feminist movement in the Netherlands in the 1980s and 2010s. The first paragraph elaborates on the emergence of the feminist movement and explains some interesting characteristics of the Dutch feminist movement, although most of the aspects of the feminist movement in the Netherlands will become clear when I discuss the different indicators. In the paragraphs thereafter I use the conceptual model from chapter 2 and the operationalization table from chapter 3 to compare the feminist movement in the 1980s to the movement in the 2010s. As explained in the conceptual model, the indicators that influence the success of a feminist movement can be divided into four categories; the coordination of the movement, the political context, the public opinion and the resources. For every indicator, the situation in the 1980s is discussed, followed by a discussion of the situation in the 2010s. At the end of every paragraph, I analyse the differences and similarities and summarize these in a table. Additionally, this chapter discusses if the rise of the populist right parties is indeed a challenge for the feminist movement. The chapter ends with a summary of the main differences and similarities.

4.1 The Dutch feminist movement

This paragraph explains the origin of the feminist movement in the Netherlands. Although the precise moment that the Dutch feminist movement started is unclear, it was around 1870 that

the movement became visible. Several women, such as Betsy Perk and Mina Kruseman started to give lectures in which they opposed the female fate of that time. Soon they got more followers with whom they laid the foundation for the first feminist wave in the Netherlands (Meulenbelt, 1981). The first feminists fought against the obligation to marry and strived for the right to follow educations and be financially independent. Women began to engage themselves in professions that were previously excluded for them, such as pharmacists or teachers. In 1879 Aletta Jacobs became the first female doctor. She took action against the obligation for girls in stores who had to stand the whole day (which could be more than 10 hours), even if there were no costumers (Meulenbelt, 1981). In 1889, the first Dutch feminist organization the Free Women’s Association (De Vrije Vrouwen Vereeniging, VVV) was founded. Wilhelmina Drucker, to whom Dolla Mina was later named, was one of the founders and she used the organization to put pressure on politicians to get more women on important positions. But the VVV did more than fighting for women’s suffrage. They started for

example educations especially for women and competed for contraceptives (Atria, 2019). Five years later the second Dutch feminist organization, the Association for Women’s Suffrage (Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht) was founded. In 1903, Aletta Jacobs became the president of this organization and in 1919 they reached their goal and women’s suffrage passed Parliament.

After the Second World War, according to Meulenbelt (1981), people seemed to have forgotten about the feminist movement and people were almost surprised when the second wave started in the 1960s. This wave began in America were Betty Friedan wrote a book, ‘The misunderstanding of woman’, which became a bestseller. The ideas and opinions spread to Europe and in the Netherlands the second feminist wave started with an article by Joke Smit, ‘The discontent of women’, in 1967 (Meulenbelt, 1981). Nowadays, there is still discussion about the length of the second feminist wave. Some scientists state that we now live in the third or fourth wave, while others state that the second wave never ended because the goals of the Dutch feminist movement of that wave are still not all achieved. The next paragraphs use the different success factors from chapter 2 to compare the Dutch feminist movement from the 1980s to the movement in the 2010s.

4.2 Structure of the movement

The structure of the movement can be seen as the organizational base of a social movement. It is difficult to precisely map the organizational base of the feminist movement, because it is not about one or two social movement organizations. A lot of smaller or informal groups are part of the feminist movement as well. In chapter 2 The feminist movement as an example of a

social movement I wrote that Gamson (1990) presented four different dimensions that

determine the structure of a social movement. These dimensions are the level of coordination, the focus of the movement, the use of selective incentives and the type of leaders. In chapter 3

Methodological framework I operationalized these indicators and found that the use of

selective incentives could be analysed by researching the level of acceptance to join the movement. This overlaps with the public opinion itself so this information will be presented in paragraph 4.4 ‘Public opinion’. In the next paragraphs I analyse the level of coordination, the focus of the movement and the type of leaders of the feminist movement in the 1980s and 2010s.

4.2.1 Coordination of the movement

The first indicator is the coordination of the movement (Gamson, 1990). The coordination is about the level of collaboration between de feminist organizations, the level of

bureaucratization and the extent to which the feminist movement is institutionalized in

government. According to Gamson (1990), there is a bigger change that the movement is able 26

to influence the political agenda when there is more collaboration between the organizations and when the organizations are more bureaucratized. Around the 1980s the government of the Netherlands started a Directorate Coordination for Emancipation (DCE), which is a special department to coordinate the feminist movement. To be able to analyse the differences between the coordination of the feminist movement in the 1980s and the 2010s, it is thus important to take the development of the DCE into account as well. The first paragraph describes the situation in the 1980s, the second paragraph the situation in the 2010s and the last paragraph analyses the differences and similarities and summarizes these in a table.

1980s

The feminist movement in the Netherlands started with the article of Joke Smit where after feminist movement organizations emerged. Prior to the second wave of the feminist

movement, women were already organized in different organizations. Examples are the Dutch Organization of Housewives and the Dutch Catholic Organization of Farmers Wives. These organizations behaved as political neutral and were mainly focused on the self-development of women (Leyenaar, 2009). With the start of the second wave these traditional groups kept existing, but also new organizations which were concerned with gender equality originated. For example, in October 1968 the organization Men Women Community (Man Vrouw Maatschappij, MVM) was established with Joke Smit as president. Most of their members were highly educated women, but also men joined the organization. A few years later people from MVM started a new organization, the Dolle Mina’s, which was organized by students. Both organizations had in 1970 around 2000 members. Next to these two organizations, there were a lot of women participating in smaller groups. All these groups made the Dutch

feminist movement around the 1980s a movement with many forms (Prins, 1989). Different types of feminist groups with different political opinions, positions, educations and jobs joined the movement to fight the battle against gender inequality. Because of these different forms, scholars were raising questions if people could still call it the feminist movement. For example, Brunt (1988) stated that the feminist movement was in the mid-80’s not a movement anymore, while according to the Emancipation Council the movement was bigger than ever (Prins, 1989). According to Prins (1989), this can be explained because the movement succeeded in building a relation with the Dutch government as an organized actor and with institutionalized services as networks, platforms and companies for women’s emancipation. An example of this relation is that a lot of activists from the different feminist movement organizations were also active in the women’s wings at the different parties. One of these women was Hedy D’Ancona. D’Ancona was one of the founders of the MVM but was also a member of the first chamber from 1974 to 1981. After that she became secretary of state of Social Affairs and Employment in which, among other things, she took care of the

emancipation department. Furthermore she was one of the founders of the feminist magazine “Opzij” for which she was chief editor from 1972 to 1981.

Because of the involvement of D’Ancona in politics, the women’s organization MVM had a good connection with women’s wings in the political party (Ribberink, 1987). These women’s wings were very important for the feminist movement (Prins, 1989). Especially the women’s wings in the PvdA, CDA and smaller left-wing parties were active groups that took radical stances on women’s issues (Leyenaar, 1998). The organizations and women’s wings started to work together. An example of a platform with organizations that worked together was the Broad Platform for Women. Within this platform traditional women’s organisations and more alternative organizations worked together on their common goal: financial

independency for women The women differed in their opinions, but their shared responsibility made the collaboration work (Korthuis, 1986). Another example is the collaboration between MVM and the Red Women, the women’s section within the labour party. Because of this

collaboration MVM could influence the party and government policy (Ribberink, 1987). In the 1980s, the Dutch Women’s Council (Nederlandse Vrouwenraad, NVR) and the Women’s Alliance (Vrouwenalliantie), which were two umbrella associations for feminist movement organizations, had a strong relationship with the government and were proficient in lobbying for gender issues (Outshoorn, 1995). An important task of the NVR was to act as a

mouthpiece. In contact with the government, the NVR tried to respond to the critical voices from the supporters about policy proposals, and thus to influence policy (NVR, n.d.)

As stated before, the government initiated in 1978 the Directorate Coordination for

Emancipation (DCE). The responsibility of this agency was to activate and monitor

emancipation policies. This way the feminist movement became partly institutionalized in the government. The DCE had given the feminist movement in the Netherlands a strong

institutional backbone and was a very important actor for the feminist movement, for example in getting sexual violence on the agenda (Bussemaker & Voet, 1998). According to Outshoorn (1994), the strong ties between the feminist movement and some of the civil servants from the DCE was one of the reasons that brought this issue of sexual violence in the government arena. The DCE acted as a spider in a web and was in contact with the various departments in the government, the Emancipation Council, parliament and the feminist movement

(Bussemaker & Voet, 1998)

To conclude, the Dutch feminist movement was already in the 1980s a movement with many different forms, but the different organizations succeeded in working together. Large feminist movement organizations as for example MVM and the umbrella organizations had good relationships with the government which made it easier to lobby for gender issues. Thereby the DCE made sure that the movement was partly institutionalized in the government and did it a good job in coordinating the movement.

2010s

The Dutch Women’s Council (Nederlandse Vrouwenraad, NVR), as one of the umbrella organizations in the feminist movement, still exists and has nowadays more than 56

organizations and reaches out to about 1 million women (NVR, n.d.). According to the NVR it is still a strong and important group in politics and government when it comes to pleading for women’s rights and participation. However, according to Edwards (2001), the NVR did lose some of its strengths since the 2000s. According to Edwards (2001), one of the reasons for this is that the structure of the NVR is outdated. The structure of the organization is no longer in line with the way in which, especially young, women organize themselves. The NVR is an organization to which only organizations with a legal personality can join. Because of this the NVR is losing connection with women who organize themselves in more informal relationships, for example via the Internet (Edwards, 2001). The differences between the more traditional, older feminist organizations and the more recent, younger organizations also caused difficulties for the DCE, since from the 2000s it was becoming more difficult for the DCE to contact the newer groups of women and keeping them involved in the collaboration between the feminist groups. The traditional groups didn’t attract young people and some of them even had to stop. After that the DCE increasingly withdrew itself from its coordinating task and became unintentionally isolated (Oldersma, 2009).

According to Olsthoorn (2008) there is not much left of the once so powerful DCE. There is still a department for emancipation, but it has shifted from the Department of Social Affairs to the less powerful Department for Education. Furthermore, the department lost his structure and coordination role. It is not able to connect emancipation policies between departments any longer, emancipation officials from different ministries don’t work together and emancipation shifts from one minister to another (Olsthoorn, 2008). It is thus to say that the support from the government to coordinate the feminist movement decreased. According

to Oldersma and Outshoorn (2007), because of the changes in funding, the support structure of the women’s movement from the 1980 is now largely dismantled. Because of the

disappearance of the support structure, the relationship with the DCE and the movement organizations changed. Movement members had only a few ties left with the national government institutions and this especially hit the older and more professional branch of the Dutch feminist movement hard (Oldersma & Outshoorn, 2007).

Differences and similarities

Analysing the coordination of the feminist movement in the 1980s and 2000s made clear that the coordination of the feminist movement has changed since the 1980s. First, the

collaboration between the different feminist organizations and between the organizations and the political parties have been weakened. Because of the more informal structure of the newer feminist groups it is difficult to involve them in larger organizations. Thereby, feminist organizations did have a good relationship with some of the women’s wings of political parties in the 1980s, because some politicians were important members of those feminist organisations themselves. This is in the 2010s less the case. Secondly, the organisations also got less bureaucratized, because the newer feminist groups organise themselves in a more informal and looser way. Less collaboration and less bureaucratization means that it could be more difficult for the movement to influence the political agenda. Furthermore, for the coordination of the feminist movement the relationship with the government is an important factor. In the 1980s this relationship was because of the DCE strong. The DCE made sure that the movement had an institutional backbone, but from the 2000s emancipation of native women got less important for the government and the support structure was dismantled. Thereby is it more difficult for the DCE to attract the newer feminist groups because of their informal existence. Because of this, the movement got since the 1090’s less coordinated. This would mean that in this respect the feminist movement in the 1980s could book more

successes in changing the political agenda. Below, in table 2 the differences in similarities in respect of the collaboration, bureaucratization and institutionalization in the government are summarized. Coordination of the Dutch Feminist Movement 1980s 2010s Less or more successful (-/+)

Collaboration Organizations succeeded in working together and good collaboration with wings of political parties

Differences between old and new groups and less collaboration with political parties

-Bureaucratization Formal Informal

-Institutionalization in

the government Because of DCE the movement had a strong institutional backbone

Support structure &

coordination dismantled

-Table 2: Differences in the coordination of the Dutch feminist movement

4.2.2 Focus of the feminist movement

The second variable is the focus of the feminist movement. This variable is about the different types of feminism and the amount of issues that the movement want to put on the agenda or the amount of policies that the movement wants to change. When the movement has less issues, there is more change that the movement is successful in changing the political agenda

(Gamson, 1990). The next paragraph explains the focus of the Dutch feminist movement in the 1980, while the paragraph there after explains the focus of the movement in the 2010s. At the end the differences and similarities between the two time periods are analysed and

summarized in a table.

1980s

The 1980s are characterized by different types of feminism, but according to Ribberink (1987) the feminist movement found a way to unite around a common range of starting points and conflicts. In 1981 for example between 30,00 and 50,000 women participated in a

national strike day against the proposed new Abortion Act, which did not meet the demands of these women. After the adoption of new version of this law, later that year, the feminist movement started to focus on sexual violence against women and girls, expressed in sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment, incest and (violent) pornography. Furthermore the issues of feminism in the 1980s are redistribution of paid and unpaid work. The feminist movement demanded a 25-hour working week and they strived for a preferential treatment for women in job applications. Other issues were role-breaking education, economic independence of women, widening childcare facilities and increasing political power (Ribberink, 1987).

2010s

Since the strike against the proposed new Abortion Act, there weren’t any massive feminist demonstrations. In 2017 around 3000 people marched with the Dutch version of the

Women’s March for which worldwide 4,8 million people joined demonstrations. The march was about more than gender equality or sexism. People also marched against Muslim hate and other kinds of exclusion. Furthermore there were only a few other feminist demonstrations since 1970, although it is getting more difficult to say that a certain demonstration is a feminist demonstration. The occupation of the Maagdenhuis, the administrative center of the University of Amsterdam, for example was also for a demonstration for feminist subjects as gender neutral bathrooms and attention for diversity, but the demonstration had a wide range of demands (Duits, 2017). According to van der Wiel (2017) feminism is nowadays about everything and nothing at the same time: “It puts focus on the amount of male street names, hiss on the street, the costs of contraception, language use about female athletes, an orgasm gap, slutshaming or sexist abri's. Often it is about representation, stereotyping, equal pay, unwanted contact and above all about freedom of choice.” Post, Oldersma & Outshoorn (2006), speak since the 2000s of feminist movements instead of using the term feminist movement, because of the diversity and multitude of organization forms and activities.

Differences and similarities

According to Gamson (1990) the feminist movement can be more successful when they have only one or a few demands. This would mean that the feminist movement in the 1980s could achieve more successes in changing the political agenda because they found a way to unite the different demands and ideas to a common ground and starting point. In table 3 this difference is summarized.

Focus of the Dutch Feminist

Movement

1980s 2010s Less or more

successful? (-/+)

Issues Different organizations found a way to unite

Feminist movements instead of feminist movement

-Table 3: Differences in the focus of the Dutch feminist movement

4.3 Political context

The success of a movement is strongly dependent on the political context in a country (Kitscheld, 1968). Political movements do not always lead to political parties. This is for example the case with the feminist movement in the Netherlands. Feminism is a movement that has had great influence on society without its own party political organization. Moreover, feminism does not leave the various political parties, whether rooted in liberalism, socialism or Christian democracy, unmoved (Ribberink, 1987). Tarrow (1983) and McAdam (1996) define the political context in two indicators: the openness of the political system and the presence of political allies. These indicators are analysed in the paragraphs 4.3.1 and 4.3.2. 4.3.1 Openness of the political system

The openness of a political system is the extent to which the political system is able to make changes according the movement interests. Factors that influence the openness of the political system are the electoral system and the level of decentralization. The next paragraph explains the political system in the 1980s where after the political system in the 2010s is explained. Then the differences and similarities are analysed.

1980s

In the Netherlands during the 1980s the electoral system was the same as it is nowadays. Every four year there are elections and it is a proportional representation system. The Netherlands has a low electoral threshold and parties must always form coalitions to put the government together (Poldervaart, 2001). Forming coalitions means an increase in the variation of different viewpoints of policymakers, providing increased possibilities for movements to find supportive policymakers on the basis of their shared interests (Kriesi, 2004). Furthermore, The Netherlands has been a decentralized unitary state since 1848. This means that, in principle, matters are carried out by an administrative body as close as possible to the citizen. Those governing bodies are the government, the 12 provinces and the

municipalities. Together they form the general management of the Netherlands.

Another factor of the Dutch political system is the ‘poldermodel’. This is the name for the Dutch style of government which refers to a unique form of consensus politics. It involves negotiation between trade unions, government leaders, minority groups and social movements with the aim of pacifying social unrest. Although the name poldermodel only exists since the 1980s, this kind of governance has a long history in the Netherlands (Poldervaart, 2001). By involving all kinds of action groups and minorities, the authorities tried to provide order and stability. For the feminist movement this worked well because the movement almost never started demonstrations and cooperated with the government in many areas (Marco, 1990). As I already said in paragraph 4.2 Structure of the movement was the Dutch feminist movement in the 1980s already a movement with many different forms, but it was also a structured movement. This made it more easy for the government to involve the feminist movement in the poldermodel because it was clear who the contact points were and which organisations joined the feminist movement.

2010s

In the Netherlands the electoral system is the same as it was in the 1980s and parties must still make coalitions. Contrary to the electoral system changes have been made to the level of decentralization. Since the 1980s, the government has been striving to decentralize policy and