Gender & History ISSN 0953–5233
Maria Grever, ‘The Pantheon of Feminist Culture: Women’s Movements and the Organization of Memory’
Gender & History, Vol.9 No.2 August 1997, pp. 364–374.
The Pantheon of Feminist Culture: Women’s
Movements and the Organization of Memory
MARIA GREVER
According to the 1986 Encyclopedia of Feminism, International Women’s
Day is ‘observed by feminists all over the world on 8 March, but as an
official holiday only in China and the USSR.’1 How many of us have
celebrated Women’s Day this year? What meaning do these annual festivals
have for women at the end of the twentieth century? Some, particularly
among the younger generations, may find this feminist tradition somewhat
outdated. However, it seems more significant that many do not know much
about its origins.
Knowledge of the feminist past is generally not self-evident. It must be
explained and acquired again and again. An important reason for this
ignorance is the marginal representation of women historians in dominant
historiography. In several western countries, such as Great Britain, France,
the United States, and the Netherlands, gender boundaries within the
historical field emerged with the professionalization of the discipline in
the nineteenth century.2 First, it was very difficult for women to study
history and learn its skills, because universities and academic societies
were open only to male students. Second, professionalization meant an
increased use of records and archives, to which women had little access.
The new emphasis on the use of empirical evidence in historical writing
dramatically lowered the status of the historical novel, which was traditionally the genre through which women expressed historical interest.
Third, the identity of the historian came to be synonymous with rational,
impersonal, singular and male authorship. Professionalization ensured the
drawing of sharp lines between history and literary genres and between
(male) ‘professionals’ and (women) ‘amateurs’.
Although women seem completely absent from historiography, a closer
look at the heterogeneity of historical writing reveals that they were present
as historians, readers and protagonists in other historiographical circles. In
particular, feminists of the first wave created their own historiography and
organized a specific infrastructure to preserve their cultural heritage. The
Dutch historian, Johanna Naber (1859–1941), for example, published a
great number of historical studies, biographies and articles, many of which
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
The Pantheon of Feminist Culture
365
dealt with feminist history. To guarantee the continuity of feminist culture,
she founded, together with Rosa Manus and Willemijn Posthumus-van der
Goot, the International Archive for the Women’s Movement in Amsterdam
in 1935. Historical reflection was also expressed by means of anniversaries,
exhibitions, performances, and other traditions. A variety of women figured
in the collective memory of the Dutch women’s movement: nuns, queens,
women teachers, social workers, and feminist leaders. Unfortunately, the
historical knowledge produced by the women’s movement (which was an
international phenomenon) remained almost forgotten until the 1970s.
In mainstream history and national memories women, and particularly
feminists, were, for a long time, absent.
But there is another reason why students and young people hardly know
anything about the feminist past: historical consciousness in western society has been fundamentally changed in the last 150 years.3 In this essay I
explore this transformation in the light of the women’s movement through
a few national and international examples. Two concepts are central to my
argument: ‘invented tradition’, introduced by the British historian, Eric
Hobsbawm, in 1983, and ‘lieu de mémoire’, introduced by the French
historian, Pierre Nora, in 1984. First, however, I briefly explain what I mean
by the concept of ‘collective memory’.4 As a specific type of historical
consciousness,5 it refers to the formation of dominant historical images
within a community or society through influential texts (such as history
schoolbooks, academic writings, and encyclopediae), monuments, stamps,
rituals, national anniversaries and memorial days. It is the cultural heritage
of a nation, movement, group or family, based on shared historical experiences, that is acknowledged and recognized as such by the members of the
community involved.
Hobsbawm’s term ‘invented tradition’ includes both traditions actually
invented, constructed and formally instituted and traditions emerging in a
less easily traceable manner within a brief and dateable period and establishing themselves with great rapidity.6 Examples of the first type are:
Queen’s Day in the Netherlands since 1885 (nowadays an important Dutch
national holiday); Labour Day (May Day) since 1890; and Women’s Day
since 1911.7 Examples of the second include the displays of Orange passions
(‘het Oranjegevoel’) of the supporters associated with the Dutch national
football team, and the wave during pop festivals. An ‘invented tradition’
refers to a set of practices, normally governed by accepted rules and of a
ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms
of behaviour by repetition. Characteristic of ‘invented traditions’ is the fact
that they automatically imply continuity with the past. Where possible,
they attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past. This more
or less constructed past into which the new tradition is inserted need not
be very lengthy. Revolutions and progressive movements (such as the
women’s movement) have their own relevant past. Nevertheless, it happens
that nations, groups and movements incorporate protagonists and moments
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Gender and History
from a remote past. Sometimes this past is contested by others. Such is the
case with the origins of Women’s Day.
The history of International Women’s Day is complex and ambiguous.
Women’s organizations from different ideological backgrounds used or rejected the celebration based on their own objectives. According to socialist propaganda in the Netherlands, Women’s Day originated in 1908 when
women textile workers in New York protested against the ten-hour working
day, low wages and bad labour conditions. At the same time women workers
occupied the factories in Chicago. These actions were so effective that they
attracted attention from all over the world. After the Second World War,
Communist women integrated the 8th of March into their struggle against
capitalism and their support for Stalin in Moscow.8 They claimed that
Women’s Day had been celebrated in 1945 in the women’s concentration
camp, Ravensbrück. Rosa Thälmann, a Communist survivor of the camp,
told of the eldest comrade of her section giving a special greeting that day,
whereupon the woman prisoners exclaimed in different languages: ‘Long
live the 8th of March, our International Women’s Day’.9 In the 1970s and
1980s, radical feminists re-invented this ritual tradition and incorporated it
in their resistance against patriarchy, much against the wishes of Communist
women. In some feminist brochures the history of Women’s Day is even extended by fifty years. The story is that sewing-women on the Lower East Side
in New York had already demonstrated in 1857 against the twelve-hour working day; the police took drastic action, and many women were arrested.
Several professional historians have questioned the origins of Women’s
Day and some of its celebrations. The 1857 incident should be considered
a myth.10 It is also doubtful that women really celebrated Women’s Day in
a concentration camp; Communist women may have invented this story for
political purposes. Recent research has pointed out that in 1910, at the
Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, the
German feminist, Clara Zetkin-Eissner, called for a yearly International
Women’s Day.11 A year later, Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time
in the United States, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland, although
an official date had not yet been chosen. American socialist women celebrated Women’s Day on the last Sunday of February. European women
selected the 18th of March in honour of the fortieth anniversary of the Paris
Commune. In the Netherlands, Women’s Day was celebrated for the first
time on 12 May 1912.12 Only since 1918 has 8th March become accepted
as the annual International Women’s Day. The selection of this day probably refers to a suffrage meeting of socialist women on 8th March 1908 in
New York.13
Be that as it may, the historical truth of this past is not the issue here. All
invented and re-invented traditions are responses to novel situations which
take the form of reference to old situations, or which establish their own
past by quasi-obligatory repetition. These traditions are attempts to structure some parts of social life as unchanging and invariable in the constantly
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The Pantheon of Feminist Culture
367
changing modern world. Although in almost every age and society there
are ‘invented traditions’ in this sense, they occur more frequently and
intensely when rapid change weakens old traditions and destroys the social
patterns of small communities. It is no coincidence that the culmination of
‘invented traditions’ took place after 1870, when the thread of connection
with the past became very thin. Leaders of political parties and social movements tried to establish a historical continuity in the innovative, industrializing world. New traditions were invented to create social cohesion, to
legitimize institutions and relations of authority, and to imprint beliefs,
value systems and conventions of behaviour.
Essential for ‘invented traditions’ is the process of formalization and
ritualization. To construct traditions for novel purposes, ancient materials
or rituals are used. This phenomenon occurred, for instance, at the end of
the nineteenth century when modern European states stimulated national
sentiments. Existing customary traditional practices, such as folksongs or
marksmanship, were modified, ritualized and institutionalized for new
national purposes. The use of rituals and symbols explains why ‘invented
traditions’ appeal to a large public. According to the anthropologist, Victor
Turner, cultural performances express social experiences, collective norms
and values. They also offer opportunities for culture critique and the creation of new power relationships.14 For instance, during the Dutch National
Exhibition of Women’s Labour in 1898 (the year in which Queen Wilhelmina
was inaugurated), a powerful complex of rituals and events was formed
around this occasion comparable with the World Exhibitions such as those
in London, Chicago or Brussels: the building of special pavilions, the display of flags and banners, the singing of an opening cantata, the visit of
delegations of the royal house and the government, and the organization of
conferences with vivid debates about topics such as public morality, social
work, and the controversy between feminism and socialism. Although the
1898 Exhibition reflected class differences (some 500 Dutch women organizers from the aristocracy and the middle class were involved), the event
itself expressed the feminist contribution to the transformation of the public
sphere. Women claimed the right to speak about their responsibilities as
Dutch citizens. In the collective memory of the Dutch women’s movement
this National Exhibition functioned as an important anchorage. Commemorating 1898 had become a feminist ‘invented tradition’.
Why should we study these phenomena? Hobsbawm argues that ‘invented traditions’ are important symptoms and therefore indicators of
problems which might not otherwise be recognized. They are historical
evidence. Moreover, they throw a considerable light on how people relate
to the past. All ‘invented traditions’ use history to legitimate action and
cement group cohesion. In addition, ‘invented traditions’ illuminate processes
of inclusion and exclusion within power relations.
Consider, for example, the International Council of Women (ICW),
founded in 1888 in Washington, DC. The American historian, Leila Rupp,
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Gender and History
asserts that a Protestant tone pervaded international women’s organizations, despite the prominent leadership of Jewish women, the participation of Catholic women, and the involvement of a few Muslim women.15
The meetings of the ICW opened with prayers in Protestant style, and it
took regular note of Christmas celebrations. Furthermore, different kinds of
cultural practices at congresses created visual images of the merging of
national loyalties into an international identity: the ideal of international
sisterhood.16 For instance, the ICW meeting in 1911 in Stockholm was
decked out with national flags of the constituent countries. In an added
ritual, each National Council president stood up to speak, accompanied by
a rendition of her country’s anthem. Flags and anthems at international
congresses both expressed national loyalties and symbolized the process of
bringing different nationalities together under the umbrella of internationalism. But the existence of three official languages—English, French,
and German—gave native speakers of those languages an advantage and
made it difficult for women who knew none of these tongues to participate.
The increase of ‘invented traditions’ since the end of the nineteenth
century indicates that the past is no longer a self-evident part of daily life,
although it also illustrates how much the old historical consciousness was
still interwoven with society. In pre-modern or traditional societies, the past
formed a standard of measure for the present. Small communities had their
own social patterns based on old, often religious, customs. Historical consciousness was everywhere; the past dictated the present. Modern industrial
societies are characterized by secularization, mobility, urbanization, the
decline of small communities and, as a consequence, a diminishing historical awareness. Nationalism and the ideologies of social-political movements have been important centripetal forces. Politicians in Europe latched
onto a ‘national past’ to prevent social disintegration, which they feared.
‘Invented traditions’, particularly in connection with the nation, functioned
as substitutes for old communities.
In ‘post-modern’ society, since the 1970s, historical consciousness has
further diminished and has been, perhaps, completely changed. It does not
manifest itself any longer as a self-evident sense of a close attachment with
Christianity, the nation, or socialism. All these important sources for historical consciousness seem exhausted or rendered out of date by recent events.
The stability of the rural world has been lost, the authority of the state is
eroding, de-colonization has left traumatic traces, revolutionary ideologies
are no longer convincing, and there has been a revolution in the scale, speed
and means of communication. Whereas historical consciousness and politics were strongly intertwined until after the Second World War, nowadays
people have vague, fragmented and often artificial images of the past. There
is no coherent and uniform object of collective memory anymore. There
are different and competing memories. What is left of the once dominant
national memory is often casual and anecdotal. Collective memory is
attached to anchors of memory—‘lieux de mémoire’—of an alienated past.
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The Pantheon of Feminist Culture
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The term ‘lieu de mémoire’ represents this remarkable change in historical consciousness and the public identification with the nation. Pierre
Nora coined this term for a huge project to save the national past of France
from oblivion. Hundreds of ‘lieux’ which codify, condense and anchor
the French national memory have been rather eclectically chosen. In 1993
the last of seven volumes of Les lieux de mémoire was published.17 The
initiative to assess this French ‘imaginary museum’ may be interpreted as a
desperate attempt to stick to a national identity and, more importantly, to
maintain a link with the past. Inspired by Nora’s project, historians of other
nations are looking for their national ‘lieux de mémoire’ or ‘loci’, places in
which collective memories still connect with national history. For example,
Dutch historians have documented legends, commemorations and
historical places of the fatherland to analyse the relation between national
identity and public memory in the Netherlands.18
A ‘lieu de mémoire’ is a significant unity of a material, symbolic and
functional nature which carries traces of time or human agency and forms
a symbolic element of a collective heritage. Examples include a language,
a statue, a library, the commemoration of an event, characteristic landscapes
and expressions, books, stamps etc.19 In contrast with ‘invented traditions’,
‘lieux de mémoire’ are not created by politicians or specific movements
and they do not intend to inculcate specific values, although one can
certainly observe preferences. In particular, professional historians want to
document the almost forgotten but identifiable anchorages of collective
memory, particularly the national memory. The term ‘invented tradition’
refers to practices during a specific period which create a continuity with
the past. ‘Lieu de mémoire’ refers, rather, to the quest of historians to detect
retrospectively what is left of a specific public, usually national, memory.
When an invented tradition has become part of the national memory, then
it can gain the status of ‘lieu de mémoire’ in Nora’s definition. Over the
course of time a specific ‘lieu’ may be extinguished. The same ‘lieu’ may
be subsequently discovered and reanimated again. A striking example of
this process is the discovery in the 1990s of a feminist tradition invented in
1946. The Dutch historian, Jolande Withuis, detected what I would call a
feminist ‘invented tradition’ which has become a ‘lieu de mémoire’ of the
Dutch women’s movement.20 After the Second World War the prominent
Dutch feminist, Mia Boissevain, launched a campaign to make women
wear so-called ‘national celebration skirts’, home-made patchwork skirts
constructed of old pieces of cloth from family members and friends who
were killed in the war. Boissevain deliberately devised this tradition.
Let us return to Pierre Nora once more. The purpose of the French ‘lieux
de mémoire’ project is to clarify how monuments, commemorations, texts
and other anchors in contemporary society function as national icons, how
they acquired this status, and how these ‘lieux’ together form the French
national memory. The seven volumes offer anchors of memory to which
traces of the national memory adhere. Thus the starting point of the project
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is ‘living memory ’, instead of a lifeless canon of national history.21 In Nora’s
own words: ‘La mémoire est la vie, toujours portée par des groupes
vivants’.22 Despite post-modern arguments, the ‘lieux de mémoire’ projects
still suppose the nation to be an entity. Moreover, these ‘lieux’ of the nation
represent and continue national memories which are (implicitly) based on
specific images and notions of gender, class and ethnicity, exemplifying the
centrality of white men. For instance, in national histories women have
mainly functioned as white supporting symbols: the republican mother in
France or the responsible queen in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.23 In almost every national memory ‘the unknown soldier’ is an important anchor maintained through memorial statues and commemorations. It
is a kind of household word for white male war heroes who unfortunately
died on the battlefield. And what about war heroines? They could have been
symbolized by ‘the raped woman’.24 So far as I know, a general symbol for
war heroines does not exist. There are statues or commemorations for
female war victims of the concentration camps. Obviously women are not
remembered for their achievements or commemorated with honours.
Typology of Memories
1.
Ritualized Memory
a. commemorations and anniversaries: the anniversary of a women’s suffrage
association or the celebration of the year when women won the vote;
b. traditions: the celebration of International Women’s Day on 8th March;
c. iconography: the cigar of the women’s rights advocate, the umbrella of the
suffragette, women wearing spectacles.
2.
Frozen Memory
a. materializations: monuments, statues, street-names, coins and stamps;
b. symbols: the woman’s symbol (/).
3.
Continued Memory
a. holy or canonized texts: well-known expressions, such as ‘Ain’t I a woman?’
[sic] by the black abolitionist, Sojourner Truth (1851); canonized texts, such
as Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1928) or Simone de Beauvoir’s
The Second Sex (1946);
b. institutions and organizations: the International Information Centre and
Archives for the Women’s Movement in Amsterdam; the Anna Maria van
Schurmancentre in Utrecht (an initiative of Utrecht Women’s Studies to
honour the learned woman, Anna Maria van Schurman, from the early
modern period); the Fawcett Society (which took its name in 1953 in honour
of Millicent Garrett Fawcett); prizes named after well-known feminists;
c. historiography: historical monographs which function as well-known
references, such as the American History of Woman Suffrage (1881) or the
Dutch Van moeder op dochter (1948).
Elements of these memories are:
groups and figures, such as Angela Davis, plus those drawn from a remote past,
such as Joan of Arc (human identity);
dates and years (time);
and places, locations or sites (geographical space).
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Nowadays feminist memory, like national memories, is fading away. The
ideological and moral attachment of feminism to its past is diminishing.
In the Netherlands many ‘women’s cafés’ and feminist bookstores have
disappeared. Mass celebrations of International Woman’s Day rarely take
place anymore. And this is not just a Dutch phenomenon. On both an
international and a national level, the women’s movement seems to belong
to a past that has become more or less ‘remote’ and different.
It could be argued that this general change in historical consciousness in
society has some advantages. Alienation from the past makes it possible for
scholars to approach history both from a critical and from an insightful
point of view. It is now perhaps easier to trace feminist memories without
‘inventing feminist history’ for ‘the feminist cause’. Instead of one, global
Pantheon of Feminist Culture we may perceive many different and sometimes contradictory national ones. To be able to discover an imaginary feminist museum we have to know some historical ‘facts’ about the women’s
movement. Only then can we reflect on the reasons why and how some
feminists reached the status of international women’s movement icons whilst
others were eventually forgotten.25 When studying feminist ‘lieux de mémoire’
we might explore changes in the public feminist identity in societies.
Collective memories of social movements often imply the construction
of a specific past. In the case of the women’s movement, this tends to mean
the commemoration of the ‘first woman who …’ or the annual celebration
of a victory, such as the woman’s vote. In such a case it is interesting to
know why a particular woman was selected, who sank into oblivion and
why. The construction of heroines and ground-breaking women’s associations undoubtedly bear class and ethnic elements. For instance, in the
thirties the Dutch and Jewish feminist, Rosa Manus, always kept backstage
at important meetings of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance,
although she was one of the main organizers. In this way she tried to avoid
discussions about the ‘Jewish problem’.26 It was clear that these international women’s organizations were not free from anti-semitism. Social
movements can also incorporate protagonists and moments from a remote
past, for instance when suffragettes labelled the learned Christine de Pisan
(14th century) and Joan of Arc (15th century) as ‘feminists avant la lettre’.
Memories can also live in images and legends, such as (negative) myths
and stereotypes thought up by outsiders and opponents, for instance: ‘les
précieuses’, ‘blue-stockings’, ‘tuinbroekfeministen’ (feminists in ‘garden
trousers’ or ‘overalls’). With reference to the women’s movements, it is
important to examine whether the organization of memory has national or
international leanings. International organizations, such as the ICW or the
International Women’s Suffrage Alliance (founded in 1904), influenced
feminist organizations in different countries all over the world for decades.
These international anchorages of memory are most likely imbued with
colonial and imperialistic attitudes. Finally, it is revealing to study how
individuals and groups try to forge a culture or identity of their own.
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Gender and History
Inspired by Nora, I have distinguished three types of memory relevant to
both feminists and feminist organizations, of which ‘invented traditions’
can be a part: ritualized memory, frozen memory, and continued memory.
(See Typology of Memories, page 370.) Examining these feminist ‘lieux
de mémoire’ may shed another light on western women’s movements. It
calls attention to how these memories define a feminist identity, and
consequently why certain women did not earn a place in the pantheon of
feminist culture. In this research we should distinguish between feminist
creators (feminists who took initiative, for instance, to set up a statue) and
feminist products (feminists who are remembered and/or feminist events
which are remembered). Every ‘lieux de mémoire’ project combines vicinity
and distance, memory and history. This combination, whether it is postmodern or not, might offer new opportunities to break through the canon of
a white and androcentric historiography, because women’s historians are
outstanding professionals in examining living memory.
Notes
This essay is based on a lecture for the post-graduate Summer School, ‘European
Women’s Studies from Multicultural and Interdisciplinary Perspectives’, Utrecht, August
1996. I am grateful for the inspiring discussions with my students in the seminar, ‘Lieux
de mémoire of the Dutch Women’s Movement’, History Department, University
Nijmegen, 1996.
1. Lisa Tuttle (ed.) Encyclopedia of Feminism (Arrow Books, London, 1986), p. 156.
2. See Joan Wallach Scott, ‘American Women Historians 1884–1984’, in Gender
and the Politics of History (Columbia University Press, New York, 1988), pp. 178–98;
Jacqueline Goggin, ‘Challenging Sexual Discrimination in the Historical Profession:
Women Historians and the American Historical Association, 1890–1940’, American
Historical Review, 97 (1992), pp. 769–802; Gianna Pomata, ‘History, Particular and
Universal: On Reading some Recent Women’s History Textbooks’, Feminist Studies,
19 (1993), pp. 7–49; Bonnie G. Smith, ‘Gender and the Practices of Scientific History:
The Seminar and Archival Research in the Nineteenth Century’, American Historical
Review, 100 (1995), pp. 1150–76. See also Bonnie G. Smith, The Gender of History:
Men, Women and Historical Practice in the West 1800–1940 (Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, forthcoming). For the Netherlands, see Maria Grever, Strijd tegen de stilte.
Johanna Naber (1859–1941) en de vrouwenstem in geschiedenis (PhD thesis, Verloren,
Hilversum, 1994); Maria Grever, ‘“Scolding Old Bags and Whining Hags”. The Myth of
Compatible Paradigms in History’, in Chattel, Servant or Citizen. Women’s Status in
Church, State and Society (Historical Studies 19), ed. Mary O’Dowd and Sabine Wichert
(The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1995), pp. 22–33; and Maria Grever, ‘Die relatieve
Geschichtslosigkeit der Frauen. Geschlecht und Geschichtswissenschaft’, in Geschichtsdiskurs IV: Krisenbewusstsein, Katastrophenerfahrungen und Innovationen 1880–1945,
ed. Wolfgang Küttler, Jörn Rüsen and Ernst Schulin (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag,
Frankfurt a. Main, 1997).
3. Compare also Jo Tollebeek, ‘“Vanuit de aangrenzende kamer”. Over
geschiedenis, traditie en geheugen’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuidnederlandse
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Maatschappij voor Taal—en Letterkunde en Geschiedenis. Jaarboek 1996, 51 (Brussels,
1997).
4. Gedi and Elam argue that ‘collective memory’ can only be justified on a
metaphorical level; they think it ‘useless and even misleading’ as ‘an explanatory tool’.
Noa Gedi and Yigal Elam, ‘Collective Memory—What is it?’, History and Memory,
8 (1996), pp. 30–50. I think every historical concept should be interpreted on a
‘metaphorical level’. In their argument the authors ignore the phenomenon of a cultural
heritage produced (whether deliberately or spontaneously) by a community which finds
its concrete shape in statues, stamps, texts etc.
5. This definition is also inspired by Ed Jonker, ‘De betrekkelijkheid van het
moderne historisch besef’, BMGN (Journal of the Royal Dutch Historical Association),
111 (1996), pp. 30–46.
6. Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (1983; repr. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, 1992), pp. 1–14. Examples of invented traditions in the women’s movement
and in Dutch history are my own.
7. Henk te Velde, ‘Oranje, koninginnedag en het verloren verleden’, in Waar de
blanke top der duinen en andere vaderlandse herinneringen, ed. N. C. F. van Sas
(Contact, Amsterdam/Antwerpen, 1995), pp. 127–36; M. Dommaget, Histoire du Premier
Mai (Paris, 1953), quoted in Tollebeek, ‘“Vanuit de aangrenzende kamer”’. On International Women’s Day see Bob Reinalda and Natascha Verhaaren, Vrouwenbeweging
en internationale organisaties 1868–1986. Een vergeten hoofdstuk uit de geschiedenis
van internationale betrekkingen (Ariadne, De Knipe/Nijmegen, 1989), pp. 34–5.
8. Jolande Withuis, Opoffering en heroiëk. De mentale wereld van een communistische vrouwenorganisatie in naoorlogs Nederland 1946–1976 (Boom, Meppel/
Amsterdam, 1990), pp. 209–10.
9. Annie van Ommeren-Averink, Baanbreeksters (1960; repr. Nederlandse
Vrouwenbeweging, Amsterdam, 1978), pp. 11–2.
10. Liliane Kandel and Françoise Picq, ‘Le Mythe des origines a propos de la journée
internationale des femmes’, La revue d’en face (1982), pp. 67–80; Temma Kaplan,
‘Commentary on the Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day’, Feminist
Studies, 11 (1985), pp. 163–71. Compare Reinalda and Verhaaren, Vrouwenbeweging,
p. 398.
11. Reinalda and Verhaaren, Vrouwenbeweging, p. 34. In August 1910 the International Socialist Women’s Committee organized the Second International Conference
of Socialist Women. Altogether 100 women from sixteen countries were present. Luise
Zietz suggested the annual celebration of International Women’s Day. Zetkin’s proposal
was linked to hers.
12. Joyce Outshoorn, Vrouwenemancipatie en socialisme. Een onderzoek naar de
houding van de SDAP ten opzichte van het vrouwenvraagstuk tussen 1894 en 1919
(SUN, Nijmegen, 1973), pp. 64–5; Ulla Jansz, Vrouwen ontwaakt! Driekwart eeuw
sociaal-democratische vrouwenorganisatie tussen solidariteit en verzet (Bert Bakker,
Amsterdam, 1983), p. 50.
13. Reinalda and Verhaaren, Vrouwenbeweging, p. 35.
14. Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors (Cornell University Press, Ithaca,
1974).
15. Leila J. Rupp, ‘Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational
Women’s Organizations, 1888–1945’, American Historical Review, 99 (1994), pp. 1571–
600.
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16. Compare also Mineke Bosch with Annemarie Kloosterman (eds) Politics and
Friendship. Letters from the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, 1990–1942 (Ohio
State University Press, 1990), pp. 18–9.
17. Three parts have been published altogether in seven huge volumes. Pierre Nora
(dir.) Les Lieux de Mémoire I–III (Gallimard, Paris, 1984–1993).
18. Van Sas, Waar de blanke top; Pim den Boer and Willem Frijoff (eds) Lieux de
mémoire et identités nationales (Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 1993).
19. Pierre Nora, ‘Entre Mémoire et Histoire. La problématique des lieux’, in Les
Lieux de Mémoire. La République, vol. 1 (Gallimard, Paris, 1984), p. xxxiv; compare
also Tollebeek, ‘“Vanuit de aangrenzende kamer”’, p. 6.
20. Jolande Withuis, ‘Patchwork Politics in the Netherlands, 1946–50: Women, Gender and the World War II Trauma’, Women’s History Review, 3 (1994), pp. 293–313.
21. Pierre Nora, ‘Between History and Memory: Les Lieux de Mémoire’,
Representations, 26 (1989), p. 8; see also Gedi and Elam, ‘Collective Memory’, p. 33.
22. Nora, ‘Entre Mémoire’, p. xix.
23. For examples in several western countries see Geschiedenis van de vrouw.
De twintigste eeuw [History of Women in the West, vol. 5], ed. Michelle Perrot and
Georges Duby (AGON, Amsterdam, 1993).
24. Marjan Schwegman, ‘Oorlogsgeschiedschrijving en seksueel geweld. Het
probleem van de historisering van het vrouwelijk slachtofferschap’, Sekse en oorlog.
Jaarboek voor vrouwengeschiedenis, vol. 15 (IISG, Amsterdam, 1995), pp. 145–52.
25. See also Maria Grever, ‘Rivals in Historical Remembrance. Wollstonecraft and
Holy Women as Loci of Feminist Memory’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 3
(1996), pp. 101–3.
26. See Bosch with Kloosterman, Politics and Friendship, pp. 219–24.
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1997.