Some 80 years ago, from September 20 till 27, 1896, an International Congress of Women took place in Berlin. It is striking that the heated debates on women's work which were then held between the representatives of the proletarian and the bourgeois women's movement have hardly lost their relevance. It is even true that today's women's movement can learn from them in some respects.

Society has considerably changed since, but the social role of women has basically remained the same. Will present day mass resistance of women in the European countries at last break the ties that chain them to the destiny that seems so natural?

This destiny is so closely linked up with the ancient Christian morals in these countries that it's not surprising we come across the most significant phrases from clerical authorities. The Papal encyclic Quadragesimo Anno, published in 1931, says: "The work of the housewife is in and around the house, in household duties. That housemothers are obliged to do paid work outdoors because the fathers' wages are too low, is a disastrous situation that must absolutely come to an end."

At the end of the 19th century already the same "disastrous situation" had led both to the big dilemma for the women's movement and to the divergence.of opinions
at the International Congress of Women. Whereas middle class women, often without means and single, claimed freedom to work, working class women put forward that for a long time they had been working from sheer necessity and that for the sake of their families labour protection should be demanded.

At first sight it might seem progress on both fronts has been made since, but actually that's not quite the case. Also nowadays the enormous unemployment corrects women rudely whenever they have ventured, often still from economic necessity, upon the labour market.

At the moment everybody who still tries to reconcile women to their unequal position by moralizing sermons, risks the scorn of the women's movement. Some things will never be "natural" again. Whenever the clock tends to be put back, as nowadays, the significance of some achievements has to be thoroughly investigated so that women's movement can continue to draw its building-lines.

The following notes may provide some elements for such an investigation, although these notes are grafted upon the Dutch circumstances. In some respects Holland differs considerably from other capitalist countries, however the differences don't seem fundamental but rather instructive when striving after a judgement as nuanced as possible.

The starting-point must be that woman's place in society is stated with her place in family.

The image of the woman is the image of the housewife and figures affirm this. With a population of more than 13 million people the Netherlands have nearly 2 - 3 million married housewives. (More specified figures show up with many many women who falsify the image and who the social organization, law and morals are not adapted to, which is even worse. To them the validity of the saying that every woman is a housewife, has a bitter taste.)

A housewife's life consists of carrying out the caring duties proceeding from the daily maintenance of her husband, her children and herself. The looking after husband and children extends from very prosaic acts to the more "idealistic" emotional support. The upbringing of the children is her most important job. All these tasks, together with the bearing of children, put the responsibility for a substantial part of the reproduction of labour power, necessary for the continuity of the social production, on the shoulders of the housewife.

Depending on the size of the family and, to a lesser extent, on the presence of work saving household equipment, the average working week of a housewife varies from 60 to 100 hours. It is the merit of the women's movement this huge quantity of woman's labour has come to light, and that the often heard saying "my wife doesn't work" is to be reduced to embarrassed silence.

But the work of the housewife, once recognized as such, has to be questioned fully and anew. For apart from its recognition, a new appreciation of the "proper task" of woman tends to occur- and for this the economic tide is most favourable.

Of all countries of the European Common Market, the Netherlands still has the lowest rate of out-of-home employed women of the total employed population: about 25 per cent. (In Ireland it's 26 per cent, in Luxembourg about 27 per cent, in Italy nearly 28 per cent, in Belgium 34 per cent, in Britain 37 per cent, in West Germany and in France about 38 per cent and in Sweden and in Denmark about 41 per cent).

The weak position of women on the labour market becomes even more clear from unemployment figures. The unemployment of women grows much faster than that of men; women are fired first and are the last to be considered for vacancies. Between 1972 and 1976 the number of registered unemployed men rose by 77 per cent, that of women by 200 per cent.

All these figures show that one can hardly say that women have gained the right to work. A woman must know her place, and this place is in and around the house...

Those women who work outdoors are mostly employed in the typical serving jobs and in subordinate ones, lowly qualified and badly paid. Whether they work in or outside the house, their place in the labour process is the same. The division of labour between males and females is so much anchored in society, and women are still so much tied to caring and upbringing duties, that they are mainly employed in the "soft sector": nursing, home help, social work, education. And even in the industrial sector, most female work is in a direct line with female work in the home industry of former days: clothes, textile, and shoe industry.

The sacred distinction between masculine and feminine work still exists: after all woman's work is in and around the house... In many ways the family is the molly-coddle of the legislator. Law only recognises the "ideal family". The husband is the breadwinner, who is obliged to provide his wife with money for the house-keeping and whose will is decisive in a dispute about the children's upbringing; the wife is not an independent individual, but a part of the family, as it is the case with the decent number of children.

But meanwhile in the family, the stage on which woman has been playing her role for a hundred years, things are changing, which might lead to a revision of the old role pattern.

Most spectacular is probably the decrease of the number of children per family and its direct result: the mothers being sooner "out of children", which is reinforced by children leaving home at an earlier age. Besides, the looking after the elderly people has been taken over from the family more and more.

So the family might seem to lose its predominance; the increasing number of divorced people and unmarried couples seems to point in that direction, too.

As to the abolition of the family as an institution: it won't come to that for the time being. A divorce will usually be followed before long by another marriage. Government prefers to liberalize the divorce law than patiently watch more and more families break up as a result of wretched marriages. The legislator has been responding
adaptively to concubinage, too: both in housing policy and in some social allowances it has simply been equalized with marriage.

For better and for worse and in all its appearances, family is the pillar of society. As the basis of the position of women, family deserves women's movement focusing on it.

Society reacts to women's struggle like a two-faced Janus: "My wife may work alright, as long as she's there when I come home". The so-called freedom to work for women has not put an end to their double burden. More than half of the employed married women have part time jobs. For some women with families part time work may be an improvement, for women in general it is a "right" that doesn't interfere with their holy duties.

The right to equal pay for equal work has its reverse, too. Already in 1879 August Bebel in Die Frau und der Sozialismus (Women under Socialism) pointed to the necessity of equal pay for women. At the International Congress of Women in 1896 the right to equal pay was claimed as it would be many times after. In 1957 women in Holland only earned 60 to 75 per cent of the the wages men got for the same work. Not until 1975 was this right legalized, after the E.G. had given directives.

After a hundred-year-struggle the concession of the equal pay demand can truly be called a victory for women. At the same time though the equal pay law has unquestionably made women less attractive labourers for the employers; besides in industrial branches dependent on cheap female workers, many posts have disappeared because of rationalization, at least-when these firms have not been moved to low-wage-countries.

The law that prohibits dismissal of women because of marriage and childbirth and during pregnancy (till twelve weeks after childbirth) only dates from 1976. This law has the same ambivalence: its protection of the right of women to work makes it easier for the employers to prefer male labourers.

At this moment the interests of women as housewives are often different from those of women as employed workers. (This distinction is expressive in the Dutch Association of Trade Unions - N.V.V. - which has an Office for female workers - Vrouwensekretariaat - and a League of housewives - Vrouwenbond - separately).

That's why the women's movement has to make up its mind concerning the question of the family. Women in many countries are fighting for the right to free abortion. However the right not to have children is not exactly the same as the right to choose children. The conditions for having children are the conditions of the family, and the right to have children can only be bought with women's dependency flowing from their role in the family.

And the great efforts women are making for a new division of roles in the family don't settle this. The Women's movement should fight for the right to have children as it fights for the right not to have. The present day cuts in family or child allowances should make the women's movement put this on the agenda.

Woman's place in society is stated with her place in the family. If it is the family that cause not only a variety of demands but a divergence of interests of women as well, it really must no longer be neglected. The Women's movement has to focus attention on the basis of the oppression of all women, on family as such.

Jose Bolten
Maria van Diepen