‘Spreken is zoo moeilijk niet’

Abstract

‘Speaking is not that difficult’. Meeting culture, political emancipation and the women of the ‘s-Hertogenbosch branch of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht, 1908-1926 Based on the ‘s-Hertogenbosch branch of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht, this article examines the local meeting culture within the Dutch women’s movement around 1900. The presence of women on the political stage in the late nineteenth century was not evident. How did they learn to take their position? Local gatherings of social-political movements, such as the suffrage movement, offered women an important place to learn (public) speaking and develop their thoughts and opinions. Meeting procedures played a central role in this: how does one give shape to new voices and build a professional association? This article links up with the shift in the early women’s movement historiography from a focus on national leaders to local political organisation and the perspectives of ‘ordinary’ members. In addition, the focus on women’s debating culture offers a counterweight to the conception of the late nineteenth-century assembly as an almost exclusively male domain.