The Dutch Way

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 584, 9 February 1929, Page 23

The Dutch Way

With Feminist Propaganda

Flowers and Music

Youth has .taken a hand in. the management of the women's movement in Holland. Many countries have lost hold of the younger generation In their struggle for equal rights, after they have gained their political rights. It is as if most women are of opinion that with the possession of the right to vote and to sit as a member of the different representative | bodies the women’s movement has reached the goal. But how to keep the battle going if we lose our old soldiers and get no younger ones in their place? This question the Amsterdam branch of the Nederlandsche Vereeniging I van Staatsburgeressen (Dutch Society of Women Citizens) has tried to bring to a solution. A group of clever young women and men were told the aim ! of the movement and asked if they : were of -opinion that such an aim was worth fighting for. and they thought it was. j But how could they, and so many others, know what was being done, | once people began to hate to go to j meetings and listen to a speaker, or !to read a monotonous weekly or , monthly paper? | “We ought as In the time of our | struggle tor Woman Suffrage to try to rouse the people in the street and get the daily papers interested in our cause, not by writing articles but in a j new tray,” says D. Aletta Jacobs in I “The International Woman Suffrage j News.’’ j The older members let the young ! ones have their way and, one evening a most beautiful and almost summer night, the members of the Society of Women Citizens were invited to sit in a series of little gondolas beautifully decorated and with illuminated paper lanterns of different colours to make a tour from B—lo o’clock through the various canals of Amster- ! dam. Heading the procession "was a large boat, on which was a band of i -JO students which played the hymns and other students’ songs and made so much noise that along the canals and on the bridges the people stood head behind heacl. Young women | went on bicycles, laden with hand- | hills in bright colours, on which was : printed why the Vereeniging van j Staatsburgeressen still had to work for legal equality for men and women, : liberty to work, equal pay for equal j work, better marriage laws, equal opportunity to be employed in all offices, j e t c - —in short, for equal duties and j equal rights for men and women, which ! they distributed among the couutless | people along the road and on the | bridges.

Ou these handbills was also printed the address of the Amsterdam Secretary to whom one could send subscriptions. But that was not all. The next day that same propaganda committee had arranged in the afternoon from 2-4 o’clock a motor drive in the streets of Amsterdam In autos beautifullydecorated with fresh flowers. Headed again by a very big open car with a band, a very long tail of mostly private cars iu which the members of the society had taken the places, went slowly through the streets of different parts of the town and distributed again coloured handbills. Not onlymen and women in the streets took the handbills gratefully-, but men and women came out of their houses asking for one or picking up the copies which lay in the streets. The meeting which was announced for that evening in one of the biggest halls of the town was crowded, and there again the aim was placed before the audience in a gay way. The next day- all the daily papers of the town gavp long and good articles on the way- in which the society has made propaganda for the cause, and all praised the artistic and jolly way in which it was done. One paper said: “De Vereeniging- van Staatsburgeressen has shown that to make propaganda for a cause does not need to be enny-ant, it -can be done in a gay and artistic way and still be efficient.” DRESSING THE PART FASHION “OUTLAWS” A poetess looks like one, a painter dresses the part, and the actress is always distinguishable, and a mere stay ~at-home-and-do-nothing in particular gives herself away before she'shad time to open her mouth. One knows exactly where one is nowadays without exerting one’s bra.in-cells.. For violating the social code, the penalty is ostracism, for transgressing the fashion code, unenviable conspicu-. ousness. Yet Paris continues, season after season, to create dresses which, though often intrinsically- beautiful, -are beyond the pale—outlaws. Gloves of 24-button length, made of hand-knotted mesh, are shown as an accessory for evening wear by- Molyneux. Somewhat reminiscent of the old-time mitt, these gloves have fingers. They- are finished by a narrow crocheted edge, and come in both black and natural linen colour.