The women's liberation movement has been developing fast everywhere recently, but nowhere faster than in Holland, Four months ago it did not exist-now it has some 5,000 hambers and is still growing rapidly.
The Dolle Minas ("crazy Minas", named after Wilhelmina Drucker, 1847-1925, one of he few early women's liberators who was working class and militant socialist, attacking marriage and the family and stressing that the vorkers could not be emancipated unless orking women were also started towards the nd of 1969 as a small group of membersIncluding some men-of the Socialist Youth, whose proposal to that organisation that a women's organisation be set up was turned down and who therefore went ahead on their own, Their first aim was to secure publicity by using the playful kind of action which the Dutch left has been at since Provo days. On January 23 and 24 they started their public campaign by invading the Nijenrode Academy. an institution to educate top people who just happen to be all male, turning up at a wedding at the Amsterdam Town Hall and asking the bride to comment on their proposals for women's liberation (she did-favourably). barricading male street urinals to emphasise that no such provision is made for women, and whistling at and accosting men in the street. All this was featured in a peak-hour television journal that night, and the group received extensive coverage in the press over the following week. Most attention was of course paid to the sex and sensationalism aspect, but the Dolle Minas managed to use that as a vehicle to get their ideas and programme points, Ruch as free legal abortions and free or nonprofit-making creches for all, over, and more and more people joined the organisation every day, and invitations to address meetings, etc. kept flowing in, Soon there were Dolle Minas branches all over Holland, and the first national congress, attended by some 300 delegates and bordes of pressmen, was held at Amhem on April 4 and 5.
The First Congress The first congress showed some of the difficulties produced for Dolle Mina by its very success. The original founders of the movement were conscious socialists, with a Marxist analysis of society to which they can more or less link the position of women, and with some notion of what the real perspectives are. But the people they had managed to attract by their successful publicity stunts were largely middle class, had no analysis of society and wished mainly to work out their own frustrations anarchically in actions. Many of them are equaily attracted by the Oranje Vrij Stast (the Gnomes of Amsterdam-Provo repeating itself as even more of a farcel. On the first day of the conference these people started shouting down serious speakers trying to contribute to an analysis of the problems and work out a programme and a form for the organisation, saying things like "down with programmes! what we want is action!" and making suggestions that the whole conference should go out and demonstrate there and then. There was even a group which voted bath for and egainst every proposal. A aucus of the original Dolle Minas late that night considered that the congress had definitely been a failure and came close to calling it off Тані (одни finally manage to secure acceptance for a programme with the following points: on the besis that the biological distinction between man and woman does not justify their role assignment, the goal of Dolle Mina is: social change, to bring about equal development chances for all, irrespective of sex. Among the more important points of the programme are: equal pay for man and woman for equivalent work: reorganisation of work hours to make half-day working possible; abolition of special young people's wager-equal pay for equivalent work; abolition of alimony- -contributions to maintenance where required from public funds; free, properly organised creches, peographically distributed, and/or at factories and institutions: possibility for children in nursery schools and early primary schools to remain for the whole day, including a free meal; adjustment of school hours to work hours; cost-price restaurants: cost-price laundries; free abortion at the woman's request: financing of all provisions listed from public funds, possibly including a contribution in some cases (e.g. creches, restaurants).
The Tasks Ahead The task of the conscious minority within the Dolle Minas, now that they have secured formai acceptance of this programme and taken some first steps towards an organisation to realise it, is to Take its implications clear to the membership, to raise the levol of their consciousness, and to break free from the strait-jacket of stunt type actions and organise realistic campaigns. In Amsterdam, where most of them are concentrated, they can co this by direct discussion: elsewhere they must still rely on publications. Their first book, "Dolle Mina, a rebellious girl in the class struggle is a pearl". No. 2 in the Socialistiese Uitgeverij Amsterdam series Wat te doen?, analyses the programme from this point of view, It points out how the programme represents the interests, not of "all women"" (an abstraction with no real social existencel, but of working-class women and of the whole working class. Thus, an upper-class woman is not interested in higher wages for women, since that would affect the unequal division of the social product by which she benefits, Likewise, she has no interest in pressing for free creches, which she does not need, and which she probably regards as places for social deviants and unmarried mothers.
Good tree creches would mainly benefit working-class women, and would also cost the community a lot of money, which would again affoct her position. The middle-class woman, again, desires creches, but is "prepared to pay for them", If the creches are to be froe, that attocks the social definition of who can pay for what. Again, if women are to have the same chances as men in the society, a great number of tasks now performed by women in the household will have to be socially provided for: thus not only upbringing of children, but also cooking, washing etc. This would require a whole network of social services not based on the profit principle, which would cost sums which our society as at present constituted could not provide. The groups at present ruling in the society will not and cannot provide these sums, In the first place, because these provisions are not nocessary for the top social stratum, they itin already afford nannies.
KENT. Ohio, May S-Four students were andered at Kent State University yesterday, and several wounded when National Guardsmen opened fire without warning It was cold-blooded murder. We narrowly missed getting killed ourselves.
The students had been protesting President Nixon's escalation of the war into Cambodia and the bombing of North Vietnam.
The day of the massacre there had been an impromptu call for a student strike af Kent.
The statement from the National Guard that they started shooting in response to sniping is untrue. It was a onc-sided shootout. We were caught with hundreds of other students near a parking lot when suddenly a line of Guardsmen turned towards us, knelt down, aimed-almost as if by an order.
Briefly, the events leading up to the bloodibed were this:
On Friday noon, May 1, there was a mally of about 2,000 to bury a copy of the Constitution. It was in response to Non's speech escalating the war. A serviceman with a silver star and a bronze Maybe as many as a thousand students star burned his discharge papers. Later the Black United Students held a rally.
That evening the Guard was brought Saturday night a crowd of several thousand burned down the ROTC building. When ROTC burned, the Guardsmen had orders to shoot anyone who cut firehoses.
On Monday, May 4, we both went down to the Commons, an open field, at noon.
Someone climbed up on the base of a _berty bell and said, It's tame to trie. It's time to strike."
An Army jeep pulled up. There wero four men, three Guardsmen and one state blanks." trooper in it. The trooper had a bullbarn. He said, "Please leave the area, Please leave the area. This is an illegal gathering. Leave, before someone is hurt."
A few students-no more than a handful were heaving rocks. Thousands of students were in the aren A group of Guardsmen approached. Before we knew it, we saw tear gas canisters in the midst of us. People started rumning:
*Walk, walk, cople shouted. The itudents walked. It was an orders retreat.
Several truckloads of Guardsmen pulled up, got out, formed a single line. fixed their bayonets, put on tear gas masks and started coming up the hill Gas cannisters were lobbed. Students threw them back.
We retreated again. The scary thing about it was that the Guard was still coming, shooting tear gas.
The Guard came down toward the hill.
had regrouped on a hill near a parking lot. The Guard came toward us. A few guys were throwing rocks-more like pebbles. They weren't big. One Guardsman brushed stones away with his hand.
Then the Guardsmen got to their knees. They aimed. There was no sniper fire. If the commanding general claims there was sniper fire coming from a building, why didn't they shoot up at the building? Why did they shoot at the crowd?
At first no one was sure what was happening. There was a steady, loud ratlic, like machine guns.
Someone yelled, "Those are only Then we heard bullets whistling past our heads. Dirt flew up in our faces, where bullets were hifting the ground. landing only a few feet from us.
There was a tree about 15 yards behind us. There were repoated sounds of thuds and splintering noise as bullets hit the tree. More ballets hit the cars in the lot, smashing the windshields, hitting lay there. the fenders and the sides of the cats One of us-Mike-dived behind a curb and lay flat. The other one-Fred-raced for a trash can and dived behind it. That's where we waited. Until the shooting stopped.
There was a steady rattling of bullets.
We saw one student run for the parked stretcher. One side of his head was cars. He almost made it. Suddenly, he spun around, his legs crumpled underneath him, and he fell, half behind the car. A student who had made it tried to drag the body behind the car but he wasn't able to.
A girl was screaming.
*They're not using blanks. They're not using blanks."
Another student fell over, dead. A student collapsed to the ground, hit.
Suddenly, after about 30 seconds, the shooting stopped. We got up and looked around.
One girl was lying on the ground, holding her stomach. Her face was white There were others, lying on the ground. Some moved. Some didn't.
The whole area was one of panic. We heard a girl crying hysterically.
*Get an ambulance, get an ambulance," others were shouting.
A guy picked up one girl and held her in his arms. The front of her was covered in blood. "She's dead," he was shouting "She's dead. I know she's dead."
Some guys were leaning over another girl using jackets as makeshift compresses. Another was giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
Another guy were helped hobbling to a dorm. One leg had been shot.
One fellow lay in the parking lot. Just There were sounds of ambulance sirens. The ambulances pulled up.
"Over bere," some students were yelling. "Over here." Students were pointing down at the wounded lying on the ground. "Please hurry, please hurry The attendant lifted one fellow onto a puffed way out and his face was blue.
People were crying and screaming saying this thing was uncalled for.
We blame Nixon for this. He's the man responsible for these murders. He sent the troops to Vietnam and sent more to Cambodia. The students are outraged.
What is there to do now? The answer is immediate, total withdrawal of troops Kent is closed now. The university's prosident sent all the students home.
But we want the killers brought to trial, Right now, we're still in sort of a state of shock. We can still see the National Guardsmen firing.
Each of us tried to go to sleep last night. But you can't. You put down your head, and you keep hearing shots. Fred Kirsch, SMC
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