The name Dolle Mina will evoke a nostalgic feeling in the older generation. The feminist action group was known in the sixties and seventies of the last century for the fight for women’s rights. The movement was recently revived because of increasing violence against women and the increasing number of femicides. Since two weeks there has also been a Drenthe branch, which organizes a nightly bike ride on Saturday.
Occupying urinals, walking around with sanitary napkins on the chest (to break the taboo against menstruation) and the cry “Boss in its own abdomen (right to abortion and contraception).” A number of examples of the playful actions that Dolle Mina held in her heyday.
After that turbulent period it became a bit quieter around the action group, but since this year the name regularly appears in the news. A group of older activists, together with a new generation of women, will go to battle again.
The reason is the growing care about violence against women, including the deliberate killing of women, also called femicide. According to spokesperson Mireille Sampimon-Sembatya of Dolle Mina Drenthe, a woman is killed every eight days in the Netherlands. The action group therefore wants politics and society to take this type of violence seriously.
“It is often dismissed like a family drama, but it is not,” said Sampimon. “If a woman is killed by her partner the moment she wants to leave, then that is murder. Point.”
Following national protests against femicide, Action Group Dolle Mina Drenthe is organizing its very first action next Saturday: a nocturnal bike ride through Coevorden past places that are experienced as unsafe. The departure is at midnight from the town hall of Coevorden. According to Sampimon, the route is still being thinned.
Participants gather on Saturday evening around midnight at the town hall in Coevorden and then cycle completely illuminated to places in the city that are experienced as unsafe, such as in all probability the Heutzpark.
The new Dolle Mina’s explicitly put together with the LGBTQIA+community. “We have a shared interest. They too are often marginalized or even threatened in this society. That is why we work together in this movement.”
But everyone can participate in the trip, Sampimon emphasizes: “Male allies are also emphatically welcome. Violence against women is not a men’s problem, it is a social problem. And so we have to solve it together.”
The current generation of Dolle Mina’s sees it as a signal against an emerging trend of conservative ideas and the idea that women are secondary to men. Sampimon: “You see it worldwide: women’s rights are under pressure.”
“Look at the ‘Tradwives’ on social media (subculture that the traditional housewife celebrates), or what happens under the Trump government in America. But in the Netherlands, politics is also moving further to the right in that respect. We seem to take a step back in time in terms of women’s position.”
Sampimon says that her commitment also comes from personal experiences. She was in a women’s shelter sixteen years ago after a violent relationship. “I was very pregnant and thought: what happened to me now? I was independent, had my own income and friends. And yet I ended up in a situation where I had to flee for my safety. It can happen to everyone.”
In the app group of Dolle Mina Drenthe, yesterday it came to a huge fuss about a man who structurally abused his wife. “And he received 200 hours of community service. His punishment took less long than the period that he beat up his wife. That is of course a very cynical observation.”
According to her, the problem starts with upbringing. “We still implicitly teach children that boys are better than girls, that tough men are worth more than gay men. That is why inequality begins. That works in how women are viewed and treated. And ultimately sometimes mistreated or killed.”
The bike ride in Coevorden is only the start of what should become a wider Drenthe movement. The action group now has nearly fifty members from all over Drenthe and does not exclude more actions. “This promotion is of course aimed at making people aware. And that we no longer have to accept this.”