AmsterDames: Inspiring Women in the Netherlands

Remember what it was like for you when you came to the Netherlands? When you had to get settled and needed to find a job? For some of us it is rather easy, for others it is really hard. For migrants who are not familiar with the Dutch or any European labour market there are many challenges to face. Often they apply and apply but only receive rejections without knowing the reason.

Shea Harty is the founder of Empowerment foundation that strives to empower people to change their circumstances from surviving to thriving.

Today's episode is going to touch on a topic that affects us all at some point in our lives – grief and loss. But even though it is omnipresent in all of our lives, we rarely talk about it. Death is something that scares us, that we rather do not talk about. My guest for today Carin Hafkamp, has chosen to become a grief and loss coach to guide and support individuals through this challenging process. To remind some that in all the darkness there can also be light again.

The global medical world produces an enormous amount of waste every day. Mostly by using disposable equipment. But what if there was another way? What if there was a chance to make medical equipment reusable?

Dieuwertje Drexhage is one of the founders of Layco Medical Devices and it is her goal to make the medical world more sustainable. And that could even have an impact on women specifically – not only in the Netherlands – but globally.

Are you a fan of Spanish and Latin American films? Do you love storytelling and exciting visuals?

Bienvenidos and welcome to the 10th Amsterdam Spanish Film Festival. For a decade, the film festival has focused on storytelling, insights into the culture of Spain and Latin american countries as well as voices multiplying voices we often do not hear loud enough. Among others, the voices of women.

Bloem van der Linde and Nela Linares Antequera work for the Amsterdam Spanish Film Festival and they will tell us everything there is to know.

Amsterdam Spanish Film Festival: April 12-21, 2024

In a conflict, in a war or in a crisis it is oftentimes those who are innocent who suffer the most. But the ones that are the most innocent are often overlooked and forgotten. Wars, conflicts and natural disasters affect animals as much as they affect human beings. But they have even less of a chance to fend for themselves or verbalize their pain or demand their needs to be catered to.

Luckily, there are people like Esther Kef and her organization animal heroes, that make sure that the animals of this world are not forgotten.

Today, we're diving into the magic of the HER Film Festival Amsterdam – an event that amplifies the voices and visions of women filmmakers and highlights films about women and their so far often untold, unique stories.

It's more than just a film festival; it's a celebration of creativity, resilience, and the power of women worldwide.

Sabine Brusse from Simavi organizes the event and she is going to talk about her favorite stories, the position of women worldwide and why an event like HER Film Festival is still necessary and important. These days maybe more than ever.

There is the gender pay gap. The gender pension gap. The gender funding gap. The gender health gap. The gender investment gap. The gender wealth gap. And there is also a gender orgasm gap.

During heterosexual sexual encounters, women have far fewer orgasms than men. And often we are being told that this is just the way it is and that some women simply cannot have an orgasm.

The world is acting like a female orgasm was a myth and it was rocket science to get her there as it is basically as complex as an open heart surgery.

Well, it is not. And women’s pleasure is just as important as men’s pleasure.

And luckily, there are people like Heidy van de Velde who remind us of that and who help women to set boundaries during sex but at the same time demand the highest possible pleasure for themselves.

When it comes to money and finance, women often end up with the short end of the stick. Or they are short-changed, if you will. Because women are facing financial obstacles that men are not. The gender pay gap is just one example of that.

Reason enough for women to start taking care of their finances and to work towards financial independence.

Jonell van der Wal is a money mindset coach and host of the podcast op je money and today, we are going to talk about how girls are socialized when it comes to money, the so-called girl math, and some easy basic steps for you to build up your savings.

We all live in the same world, but at the same time we don’t. We might call a certain place or a certain community our home, but at the same time, it can be an entire different universe from the life other people are living. Some communities, religious or not, actively isolate their members. Sometimes it is the civil society that is responsible for the exclusion of an individual or a certain group of people.

Dina-Perla Portnaar has experienced isolation and exclusion herself when she grew up. And she knows that today in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, maybe people and many groups still have to face exclusion. And she knows that most of us also play an active role in that, whether we are aware of it or not.

Every eight days.

Every eight days, a woman in the Netherlands is killed by her partner or her ex-partner.

Every eight days, in this country, there is a femicide.

And until the Netherlands manage to bring structural change on the way. It is going to continue to happen. Every eight days.

Tessel ten Zweege is an activist and author of several books about gender-based violence and femicide in the Netherlands. And she is going to explain to us the dynamics or abusive relationships, why it is not always easy to leave, what needs to change to prevent femicide and what friends and family can do to help.

They are evil, they are ugly and we should all be afraid of them. We have learned that from fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel.  But what if witches were never the bad ones? What if they were in fact the victims of the story?

Jente Posthuma and Bregje Hofstede have been working on the topic of witches and witch trials for a while now and they know the witch hunts are by no means only a thing of the past.

Do you want to become a freelancer in the Netherlands? But you feel overwhelmed by the paperwork of the registration, you have no idea of how to do your tax report as a Dutch freelancer, you don’t know where to start and you don’t know what to do and how?

And, what is life as a freelancer like? How many hours will you work and how much money will you make?

Dana Marin, founder of the multimedia website The Amsterdamian, is a successful freelancer herself and in this episode, she is going to share all the insights on how to be a freelancer in the Netherlands.

In this episode, we are going to break two taboos. This is not me saying this, this is what my guest said. Lex van Delft is the founder of de stoute vrouw, the naughty woman, a lesbian escort service agency. That obviously includes sex work and female sexuality which is still an issue for some people or at least something they have a strong opinion on. But Lex van Delft knows that – even though, yes of course, it can also just be sex, pleasure, horniness, fun and a good time – her agency offers so much more than that.

In the patriarchy, anyone who is not white, straight and cis-male, has to work extra hard to make it in this world. But for women of color, it is even more difficult. Due to lack of support and chances, the feeling of constantly swimming against the current and the lack of role models.

This is why Sela Graaven wants to introduce the world to women of color who have made it on their own terms. With womenselfmade, a platform and a podcast for women of color and allies.

The film industry is one of the best (or the worst if you will) examples of male domination and the male gaze. Female actresses earn significantly less than their male counterparts and the amount of women behind the camera is minimal in comparison.

That is the status quo. But it is not the future. Because there are women in the industry who are determined to break this system. Women like Valentina El Harizi want to create a film industry with a real representation of the complexity of society, the world, and yes, women.

Would a Person of Color in the Netherlands feel safe enough to report an incident of discrimination at their workplace? Would a muslim woman with a hijab understand Dutch police as a safe enough space for her to report an islamophobic attack?

Just because certain systems are in place doesn't mean they work for everybody. Sometimes, it might be safer to keep quiet to avoid even more hate, aggression or abuse.

Geraldine Moodley is a human rights lawyer and founder of her own company in which she trains, advises and consults with organisations in developing a tangible strategy and execution for diversity, inclusion and leadership.

And together, we are going to take a good long hard look at the Netherlands and the systems that it has put in place.

Did you know that when you ask AI to visualize a professional, less than 20 % are women? In other words: If you tell AI: Show me an image of a pilot, an astronaut, a doctor, most of the results are images of white cis-male.

But now, there is Miss Journey. And Helen Pink, my guest for today, is going to explain what Miss Journey has to do with AI and why we all need to be critical in the use of AI in general.

Sex is everywhere in Amsterdam. At least, so it seems in the Red Light District, with the windows, live sex shows, and in souvenir shops with genitalia-shaped candy. Everything is legal, no big deal and everyone is cool with it. At least, this is the image that the Netherlands wants the world to have.

I am sure you already guessed it. It is not that easy. Because even though sex work is – technically – legal in the Netherlands, there are a lof of rules and restrictions as well as issues such as exploitation and human trafficking. The entire system is complex, to say the least.

My guest knows the system really well. Violet is a sex worker herself and a coordinator at Prostitution Information Centre in the Red Light District. Please note, Violet is not her real name. And she is going to help us understand how sex work in the Netherlands works, if the society is really as accepting as it seems and which changes she would like to see in the industry.

Traveling with kids is always stressful. Parents hardly have the time to enjoy themselves when they are going on a citytrip with kids, for example. Let Debora Dielingen help you. The founder of Wanderlust Mama & Co offers kid-friendly tours in Amsterdam to entertain your kids and to give you a relaxed time.

Also, don't bother either to bring all your baby gear to Amsterdam. That's just unnecessary luggage and too much of a hazzle. Because with Rent Baby Gear, she also has a solution for that.

All in all, Debora Dielingen offers you a worry-free package for your trip to Amsterdam with your kids.

Girls and women with a disability are rarely seen in Dutch media, in campaigns or in pop culture. And if they are shown, then they are often reduced to only one thing: Their disability. Sophie-Anne Onland knows that girls and women with a disability are so much more and that they are capable of so many amazing things. This is why she wants to be a role model. With her public work, her speeches and her activism, she wants to help empower girls and women with a disability in the Netherlands.

On July 17, 2014, Flight MH17 takes off from Amsterdam bound for the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. But the plane with 298 people on board never arrives.

The route takes Flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine, where an armed conflict is raging between the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian separatists. Civil aviation is banned from flying at low altitudes. But MH17 is flying ten kilometers above the ground. At 1:20 p.m. Dutch time, the plane disappears from radar. A ground missile explodes next to the plane and rips it apart. No one on board survives.

My guest for today, Ria van der Steen, was personally affected by this tragedy as she has lost family members in the crash. But she is also the one that dares to speak up against the people that are responsible for this.

We have probably all been there at some point, when we were a teenager. We felt like the world is against us and nobody can really understand us. We felt like we were not being heard. Many children and young people in the Netherlands share the same feeling – and they are in fact probably not being heard – because they have a certain cultural background, social class or they are from a certain neighborhood.

Even more important that these kids have someone that really listens and supports them. Those are the credible messengers of the organization ADAMAS. Street workers, criminologists, psychologists. And my guest for today, Drita Hajdini, is one of them.

** Drita Hajdini also wishes to point out that ADAMAS operates preventively**

If you live in Amsterdam Oost, you have probably come across the Javaplein, the Javastraat or the Molukkenstraat. Right at Amsterdam Central Station, there is the gebouw Batavia. And if you have ever visited Hoorn, then you have probably walked past a statue of a man called Jan Pieterszoon Coen. The history of Indonesia, as it is called today, Nederlands Oost Indie, as it was called in the past, is linked to the Netherlands, but in a much darker way as the country seems to want to admit.

Only slowly, this topic becomes a part of the public discussions.

One of the organizations that makes sure that the topic gets the attention it deserves is the Indisch Herinneringscentrum in The Hague. Yulia Pattopang works there and today, she is going to talk with us about the Dutch colonialism, historical reappraisal and the educational work of her organisation.

Amsterdam breathes history. I am sure you have already visited the Rijksmuseum, the van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank House. Maybe you even took a boat tour and learned everything there is to know about this city and this country. But is it really everything?

What about the history of Jewish people before the 20th century? Or the history of women? The history of queer people or people with disabilities?

When we look at these stories, Amsterdam still has plenty of hidden gems to offer.

And Elyzabeth Gorman is ready to find all of them for us. She started Amsterdam Badass Tours and she offers guided tours and customized tours that focus on People of Color in Amsterdam, women, Jewish people and all the stories that tend to be overheard and overlooked.

There are so many benefits in networking, but still it seems that as women we still sometimes struggle with it. Maybe because we see other women as competition, maybe we feel like we are simply too shy or we just don't know how and where to start. Helen Pink knows: Networking for women is about quality, not quantity. And each woman just needs to find the way of networking that is right for her.

But in the end, networking is female empowerment and we can all only benefit from that.

When we hear about racial profiling and police brutality, we often think of the US. But these problems also exist in the Netherlands. On the street, during protests, or by institutions. In the daily life of way too many people.

One person that knows this all too well is my guest Marisella de Cuba who works for Controle Alt Delete that wants to fight ethnic profiling in the Netherlands.

Loverboys trick women into sexwork by making them believe that they are in a relation and that they are doing this out of love for their partner. And this happens more often than we think, and surely not only in the Netherlands. 

Esther Ehlting is a victim of a loverboy and a survivor of forced prostitution and now she wants to help other girls and women in the Netherlands. 

Not getting a house because of the way you look. Being stopped by the police because of the way you look. Being physically attacked because of the way you look.

If you never had any of these experiences, then there is a good chance that you are white.

The city of Amsterdam prides itself of being a home to more than 170 nationalities, but they clearly do not all have the same every day life realities.

Because institutional racism is still a huge problem in the Netherlands.

Only centuries after slavery, slave trading and colonialism, the recognition of these events in the Netherlands has finally started – but things are still moving rather slow. Too slow. Too many topics are still not discussed, too many Dutch people are not informed about their countries past, too many Black people in the Dutch history remain unseen and too many issues of today’s Black community are not adressed.

The Black Archives want to change that.

There are so many ways to tell a story. In a book, in music, face to face, in podcasts, like this one. Or in movies. Sometimes, these movies manage to change our perspective on the world we live in and sometimes they manage to open our eyes.

Those are the movies that matter.

Movies that matter is a film festival in the Netherlands and Julie Nederkoorn, my guest for today, is going to tell us more about it.

Instructions for the giveaway:

Follow @moviesthatmatterfestival and @amsterdamespodcast. 

When I post this episode, you can comment and tag a person that you would like to take to the festival. And please don’t forget the hashtag #MtMF23.

When was the last time you ordered something online? Maybe on bol.com or by H&M? When was the last time you went to the supermarket, to Albert Heijn for example, or that you bought flowers? Or the last time that you received a parcel by Post NL? All of these examples are usual things to do, for us who live in the Netherlands. We do not even conciously think about it. And we definitely do not think about the people who work in the background of these companies, in the factories or distribution centers. Well, maybe we should.

Hassnae Bouazza is a journalist and author oft he new book „arbeidsmigranten in Nederland“ migrant workers in the Netherlands and she is going to explain where most labour migrants come from, what the work conditions look like and why this kind of exploitation seems to be accepted by large parts of the society.

Dear listeners,

first of all, let me wish you a happy, healthy and successful new year 2023. I hope that this year is going to be everything that you need it and want it to be.

Second of all, thank you very much for being such a strong supporter of my work and of all the amazing women that have spoken on this podcast. I greatly appreciate every single person that has listened to one or more episodes, has subscribed to this podcast and has shared it with the world.

AmsterDames will take a bit of a break – two months to be precise – as I will be working on a project outside of the Netherlands. But don’t worry, AmsterDames will come back, probably in March.

Until then, take good care of yourself and if you come across more inspiring women in the Netherlands that need to be interviewed for AmsterDames, please let me know.

For months and years even, the right to have an abortion has caused heated discussions all over the world. In Poland, women took to the streets to demand their right to have an abortion. In the US, this right was recently taken away from them.

But even though in the Netherlands, abortions are theoretically legal and there are abortion clinics available at least in the cities, not everything goes smoothly. Conservatives pro-life voices have become louder in the past years and the access to an abortion is not the easy path it seems to be.

Ava wants to change that. This organisation stands up for people‘s interests regarding abortion and contraception.

For those among us who do not have a law degree, legal issues can be quite overwhelming. But it is still very likely that we will have to face them at some point in our life. Maybe after being fired, getting divorced and when we wish to take someone to court who caused us harm.

Then it is important to know our rights. But if we don’t know them, there is a place that can help. It is called the vrouwenrechtswinkel. Raja Azaroual is a lawyer, working at the vrouwenrechtswinkel and today she is going to explain the legal situation of women in the Netherlands and what still needs to improve.

Additional info: Vrouwenrechtswinkel is an initiative of Bureau Clara Wichmann together with the Law Hub of the University of Amsterdam and is subsidized by the city of Amsterdam

Food always brings people together. During a family dinner, a religious holiday or birthdays. Also, living in a foreign country, most of us have probably experienced the feeling of loneliness in one way or another.

So why not bringing these two things together: food and making new friends?

This is exactly what Samantha Wolfson is trying to do with her project And the Table.

& the Table

Babies and children grow out of their clothes insanely fast. So, what are parents supposed to do? Buy new outfits every other week? And what happens to the old clothes that were barely worn. Puck Middelkoop came up with an idea to make the lives of parents a lot easier. 

Sadly, IT is still a field where women are underrepresented – for multiple reasons. But there is a woman who wants to change that. After graduating from a Coding Bootcamp herself in 2017, Valerie Fuchs founded Cafe Robot that aims to be a little different to your usual tech community.

Book Recommendations

“Broad Band - the untold story of the women who made the Internet” by Claire L Evans
“Brotopia - breaking up the boys club of Silicon Valley” by Emily Chang

Links

Frederike Geerdink is a Dutch journalist who specializes in reporting on Kurdish people and political issues in Turkey. Her work has been nominated for the Brusseprijs, an annual prize for the best journalistic book in the Netherlands. The nomination stated, Fréderike Geerdink is one of those courageous Dutch journalists who do their work in dangerous conflict zones. Her book became a both political and beautiful personal account of the struggle for self determination in Turkish Kurdistan.

There are certain rules that our society follows that we accept as a given. We do not think much about it. One of these rules is the following one: A person who commits a crime goes to prison. But what if prisons didn't exist? Could you imagine a world without prisons? Rescaled most certainly can, because they are challenging the concept of prisons, offering a replacement: small detentions houses. Veronique Aicha works for Rescaled Netherlands and she explains what this movement wants to achieve. 

Moving to a new place is always a challenge. Especially, when it is a new country. We need to figure out how things work, we need to find a home, apply for a job or fix our health insurance. When all of this is done, then there is the next step. Get to know the locals and find new friends. Often, we find our people in other expats.

When you take this sense of community and you through NFTs and web3 into the mix, then you get house of Peregrine. Founder Mickelle Weber is going to explain the concept and how people can participate.

Art and creative work show who we are. They show how we see the world, they show our ideas and our passion. But also where we come from. But unfortunately, there are still parts of the world that we do not get to see very often in art. Three designers and curators wanted to change that. This is how Non Native Native was born.

Non Native Native is co-founded by designers and curators: Belle Phromchanya, Darunee Terdtoontaveedej, and Honey Kraiwee.

There are a lot of adjectives that are commonly used to describe women. Sexy, beautiful, charming, sweet, hot, cute …. Funny is not one of them. And indeed, on international stages, we mostly see male comedians. But there are two women who have decided to change that and have founded Funny Women Amsterdam.

Today’s episode is about the Dutch afstandsmoeders. Between 1956 and 1984, thousands of unmarried women were forced to give up their babies against their will. Their babies were taken away from them the moment they were born and some of the mothers never got to see their children ever again.

Until today, the investigation and the compensation of it’s victims – the mothers and the children – in the Netherlands have been rather slow.

Dr. Eugenie Smit van Waesberghe is an afstandskind herself and for years and years, she is all over the Dutch media to draw attention to the cases of afstandsmoeders and afstandskinderen.

If you think back on your childhood days, did you play with dolls? What did they look like? Very much like you? But for many children around the world, this is not the case. Because dolls are very often white and able-bodied. But what about dolls with Afro hair, male dolls or dolls with a certain skin condition or Down syndrome? Those can be found in a little shop in Amsterdam Noord, called coloured goodies. Because founder Ellen Brudet knows very well what it was like as a child to not feel represented.

Every day, we are confronted with news. Often so many of them, that it can be quite overwhelming. But it seems, that we often only hear the stories of the same groups of people over and over again. In our world, there are still many people who don’t get a chance to share their stories, experiences and their view of the world. Mira Kinn wanted to change that and has founded the platform correspondents of the world where people from all over the world get the chance to be heard.

When you think of design, what is it that comes to your mind? Maybe something practical that you use every day? Or maybe something very technical around electronic devices?

Shahar Livne is a conceptual material designer and what she wants to achieve with her designs is that people listen to a story. But not only her personal ones. She also tells stories about places, cultures, and relations with resources in the past, present, and future. Her work combines biology with science and philosophy and focuses on material research. Some of her projects even deal with obscure materials such as blood. 

"I don't see color. I only see people"

The Netherlands, or at least the city of Amsterdam, prides itself on being a cultural melting pot. Almost 180 nationalities live here. But is life the same for all of them? People of color, Muslims or disabled people experience situations in their daily life that for example straight white people cannot imagine or are simply not aware of.

Sarita Bajnath is a diversity and inclusion coach, who offers unconscious bias training for us to understand life experiences that lie beyond our own.

Volunteering has become a huge market. Many young people take a gap year to work with children in Africa, Asia or Latin America - very often in orphanages. On social media, they post pictures of themselves with a group of happy children. But unfortunately, it is mostly the volunteers who benefit from this experience. Agencies who organize these volunteering trips exploit the children and the young adults who are very often uninformed. 

Kristen Cheney is an expert on volunteering, voluntourism, international adoption and the white saviour complex and in this episode, she explains what is currently wrong in all these broken systems that exist worldwide.

Since RuPaul's Drag Race on Netflix, Drag has become quite famous. Also in the Netherlands. Even though it has a way longer tradition here. But even if the Netherlands are quite liberal in comparison, things are far from perfect for Drag Queens especially. Danielle Jiskoot, my guest for today has decided to start an agency for Drag artists to support local artists in the Netherlands.

On TV, in magazines and on social media, we are always encouraged to consume. People are standing in line to get the latest iPhone. Physical fights on Black Friday are a very common thing. The fashion industry is no exception there. Stores offer several new collections of clothes multiple times a year, but the clothes we buy for cheap prices usually never last very long. The term for this is fast fashion and it turns out to be extremely harmful to the environment but also to the people that work in this industry. My guests for today are Yophi Ignacia and Dieuwertje de Wagenaar work as country coordinators for the organization Fashion Revolution which wants to change that.