Aletta Jacobs Prize for 'SuperPloumen'
'We've come a long way'
Curriculum Vitae
Elisabeth Maria Josepha (Lilianne) Ploumen – pronounced Plooh-men – was born on 12 July 1962 in Maastricht, Limburg. She studied History of Society at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam from 1980 to 1988.
Between 1990 and 2007, Ploumen worked for various development organisations: PLAN, which fights for the rights of children and girls; Mama Cash, an international fund that finances enterprises set up by women; and Cordaid, a Catholic foundation for emergency relief and foreign aid.
After that, she became a politician. Until 2012, Ploumen served as president for the Partij van de Arbeid. In 2012, she became Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Coordination in the Rutte-Asscher cabinet. In her function as minister, she founded SheDecides shortly after Donald Trump became president. With this organisation, she raised approximately 400 million in 2017, for organisations that provide birth control and family planning services to women in developing countries.
In the 2017 election, Ploumen was elected to serve as a Lower House MP due to preferential votes.
Imagine if the great feminist Aletta Jacobs, the Netherlands’ first female physician, were there when Donald Trump became the new president of the United States.
Like the rest of the world, she follows his every move. She sees him put an end to all financial aid to development organisations that provide information on abortions. It’s cause for celebration for all the conservative Americans who elected him, but an intense loss for all the organisations that are fighting for women’s health and reproductive rights.
What would Aletta Jacobs do?
‘She spoke up for women’s rights’, says Dutch Lower House MP Lilianne Ploumen (PvdA). ‘She made sure that as many women as possible had access to diaphragms, a contraceptive.’ Ploumen, who was serving as Foreign Minister when Trump announced his executive order, knew exactly what to do. She founded SheDecides, a fund to help organisations fighting for sexual education and equal rights for women.
Pioneer
This week, Ploumen will be awarded the Aletta Jacobs Prize. Once every two years, the RUG gives this award to an academically trained woman for being a pioneer for emancipation. Previous winners include Arabist Petra Stienen, former minister Els Borst, and European Commission member Neelie Kroes. ‘It’s amazing’, says Ploumen. ‘A great group to be a part of.’
Emancipation has always been the overarching theme in her life, the Aletta Jacobs Prize jury said of Ploumen. ‘I am definitely a feminist’, she says decidedly. ‘I always have been, even when it wasn’t popular to be one.’
The negative connotations the ‘f-word’ had, and still has, the nasty remarks about feminazis, that they are women who whine and are never happy – Ploumen couldn’t give a toss. ‘People who aren’t on our side like to use those labels to try and define us. I’m not really bothered’, she says. ‘Don’t ever let anyone try and tell you what it’s like to be a feminist. Create your own definition. It’s about what it means for you.’
Don’t diminish yourself
One important thing, says Ploumen: don’t be too modest. ‘I don’t mean to generalise, but women have the tendency to diminish themselves. Don’t. Show yourself, know your own worth.’ She does admit that this is easier said than done. ‘I’ve had to learn how to negotiate my salary. Fortunately, I was raised to be fairly confident. We were always taught that we weren’t better than other people, but we also weren’t any worse.’
You aren’t better than other people, but you’re also not any worse
There is another theme that defines Ploumens life, from her childhood in a Catholic family in Limburg, to her work for non-profit organisation, and her career in The Hague. ‘My father was a milkman, we weren’t very rich. But we were always told there were places in the world were people lived under terrible circumstances. As long as they aren’t doing well, neither can we.’
So as long as there are still women who aren’t free, safe, or equal, don’t go telling Ploumen that women are doing just fine, or that her activism is old-fashioned. ‘Of course we’ve accomplished a lot over the past hundred years, but look at where we started. There is definitely more work to be done. Take our own country, where women are paid sixteen percent less than men for the same work. Take all the places where women don’t have the same rights as men.’
Support
She is pleased that SheDecides is also gaining traction in these areas. She has just returned from a SheDecides meeting in South Africa, and is being sent pictures from a similar meeting in Delhi. ‘I honestly didn’t expect this level of support. I’d hoped, of course, to get non-western countries to show interest, but I didn’t think it would be this many…’
I’d hoped to get non-western countries to show interest
It all started relatively small, with a ten-million donation by the Dutch government in late January of 2017. Next, Ploumen phoned her fellow ministers in the surrounding countries. Belgium contributed, as did Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Canada. Barely a month after her project launched, Ploumen had the support of forty countries, received multiple compliments and declarations of support, and comedian Arjen Lubach dubbed her ‘SuperPloumen’.
‘I quite liked that’, she chuckles. But she’s not sure she should be called a superhero. ‘But it’s up to other people how they choose to see me, of course.’
‘Abortion fund’
There are people who view her altogether differently. After SheDecides launched, the conservative Christian media called it ‘Ploumen’s abortion fund’. More than a hundred thousand people signed a petition to end the project, because, they said, ‘forcing abortions on African countries is giving the wrong example!’ The Vatican had just given Ploumen an award, after which they hurried to explain that this award had nothing to do with SheDecides and that the Church did not approve of her stand on abortion.
I’ve always been taught my own conscience is the ultimate criterion
‘I’ve been a Catholic my entire life, and for as long as I can remember, I’ve been a staunch proponent of abortion’, Ploumen says simply. ‘Of course these two things can exist side by side. I’ve always been taught that my own conscience is the ultimate criterion. Obviously it’s fine for people to disagree with me, but ownership of your own body and your own life is a basic human right.’
Quacks
On top of that, Trump’s decision will not necessarily lead to fewer abortions. ‘All the organisations’ activities will be affected. Even the ones who only provide information on abortion will lose all their funding.’ This is bad, because these organisations do so much more: they provide sexual education, distribute contraceptives, provide maternity care.
Research has shown that when these services are no longer provided, the number of abortions actually rises. ‘And that’s the really sad thing, because this also means that women have to rely on quacks who don’t perform abortions according to safe procedures.’
What Aletta Jacobs would have done if she were still alive we’ll never know, but Ploumen likes to think she would have supported SheDecides. ‘I do. She was also criticised intensely for what she did for women. Sometimes it almost feels as if very little has changed.’