The dark side of Aletta Jacobs
An imperfect
hero
Door Christien Boomsma
By Christien Boomsma
Christien Boomsma
Christien is sinds 2016 achtergrondcoördinator bij UKrant. Ze plant de achtergrondverhalen en begeleidt de auteurs. Bij haar eigen verhalen ligt de focus op wetenschap en academisch leven. Daarnaast schrijft ze veel over onderwerpen als sociale veiligheid en maakt ze graag persoonlijke interviews. In haar vrije tijd schrijft ze jeugdboeken en geeft schrijftrainingen.She was shocked.
Retired modern history professor Mineke Bosch had spent years studying international women’s movements and Aletta Jacobs. When, in 2019, she was asked to join a committee that would be tasked with getting Aletta a statue at the Hofvijver in The Hague, next to Willem II and Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, she jumped at the chance.
It was an important job. Men dominate public space, and women are often missing. This project felt like a way to get even.
But the artist refused to make the statue. ‘She said that she’d read my biography of Aletta Jacobs and noticed that she was racist.’
‘I was shocked’, she says. ‘It’s certainly true that she has made racist statements. But she systematically fought against unjust gender differences and was a champion of women’s rights. That was extremely courageous and important.’
But Aletta never got a statue at the Hofvijver.
Painful
She hears it ‘a little too often’, says Bosch. A teacher told her about a guide at the University Museum who called Aletta racist in front of the children that were visiting. Or people leave comments on articles on Aletta.
It’s painful to her. Because in the meantime, statues of people like Jan Pieterszoon Coen remain, even though he slaughtered people on the Banda islands. And Petrus Regout, who exploited his employees, often children, can still be admired in Maastricht.
Nearly everyone had ideas that are no longer acceptable
~ Mineke Bosch
She does feel the debate about our ‘controversial heritage’ is important, and useful. ‘But it’s impossible to even have a debate about women’s controversial heritage, because it barely even exists.’
If we’re supposed to cancel everyone because they had ideas that are no longer acceptable, no historical figures would be safe. ‘You have to historicise everyone individually’, she says. ‘And contextualise them. If we keep going like this, we won’t ever be able to honour anyone ever again, since almost everyone had opinions that we feel very differently about nowadays.’
Letters
It’s all about the letters that Aletta wrote during her world travels in 1911 and 1912 through Africa, Asia, and Russia. Her goal was to meet with women outside Europe and encourage the fight for women’s rights in the rest of the world.
However, her letters also show the world views of an affluent white woman in the early twentieth century. In Cape Town, she encounters people of different ‘races’: ‘The small, fine-boned, monkey-like Bushmen and their women, the Hottentots, the Zulus, the Basuto, the Kaffir, and other coloureds are trying to copy the Europeans by wearing their clothes and using their mannerisms, which often makes them look utterly ridiculous’, she wrote.
She finds the children endearing and gives them chocolate. But she also writes the following in a joking manner: ‘Mrs. Catt has said that she wants one of those small negroes for her birthday, but only if they never grow any bigger.’
Elsewhere in her letters, she is shown to have good intentions. She writes how people shoot her disapproving looks ‘because I treat the coloured people like equals’.
However, she also says: ‘It will take a while for the South African people to see that black people are also our brothers and sisters. However, they are still a step below us in their development, which is why they need our help and support in the first place.’
Common
Her words are certainly painful. Bosch wrote an article about it back in 1999, in the Journal of Women’s History. She also devoted a chapter to it in her biography of Aletta. Aletta’s statements showcase a sense of superiority and a hierarchical view of other peoples that are completely unacceptable nowadays. However, says Bosch: ‘In those days, it was incredibly common.’
People turned a blind eye because she represented the cause of women
~ Anjana Singh
Just like her contemporaries, Aletta Jacobs had an Orientalist view on things, which turned the Other into a lesser being and elevates the Self. ‘Very few people have been able to escape the discourse of their times’, says Bosch.
Western thinking, which included the women’s emancipation movement, was heavily influenced by the theory of evolution. It was a way to get rid of prejudiced from the past as well as religion. Bosch is worried that if people start calling Aletta Jacobs a racist, she’ll be erased from the Netherlands’ historical canon, when she and her colleagues have worked so hard to get her recognised. ‘Even now, she’s more an exception to the rule. Students today are still being taught that the only women who matter are queens or famous men’s mistresses.’
Leniency
However, other people feel that Aletta has been put on a pedestal for too long. Such as historian Anjana Singh, who will be presenting her research on Groningen’s history with slavery at the end of this month. ‘In the past Aletta Jacobs has been dealt with leniency’, she says. ‘Although people knew that she was a racist, she was tolerated and honoured and people were willing to turn a blind eye to her racism because she represented the cause of women.’
And as far as Singh is concerned, it’s crystal clear that the things Aletta wrote are racist. ‘She uses the word “monkey-like”’, she emphasises. ‘She is dehumanising the people.’
History student and former secretary for Black Ladies of Groningen Bahati Nyahunzvi agrees. She was genuinely shocked when she heard about the feminist icon’s ‘other side’ around the time the Aletta Jacobs mural was being unveiled. ‘I was upset’, she says. ‘And I rallied pretty strongly for a fuller picture to be presented. But the more that I’ve interacted with people, the more I realised it’s also important to be tactical.’
She is a Zimbabwean native, and some of Aletta’s remarks feel almost personal. Like the moment Aletta describes her visit to Victoria Falls and comments on the chambermaids, saying they look like ‘naked boys, dressed in nothing but swim shorts. However, they are perfect chambermaids, perfect in their work, except not very good at fastening the back of a gown or blouse’. ‘I am a black woman and it’s interesting to me that someone could so easily reduce me. That people can know that this exists, and have no problem with it.’
She now knows that people prefer to look away when something makes them uncomfortable. Or they make excuses. ‘They will say, “Oh, she wasn’t racist, she only said racist things,” because that allows you to continue to bolster her.’
The whole picture
But she’d hoped the university would do better. She feels that, in an academic environment, students should be shown the whole picture, allowing them to form their own opinions.
But nowhere on the UG website does Aletta’s ‘other’ side get mentioned. And while the University Museum has printed a small sheet with two of Aletta’s more questionable statements, the permanent exhibition, which was updated in 2018, only mentions the more well-known facts: Aletta’s studies, her battle for women’s suffrage, her world travels.’ ‘But the context is missing. And to me, personally, that is a little slighting’, says Bahati.
You can be an amazing person, but still have racist views which inform your research
~ Bahati Nyahunzvi
So what are we supposed to do? Should we cancel the woman who’s done so much for women’s rights? Remove her bust from in front of the Harmonie building and paint over her mural?
‘I don’t believe in cancel culture’, says Singh. ‘But the truth needs to be brought out. People need to know how prevalent racism was and how racist most of our heroes were. We need to bring such questions into public discussions.’
She thinks it’s only right that the artist refused to create a statue of Aletta Jacobs. But she doesn’t agree with the fact that it was never discussed again. ‘And now we are discussing it again. Are we going to keep repeating our mistakes and tolerating racism? Glorifying false heroes?’
Amazing things
Bahati isn’t as strict as Singh. Statues are fine, she says, because ‘she did amazing things’. She’s more concerned about the partial picture that is being painted of Aletta. ‘I can understand why it will be tricky to market the fact that she has some aspects of her that are unsavoury. But it’s important to give context, so people have a fuller picture.’
Just like Singh, she emphasises that Aletta Jacobs wasn’t the only one with racist views back then. But it’s important to realise how this impacted her other work. ‘It’s also important to realise that two things can be true at the same time. You can be an amazing and accomplished person, but still have racist views which inform your research.’
We definitely don’t want to cancel her, but we have to add some nuances
~ Lars Hendrikman
The best solution would probably be to see Aletta as a product of her time and provide a clearer picture of who she was and what that time was like. Cancelling her would render any discussion impossible, says Tim Huijgen. ‘I am absolutely against that.’
The historian and teacher trainer focuses on contextualising historical knowledge in education. ‘When people are confronted with these kinds of things, it causes a cognitive conflict’, he says. ‘People tend to use the present as a framework when they look at the past. But that’s a slippery slope.’
He’s not trying to trivialise or defend Aletta’s ideas. But we don’t have to, he says. ‘You need to inform people on what it was like back then.’ Tell them about people’s worldviews back then, and the political situation. ‘Then you can go back and re-examine the issue. Has this changed your views? Do you still think Aletta is a hero?’
People don’t have to agree with each other, but it can help if they see themselves in someone else’s shoes, to understand the situation better.
No hiding
That’s something the University Museum’s new director, Lars Hendrikman, absolutely plans on doing. He was surprised to see the limited information on display in the current Aletta Jacobs exhibit. ‘For the next exhibit, I would want to give a more complete picture’, he says. ‘We can appreciate and embrace Aletta’s accomplishments without hiding the darker side of her’, he says.
A curriculum that is currently in development will also include it. ‘We don’t want to cancel her, not at all. But we definitely have to add a little nuance, keeping the academic and historical context in mind.’
Bosch will be relieved. It’s not that she’s blind to Aletta’s ‘darker’ side. In her biography, she’s honest about the fact that Aletta’s colonial views shaped the feminism she expounded. At the same time, her feminism’s ‘constant repetition of development schemes and their accompanying hierarchies led to inequality and racism’.
Too bourgeois
But she feels we should be cautious in cancelling or dismissing people. ‘We might as well get rid of all of history.’ She remembers how the then socialist board of directors thought Aletta Jacobs was ‘too bourgeois’. ‘Perhaps people today think she’s too white. But she’s so much more. Anyone who wants to take intersectionality seriously should consider that as well.’
She may not be a hero that we should be putting on pedestal. But she was a flesh-and-blood woman who had radical ideas on some things, and less than radical ideas on others.
As far as Singh’s concerned, perhaps we should stop looking to the past for heroes. ‘Aletta Jacobs lived in deeply racist times’, she says. ‘Why is it necessary to look into the past and get heroes from there? If the past is dark and dirty, let’s call it that and move on to create equality and fight against racism. Heroes can be made out of contemporary times too. Create heroes on better standards. Otherwise, it’s better not to have heroes.’
You can find Aletta Jacobs’ letters online here.
Mineke Bosch wrote a biography of Aletta Jacobs (in Dutch): Aletta Jacobs 1854-1929, een onwrikbaar geloof in rechtvaardigheid (Uitgeverij Balans, 2005)