Marianne Joëls interviewed ‘first women’
Setbacks aren’t necessarily a disaster
She wants to provide examples, to show today’s women and girls that they can do it. More importantly: that it’s okay to fail. ‘You don’t have to succeed at everything you do’, says Marianne Joëls.
Joëls serves as dean of the medical faculty. She is the second woman to take on the job, and the first in fifteen years. She’s also an internationally renowned neuroscientist and the first female chair of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies. And ever since she attended a specialist conference somewhere back in the nineties where the only women were the ones in the audience while one middle-aged white man after another took the stage, she’s felt that women should have just as many chances as men. Just as many opportunities.
You might think everything went smoothly, but it didn’t
This requires role models, and she knows it. Shining examples to convince women that they’re good enough, that they’re smart enough. To that end, she wrote a book. In Baanbreeksters (Trailblazers), she interviews twelve ‘first women’. Twelve women who were the first in their profession or field: Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven, the first female president of the Lower House, Vera Pauw, who was the first woman to obtain the highest coaching certificate, Jeanette Morang as the first female commander of a frigate in the Netherlands.
No straight lines
Joëls says the interviews were inspiring and candid. They had to be, she says. ‘Looking at the Wikipedia pages for these women, you might think everything went smoothly for them. That they got to where they are now in a straight line. But they didn’t.’
Characteristics of trailblazers
- These women often had to overcome shyness in order to ‘get up on the stage’.
- Resilience. These women didn’t let setbacks or difficulties stop them.
- A stimulating environment, facilitated by parents and partners. A partner who constantly reacts negatively to your hard work is an ‘eroding factor’.
Take Jolanda Plomp for example. In 2020, she became the first female director in rail freight transport. She started out by studying hospitality, but quickly figured out it wasn’t for her. She was unhappy, perhaps even depressed, stuck at home doing nothing, when a friend convinced her to take a look at a vocational programme for shipping.
Or take Cisca Wijmenga, the first female rector magnificus at the UG, as well as Spinoza Prize winner. As a little girl, her poor health forced her to attend the local high school because the grammar school she wanted to go to was too far away to bike.
Marianne van Praag, who Joëls calls ‘a wise woman’, trained as a teacher, taught Jewish classes, and worked as a tourist guide in Israel until she decided, at forty-five years old, to study to become a rabbi, after which she became one of the first female rabbis in the Netherlands. ‘These women all faced setbacks and misfortune in their private lives and their careers. But that doesn’t have to be a disaster.’
Emulate
This is an essential message to put out there, she says. Everyone needs role models to emulate. People, or in this case, women, who show the world that anything is possible. ‘Stephanie Hottenhuis, the first female KPMG director, put it really nicely: If there’s only woman up on that stage, she may not be that relatable. But if there are a lot of them up there, there’s always someone to emulate.
If there are a lot of women there’s always someone to emulate
Joëls’ first role model was Marie Curie. She remembers a book she received on her eleventh birthday. ‘Something like Treasures of Nature’, she recalls. In between all the pictures of men and their discoveries was Marie Curie, two-time Nobel Prize winner and discoverer of the element radium. ‘It had such an impact on me’, she says. Shortly after, she read the book Curie’s daughter had written about her and realised that Curie was also a mother with a family. It was an ‘incredible eye-opener’.
She had no women in her direct environment that she could look up to, no one to show her the options she had. It wasn’t until she worked in the United States for a while after receiving her PhD that she met her supervisor’s wife: a successful professor who had three children. ‘It was so important for me to be able to talk to her and ask her about the principles that shaped her life.’
Scrutiny
She wants all other women to have the same experience. ‘Whenever I’m asked for a position where I’d be the first woman and I’m not sure, that would be an argument to say yes. It’s important to me that there are good role models.’
There’s this burden of proof weighing you down
But she also knows the pressure can be immense. Even when you break through the glass ceiling, you still end up in a glass house where everything you do is being scrutinised. This applies to women, as well as to minorities who are still fighting for their spot. ‘You don’t just have to do a good job, there’s also this burden of proof weighing you down. You have to convince others, show them that they can do it, too.’
She became dean after it was specifically decided to hire a woman for the position. Afterwards, she heard some people had their doubts. ‘I can easily shrug that off. Once you gain more experience, you gain self-confidence. The same goes for the women in my book. You’ve failed and learned from it.’
Under pressure
She mentions Diana Monissen, the first female director general at the Ministry of Health. ‘She thought she could do good there, that they needed a woman for the job. But a month in, she knew she was all wrong. She was doing a great job, but she was so unhappy.’ Monissed left the position after a year. ‘That bothered her. She realised she didn’t fulfil her duty as a role model. But she went on to be amazingly successful after that.’
She sees how women, mainly those in their thirties, put all that pressure on themselves, feeling like they can’t do anything wrong. ‘I realise now that I did that to myself, as well. But doing difficult things, things you think might be just slightly out of your reach, means you might fail. These women show you can learn from it, pick yourself back up, and become stronger.’
She hopes to teach other women this. ‘I hope the book inspires them and that younger generations can use it. That there are things it can teach them.’