Without you there isn’t even half of me

What could I possible mean by that? Let me paint you a picture:

• My task as president of ‘Vrouwenbelangen’ is to further the position of women in the Netherlands’ in, basically, every field and concern. To do so, I have to be present at meetings. conferences, zoom-calls. But first I have to be (made) aware that these meetings are slated.
• I am invited by you, whoever ‘you’ are, to various events you organize in your field with your expertise. I show up, I get to really know you, your organization. A bond of co-patriots in women’s rights is built and strengthened. Without your invitations, time and again, I would not know your work, your goals, your field of women’s work and women’s rights.
• I say hi, you say hi. You explain what you are doing. Why you are doing it. This is not necessarily the same ‘you’ as in the above bullet point. It is just how interactions build trust and connection. How you pique my interest. How you point me to where rights of women need to be won.
• The Netherlands, and the world, is full of interesting meetings and get-togethers. Of expert meetings and grass root meetings. It is impossible for me on my own to be aware of all of them, or even to know in time that things are going to happen tomorrow, this week, next month, next year.
• I rely on my members. On Sophie Dunselman, on Joan Houtman, our treasurer, on Lyda Verstegen, on the encouraging words by you, my members, but also by members of other organizations. You help me to be aware of events. You encourage me to travel there and participate.
• You introduce me to people you know in your organization, in other organizations, your contacts at departments.
• You tell me about a meeting taking place, where you feel I should have input.

To make this tale more concrete I will tell you how I came to be warmly and happily welcomed by our new minister of primary education and emancipation yesterday at the Dutch government Side Event of Plan International’s Joyce Brummelman.

Had we met before, her excellency ms Judith Thielen and I? Kind of, but not really. This is how the happy meeting and consultation came about:

• CEDAW committee’s ‘constructive dialogue planned for 1st week of February 2026.
• Meeting Corrine Dettmeyer, vice chair CEDAW committee and committee member Genoveva Tishova at the Kargadoor in Utrecht at the Symposium “Safeguarding Abortion Rights – Dutch Law in Context” on 18 September 2025 organized by the Dutch CEDAW Network.
• Asking these CEDAW members ‘whether the older women of the Netherlands can still hand in a shadow report on the position of women50+ in the Netherlands. Corrinne and Genoveva enthusiastically encouraging me to do so. 3300 words if it is just one organization, if it is a group of organizations 6600 words shadow report allowed. Due no later than end of 2026. Emphatically stating also ‘Good is good enough.’ ‘No need for a perfect report.’
• Then, a shadow report was written by WOUW Amsterdam, TIYE International, Oudere Vrouwen Netwerk, Molukse Vrouwenraad, Vrouwenbelangen en de Nederlandse Vrouwenraad. Rita Naloop van TIYE introduced us to the format of 3 column: Problem; Consequences for women50+; Recommendations. This format helped enormously in bringing our problems across to the CEDAW committee and helped us to not get lost in too many words per problem.
• Travelling to Geneva to be present at the CEDAW constructive dialogue week. Writing and giving an oral statement on two topics, out of the 11 subjects we present in our shadow report:

1. Age needs to be part of the list of grounds on which discrimination is forbidden in Article 1 of our constitution. After all religion and sexual orientation were only added in 2013 to Article 1, so a new addition has a precedent.
2. Pension-care-penalty for women as care is still mostly thrown our way still in Dutch society
3. Later in the consultation I will add ‘health care beyond reproductive age’

NOTE: all 3 of our ‘asks’ are incorporated by the CEDAW committee in their report to our Dutch government.

Are you still with me? The list of one thing leads to another is not finished yet. So please bear with me.

• Meeting the CEDAW committee members, speaking with them in corridors, on street corners and in the plane ride home. Saying goodbye to them before I leave on Friday afternoon, leads to me offering my excel spreadsheet of the Side Events of CSW70 to the Committee Chair, which leads to me be given her email and phone number. Which leads to me inviting her to an event at CSW70, which she intends now to participate in as official CEDAW presence.
• I return home after CEDAW and on Monday morning Quirine Lengkeek (FNV Mondiaal, sekswerkexpertise) contacts me, while convalescing at home, about the meeting of the parliamentary committee on Health, Welfare, Sport the next evening (10 February) on the national ‘women’s health strategy’. I was not aware of this calendar event, and her kind notification gives me time to write a scathing statement on the state of health care for older women, especially vis a vis menopause degradation of health due to loss of natural female hormones.
• I share the letter with some people among which Gulay Fitoz, whom I met in the preparation of CEDAW and again in Geneva as she represented another set of women in the Netherlands with her organizations’ shadow report.
• Gulay asks me whether I intend to be present at this parliamentary debate of the committee. Due to this question, I decide to go.
• I sit on the seats for the public at the parliamentary committee, well ahead of the start of the meeting. Talking to various other ‘public’ around me, when suddenly the director Curative Care is in front of me, to shake my hand and welcome me to this meeting. We met at the reception of the Dutch embassy during CEDAW and agreed to speak on how to further the health of older women. I had not realised he might be accompanying Judith Thielen, minister of health. Even if it stands to reason that he would be her direct advisor during the debate.
• Because of his kind greeting, walking to me from his seat next to Judith Thielen from across the Thorbecke room, she is now aware that I am here, whom I represent, and perhaps who I am.
• Fast forward to yesterday’s Side Event by Plan International’s Joyce Brummelman, who at the moment is also our Dutch Civil Society representative during the CSW negotiations (with full D (diplomat) entrance pass to the UN)
• Judith Thielen is there and I believe this is the moment to walk over to introduce myself properly, which is the polite thing to do after all.
• It also gives me the opportunity to tell her ‘I would like for us to fight standing shoulder to shoulder for women’s rights and especially for menopause health care for women.’ Ms. Thielen acknowledges that she knows about the 3 main topics of our older women shadow report and how they made it into the CEDAW committee report to the Dutch Government.
• I explain that CEDAW can be invoked before a Dutch court. That I intend to use that fact to leverage FREE oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone hormones for women under the Dutch Basic Healthcare system as testosterone prescribed to men IS FREE right now. Not giving women the 3 hormones, we women start losing by the time we reach 40-45, would constitute direct discrimination. After all it is not our fault that women need three different hormones and men only one.
• As soroptimist International members, who observe my exchange with ms. Thielen, note, she seemed very happy to see you. Her face lit up when you approached her.

A long sequence of events, where one thing leads to another. Where YOU ALL are part of this sequence as without Wo=Men’s Nadia van der Linden, Atria’s Paula Thijs,

CEDAW Dutch Network’s Leontine Bijleveld and Petra Snelders, Marjan Wijers and others organizing the Abortion Rights symposium, without the encouragement of my fellow shadow report writers (thank you Christine Nanlohy, Marjan Nieuwerkerk, Bernardine Ensink, Rita Naloop, Sabine Hess, Joke Ruiter-Zwanniken), , without Quirine Lengkeek, without Gulay Fitoz, ms. Thielen would not have known that I exist, let alone recognize me on sight.

THAT is what I mean that without you all, I am not half of me. Please keep pushing me, encouraging me, supporting me, alerting me to where I need to be.

In the end, it will help all 9.1 million women in the Netherlands, and that includes You and Me.