By Ilze Smit, WPF 2010

At the 54th Commission on the Status of Women, more than 3000 NGO representatives gathered together from all around the world, for this historical moment, the 15 years review of the Beijing Platform for Action. Most participants were women. The diversity of this group was overwhelming but did not result in a common goal or a shared strive. That is unfortunate, because a broad movement is needed to get the platform for action implemented.

The different movements were not opposing each other, but they were also not cooperative. They exist next to each other, without exchanging thoughts or searching for shared ideals. There were conflicting interests between the conservative and progressive women groups, difficulties with communicating between the Spanish speaking and English speaking groups, and the youth groups and older participants did not acknowledge the added value of both groups. Too much energy was flowing into internal politics and not enough time for networking, getting to know each other, building further on the movement.

In this field, the Dutch women’s movement can be characterized by the constant reflection on the results in the past, more than thirty years ago. That makes young women and men not feel welcome in the movement, and the ideals of the Dutch women’s movement will never be the ideals of the youth. It is necessary to look for new, generation-bridging ideals, and to build a movement that is open for everyone, independent from achieved results in the past.

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