August 7, 2017

Dutch women’s football team European champions

Filed under: Dutch first,Sports by Orangemaster @ 9:57 pm

After an exciting win 4-2 for the ‘Orange Lionesses’ against Denmark yesterday in Enschede, the Dutch women’s football team have won the UEFA Women’s European Championship for the first time.

And while their Amsterdam counterparts had to celebrate their national victory with a small party in their locker room, the Lionesses had some 22,000 people show up in Utrecht to welcome and applaud them. It’s about time this country took notice of how much work goes into women’s sport. Since the Dutch enjoy putting a price tag on everything, the argument of being able to win with much lesser means and ‘less ego’ is appealing even to the sceptics.

Besides having watched this game, I went to my first ever football game recently as well to watch Russia vs. Germany (Germany won 2-0, Russia made too many mistakes). I had a great time and didn’t feel at any moment that I was watching a lesser sport or that I couldn’t cheer for Russia because German fans were there, too. Everybody was having a great time despite the lousy weather. It was exactly what live football should be: fun for everyone.

Here’s a glimpse of the canal boat with Lionesses on board:

(Photo of flag by Wikimedia user Carolus Ludovicus, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

March 27, 2017

Top 15 richest Dutch artists are all men

Filed under: General,Music by Orangemaster @ 8:20 pm

Dutch magazine Quote’s list of 15 richest Dutch artists are all men, and with the exception of Afrojack having one Surinamese parent, they are all white. Six of them are DJs, five of them are Dutch-language singers, two of which are gay (one of them is a bit racist). The rest of these artists work in the classic music industry, with one in popular music.

The kicker is explaining the success factor of these artists, according to ING bank economist Marten van Garderen. “An important success factor is having good role models to follow. The world’s best football players like Messi and Neymar inspire children to play football. It’s like that as well in the world of dance music. Children grow up with Tiësto and want to be like him”.

Girls need role models as well, but this economist painfully points out that they are none at the top of the entertainment business in this country. Girls don’t usually grow up or aspire to be male professional football players, dude. Basically Van Garderen has confirmed to half the country’s population that girls have no role models to follow and because of it won’t make this list any time soon. That also goes for anyone who’s not white apparently.

15. Jaap van Zweden (conductor)
14. John Ewbank (composer)
13. Gordon (singer)
12. Ferry Corsten (DJ)
11. Hardwell (DJ)
10. Gerard Joling (singer)
9. René Froger (singer)
8. Jan Smit (singer)
7. Martin Garrix (DJ)
6. Afrojack (DJ)
5. Frans Bauer (singer)
4. Wessel van Diepen (radio host)
3. André Rieu (conductor)
2. Armin van Buuren (DJ)
1. Tiësto (DJ)

Last year, Quote’s top 15 was ever so slightly more diverse, while the first woman at 21 was paired up with a man. Quote’s 2015 list of Richest Women on Earth basically says women luck out with a good marriage or an inheritance in a tone that implies that’s all they can do.

(Link: deondernemer.nl)

Tags: , , , ,

March 13, 2017

‘Dutch girls not interested in STEM subjects’

Filed under: General,Science by Orangemaster @ 10:00 pm

According to a survey carried out by Microsoft among 11,500 girls and women from 11 European countries including Russia, the Dutch are the most unsure of themselves when it comes to STEM subjects. Some 1,000 girls and women from the ages of 11 to 30 were interviewed at length for this survey.

More than 50% of the Dutch girls and women estimated their knowledge to be less than that of the other countries and 40% said their knowledge fell short of what it should be. Dutch girls were also quicker to claim their disinterest for STEM subjects, one year earlier than their European peers, apparently due to a lack of female role models since 60% of STEM-related teachers in the Netherlands are men. As well, some 31% of the girls talk to their mothers about STEM subjects and 33% to their fathers, while in the rest of Europe, 38% of the girls talk to their mothers and 37% talk to their fathers.

(Link: nieuws.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

January 20, 2017

Sisters give birth twice on the same day

Filed under: Health,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:07 pm

Two sisters from the region of Twente, Overijssel have recently given birth on the same day. In fact, this is the second time the sisters have given birth on the same day. And that’s not all: Jennie and Gerita have actually been pregnant three times at the same time. Sadly, the first time they both were pregnant Jannie had a miscarriage and Gerita had an ectopic pregnancy.

A year later, Gerita told Jennie she was pregnant again and Jennie’s mouth fell open: she was pregnant as well and as a precaution hadn’t told anybody yet. And they had their babies on the same day.

Both sisters ended up giving birth on the same day the third time around as well. However, due to complications with Gerita’s pregnancy, her baby was to be born one week earlier than planned, which was one day before Jannie’s baby was to be delivered. Both children were eventually born on the same day.

They both joked that it’s going to be very complicated with birthday parties for quite some time.

(Link: telegraaf.nl, Photo of Crying baby by Chalky Lives, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

April 5, 2016

Lots of women for Captain Iglo job

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 9:59 pm

Volendam

Dutch frozen fish company Iglo’s search for the new Captain Iglo (Kapitein Iglo) continues with 30 candidates wanting the job, including 10 women and even a 9 year old girl. The rest were men, young and old, with and without beards. The candidates were subjected to a jury of children during a boat trip around Amsterdam.

Tiemen, the oldest man who applied, was 72 and resembled the already existing bearded captain, but one of the favourites with the jury was 30 year old Samira, a Dutch-Moroccan woman. Part of the selection process included handing out fish sticks to kids, and Samira went one further and brought her own homemade dipping sauce.

Knowing that the Netherlands has never had their own Captain Iglo, going with Tiemen would mean nothing new for the brand and although a safe bet, would reinforce the idea that women and men without beards were wasting their time applying. However, choosing a woman could really spice up the brand’s image and give the marketing people lots of new angles. Let’s see how that plays out.

(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Photo of Volendam by quantz, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

March 16, 2016

Women in Amsterdam council told what to wear

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:52 am

An e-mail written by the team leader of the district council of Nieuw-West in Amsterdam has told women they cannot wear ‘skirts/dresses above the knee’ and ‘knee-high boots’ if they work at the council office counter, where citizens come and get municipal permits and documents. By extension, if this were to be applied, they might have to fear for their jobs. And a happy belated International Women’s Day to you, too.

Assuming the team leader is a man, although their identity is currently being investigated, he has no power to tell women or anyone else what to wear, which clearly goes against the regulations of the city of Amsterdam as a whole. Questions are being asked by local politicians we know personally about these ‘absurd’ rules that target women. The assumption being made is that Nieuw-West, a district with a large Muslim population, is trying to spare them the view of decadent Western women as spring approaches, but nobody asked their opinion. Assumption number three is that the team leader saw a short skirt with knee-high boots that ‘bothered’ him, to use 1920s parlance, and so he decided to attack all women and offend a lot of men in the process.

Why fill in an entire group’s opinion without asking them? Not a single letter of complaint can be found at the offices, either. Sadly, Nieuw-West is the butt of many jokes, despite having a vibrantly diverse community. If it had more bars and wasn’t so far from the city centre, it could be my kind of ‘hood. It’s cheaper that most places, has big green parks, world-class street art, and food markets that makes you feel like you’re not in Amsterdam. But it takes one absurd e-mail to give the Dutch Internet a reason to trash Nieuw-West and attack its Muslim community.

Maybe this team leader needs to take a course on how to deal with his 1950s view on women in the workplace and not try and change the world around him to suit his backwards views.

UPDATE: The team leader was actually a woman who saw a colleague wearing a skirt she found too short, but instead of communicating with her one on one like a normal person, she felt an email that would cause an unnecessary stir was the way to go.

(Link: www.nu.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

February 6, 2016

Van Gogh exhibition free for women in high heels

Filed under: Art by Orangemaster @ 7:36 pm

A multimedia Van Gogh exhibition in Moscow is letting women with high heels in for free and giving 50% off to men named ‘Sergey’ inspired by a music video of the band Leningrad and their song ‘Exponat’, a fact most sources have failed to mentioned altogether. Shame on you all because the video is funny, although yes funnier if you understand Russian like I do. And it’s been viewed 34 million times and counting.

In an attempt to pick the right outfit for a date to a Van Gogh exhibition with an eligible older man, a woman realises what she really needs is a pair of Louboutin high heels. And that goes horribly wrong.

The video features modern Russian humour and has jokes about a very pretty yet insecure woman worried about everything, including her butt. Luckily her mom is there to help her fit into her skinny jeans. And that goes horribly wrong, too.

(Links: www.thestar.com, www.usnews.com)

Tags: , , , , ,

November 12, 2015

Law firm compared to escort service because of women

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:00 pm

An Amsterdam legal firm made up entirely of women was compared to an escort service in a tweet by a well-known legal business publication based solely on a recent firm picture. The tweet reads “Marketing question: legal firm or escort service?” and was met with astonishment and disgust by men and women alike. The photo has five of the firm’s lawyers sitting on and around a couch surrounding the managing partner, Marielle Van Essen.

Van Essen said she could not understand why colleagues would imagine it’s OK to call them prostitutes. “We like to look good, that’s all. If other people want to wear a sloppy suit, they can. This is what we do.” On Twitter there are parodies popping up, with pictures of policewomen being compared to hookers and doctors to whores to drive the point home. Many people commenting also wonder if it was a case of the dumb, young white male intern trying to be funny, but the publication has refused to comment or rectify anything. Trashing lawyers because they’re women is someone’s idea of normal in 2015 and it shouldn’t be.

This would be a non-topic if it was a bunch of men. It is free publicity, but the firm has more work than they can handle with Van Essen herself stuck at home with the flu as I write this.

(Link: www.ad.nl, Photo of wilted tulip by Graham Keen, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

October 19, 2015

Women brew successful provocative beer

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 3:25 pm

Kutbier

This summer I read an American article on how misogynistic craft brew names are putting off women and surely some men, as the men making the beer think it’s hip to appeal to men not by making good beer, but by trashing women as a gender to sell it. Hint: it’s not and you’re boring.

Two Dutch women from Noord-Brabant have gone viral brewing a beer called ‘kutbier’ (literally ‘cunt beer’), which has a different flavour of swearing than you might think. In any case, it’s not retarded enough to trash men or women as a gender to sell their beer.

‘Kut’ (‘cunt’), swear word used like ‘shit’, ‘damn’ or even ‘balls’ or ‘fuck’, but meaning ‘cunt’ and used constantly as a noun, adjective, adverb, etc. when you stub your toe or forget something important at home on your way to work. Since the New Kids films, the word is associated with the province of Noord-Brabant, but in the case of this beer, it’s alluding to the women brewing it.

Brewers Janneke Pieters and Mary-Jane Snelders of the Boegbeeld brewery in Den Bosch claim to brew an ode to the real Den Bosch woman. Their first run of 1000 bottles sold out in six days and has overwhelmed the pair. It’s a blond beer with prunes and some coriander seeds, which took them six months to perfect. In December they’ll be making more of it, which stands to be just as popular if not more.

We want some too, kut.

(Link and photo: www.omroepbrabant.nl)

Tags: , ,

October 14, 2015

Biggest bra sizes and interesting condom purchases

Filed under: General,Health by Orangemaster @ 2:06 pm
bra

Dutch online lingerie shop Pabo.nl, also Europe’s biggest, conducted its own survey into who has the biggest boobs and the longest dongs per province, something to briefly take your mind off the fact that the Netherlands is not playing in the European Football Champs this summer.

Women in Zeeland have lots of cup A fans, but Utrecht takes the win for the smallest boobs overall. However, Zeeland has about 10% of women ordering cup F, which no other province has. The cup B fans come from Flevoland, the C cups are for Utrecht, D cups Overijssel, and most of the bigger sizes go to Groningen in the lead for Cup E.

If you believe in condoms sales as a size indicator, North Holland and Friesland buy the biggest condoms. Friesland stands out as a province that buys twice as many flavoured condoms as the rest of the country. I wonder if they’re orange flavoured.

(Link: www.bndestem.nl, photo: ecollo.com)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,