October 27, 2010

Female military forced to travel far to buy bras

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 1:35 pm
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Women who work in the Dutch military are obliged to buy their sports bras from a sports good chain called Run Today. However, in the province of North Holland (in and around Den Helder) where most of the female military work and live, there is no Run Today, so women have to travel to Haarlem (about 80 km) or Groningen (about 154 km) to buy their two allocated sports bras for work. The women can also declare their travel expenses and do their bra shopping during work hours.

Marine commanders are upset about this because it’s a waste of time. How stupid is the Ministry of Defense? Let the women buy their bras elsewhere! Run Today, open a store in Den Helder, pronto!

And zibb, I also told you you’re a bit dumb for calling sports bras ‘lingerie’. Imagine if we called jock straps ‘sexy underwear’.

(Link: zibb)

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March 8, 2010

Women with partners prefer part-time jobs

Filed under: General,Science by Branko Collin @ 8:08 am

Dutch women with partners are very happy with their part-time jobs and do not aspire to work full-time, a recent study reveals.

Professor Jan van Ours of the University of Tilburg who performed the study together with Australian researcher Allison Booth, told De Pers: “People often assume that [Dutch] women go for a part-time job to be able to raise children. But women won’t start to work more once the children have grown up. A part-time job is not an intermediate phase, but a goal in itself.”

More than 50% of Dutch women between the ages of 25 and 54 work part-time, FD reports. Within a heterosexual relationship it is often the woman who performs the most household tasks. This doesn’t change if the woman works more.

Meanwhile, the barbarous practice of alimony continues unimpeded in the Netherlands. Sure, let women work part-time, but don’t punish the ex-husband for his ex-wife’s lack of ambition.

See also:

(Photo of Jean Gautherin’s Le Paradis Perdu by Thierry Caro, some rights reserved)

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December 12, 2009

Lost Leyster discovered

Filed under: Art,History by Branko Collin @ 8:31 am

The Frans Hals Museum recently discovered this lost painting by Judith Leyster (1609-1660), the first female Dutch master painter.

The painting depicts a still life of a Chinese vase with flowers. Its Belgian owner, Mrs Luc from Ostend, alerted the museum in August of its existence. Although she was aware art collectors knew about the painting (it is listed in an inventory in Leyster’s husband’s possessions), she was waiting for the right moment to reveal the work, which she originally bought for about 500 euro in the 1970s.

Leyster became a master painter in 1633, the first woman in the West to do so. Her paintings seem inspired by Frans Hals, showing jolly drinkers, musicians and playing children. Both Leyster and Hals had their studios in Haarlem. After Leyster married fellow painter Jan Miense Molenaer in 1636, her output dwindled to a trickle, her last known painting being from 1643 until a few months ago.

The Frans Hals Museum quotes Leyster expert Frima Fox Hofrichter:

Many art historians have often assumed that Judith Leyster gave up painting upon her marriage. With the discovery of the flower still life and its date of 1654, we now have documentation that she continued her career as a painter. It is likely that Leyster moved to still-lives and botanical studies after her marriage, perhaps to split the market with her husband.

The Frans Hals Museum will host a Leyster exhibition from 19 December 2009 till May 9, 2010.

(Link: Parool. Source image: Frans Hals Museum.)

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August 6, 2009

Women have low impact on Dutch work force

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 11:52 am
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As an immigrant, there will always be about 10% of Dutch quirks I will never understand, and one of them is the preponderance of part-time work. It’s very difficult to explain to my friends and family in Canada or elsewhere why it looks like nobody really works here, especially highly educated Dutch women who, as they tell me jokingly at networking events, ‘have men who bring home the real bacon’.

“The Netherlands has the highest rate of part-time workers within the European Union, and it applies to both men and women.” The Dutch also have a very high standard of living which is not reflected in the amount of hours they actually work. I recently read that the Greeks worked the most hours, but earned very little for it. That nonsense about working hard to make money they spoon fed me in North America is one huge myth here in Europe.

“In 2008, nearly half of 15 to 64-year-old Dutch worked on a part-time basis and three quarters of Dutch women work on a part-time basis. In all other EU countries, at least half of working women had full-time jobs.”

My gut says when the Dutch do something spectacularly different than the rest of Europe it’s either brilliant or skewed. In this case, I think it is the latter, and so do many different groups in Dutch society pushing to change this image of women being rather passive members of society. To quote a female television journalist I met recently, “women can always choose to work less and that is not frowned upon, but have to fight if they want to work more”. Ironically, the Christian government is both ‘encouraging’ women to have more children and also trying to make them feel guilty for not becoming top managers. In other words, not only are women hearing two totally different messages, both of them are backwards and do nothing to alleviate the situation of women who want both – just like in the rest of Europe and the Western world.

The usual excuses for this state of affairs includes women automatically taking 100% care of children (tradition), not wanting to let other qualified people handle their children (guilt), not being able to combine motherhood and work (logistics), men not doing their fair share (not my male friends, but other ones), having no ambition (huge cover stories in magazines keep repeating this), foreign women having much more ambition (why do they manage and the Dutch don’t?) and all kinds of other stuff that comes up at parties.

It’s a big ol’ can of worms, it’s complicated, it’s difficult to understand, it’s even tougher to live with, but something is definitely wrong here.

(Link: crossroadsmag.eu, Photo: hamac.fr)

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July 16, 2009

Generic ad insult gays and Amsterdam fans

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:07 pm
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Here’s a scary portion of “maybe the good marketers were on vacation” over at the Dutch bureau for tourism.

I bet you couldn’t guess what this advert was for even if you wanted to. It could be whitening toothpaste. Or Prozac. And you’d be dead wrong.

This advert was designed to encourage American gay men (because they keep telling us lesbians have no money) to come to Amsterdam. Since gay also means happy, everybody is laughing, including a dog (!) and an underaged boy (!!). They threw in an Asian and an ‘African-American’ (chances are they aren’t) like they do in the US. None of these people look Dutch, either.

I asked gay Amsterdam resident and Ph.D. in Sociology Laurent Chambon what he thought of this advert.

“This campaign is idiotic for two reasons. First, it seems like they were afraid of the word ‘gay’ and are playing on the word to disguise what they really want to say, which hurts after spending decades trying to come out of the closet! American gays come to the Netherlands to be themselves and for marihuana, sex, culture, architecture, shopping, design, clubs, etc. That is what we should be selling them.

The second is that they are selling Amsterdam as if it they were selling yogurt, insurance or a family vacation. Amsterdam practically sells itself, but here they are using generic headshots from an image databank.”

(Link and image: volkskrant.nl)

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June 4, 2009

TomTom GPS device goes girly

Filed under: Fashion,Gadgets by Orangemaster @ 10:12 am
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We’ve all heard men and women drive and read maps differently (both have their faults) and that despite all the business talent out there, gagdets are still mostly marketed to men. When electronic products are aimed at women, oblivious marketing people make the thing pink and call it a day.

Dutch GPS brand TomTom decided to jump on the marketing to women bandwagon and came up with the White Pearl, based on the TomTom ONE IQ Routes edition, but a bit different. It’s more luxurious and has ‘special content’ for women.

I’ve used a TomTom often because when I passed my Dutch driving licence this year, we had to use one as part of the exam. By the way, they axed that part of the exam, as we memorised the three routes and ignored the GPS. Basically, driving instructors all bought thousands of TomToms for nothing.

The White Pearl has a matching silk pouch that fits easily into a handbag. It has a ‘Help Me!’ menu and even tells you what lane to be in when things get hairy. The ‘special content’ includes categories that are in English in the Dutch version as well such as “Places to be seen”, “Shop ‘til you drop” and “Everyday fashion”.

The look appeals to me, no question. The content is clearly for “girly girls”, the kind that can’t even a change bike tire and wear high heels all the time. At least, that’s the very icky vibe I get from it. The special content I find insulting and useless, and I know my Dutch girlfriends will totally agree. And they’re the kind of women that drive big motorcycles, kick board of director ass and still look cocktail ready come happy hour.

Of course, the darn thing is more expensive than the regular model: 199 euro instead of about 120-150 euro, and will be available in mid-June. So I’m not sold at all, I find it insulting at first glance, but I would accept it as a gift.

And then the jokes:
– Does it feature a man’s voice that says, “Hey doll, fix your hair and let’s roll!”
– Turn right! NO THE OTHER RIGHT!

UPDATE: Marketing to women means finding out from women what they want, not guessing or letting men fill in the blanks. It remains a mystery why something so simple is so difficult to understand.

(Link and photo: rtl.nl, gadgetrider.eu)

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January 8, 2009

Dutch advert about washing one’s vagina

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 6:14 pm

I thought I had seen everything: adverts with female frontal nudity (very normal occurrence here) and some naked male DJ with his not very impressive kit facing the camera at 9 am in the morning, but this advert just made me stop everything I was doing and post. It’s pushing (no pun intended) a vagina wash product and it is filmed from the between a woman’s legs point of view. Ickeepoo squared.

Besides the obvious OMG (Oh My God!) response I just had, as a woman I am sick and tired of any product advertising that seeks to generate even more useless insecurity in women and their bodies, especially in teenage girls, just to sell a product. Ickeepoo some more.

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November 6, 2007

Pink cab trend hits Tilburg

Filed under: Automobiles,Dutch first by Orangemaster @ 3:24 pm
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Women in and around the city of Tilburg, Noord-Brabant will soon be able to travel in special women’s taxis, it was announced today. The new company, which will operate on the same fare structure as regular cabs, has been founded by local businesswoman Tanja Schollen, who heads the cental station taxi company in Tilburg. The company employs only female drivers and caters exclusively to female clients. The taxi company, called the ‘Pink Lady Cab’, will initially operate with two cars, each of which will have pink roofs. They will work during the day and on weekend nights. “Female customers often indicate they feel safer with a female driver,” Schollen told reporters, “we also expect a lot of clients who for religious reasons prefer not to sit in a car with a strange man.” Female taxi companies have proven to be successful in several major cities in Europe and the Middle East, including London and Dubai.

So I guess after two years in London, trying it out in the Netherlands is a safe bet. Too bad no one has the brains or guts to do this in Amsterdam.

Here is more info over London’s Pink Ladies from 2005.

(Link: earthtimes.org, Photo: Pink Ladies, London)

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June 11, 2007

Dutch women don’t get depressed

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 11:10 am
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In a riff on the book ‘French Women Don’t Get Fat’, a book that explains how French women manage to avoid the treadmill of the gym by skipping along merrily from marché to marché carrying delightful baskets full of good wholesome food, (Dutch! female!) psychologist Ellen de Bruin has published a book called ‘Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed’. The review in the International Herald Tribune seems to be toggling between the ideas that on the one hand the book is a parody, on the other, a serious work.

So why don’t Dutch women get depressed? The review hints at many a contorted explanation, dragging in several stereotypical views of Dutch society. Gay marriage gets a look in (suggesting the Dutch desire for family building) as does the Amsterdam Red Light District (suggesting sexual freedom). And an important element seems to be that Dutch women don’t feel the stress of the need to seduce, and instead dress in lumpy, gender-blurring clothes that are ideal for biking along windy canals.

Meanwhile English (female!) columnist Sarah Sands first discards the suggestion that an English version should be called ‘Why English Women Don’t Get Laid’, then gets bitter:

This is also a country that embraces euthanasia. All those elderly parents in old people’s homes must feel nervous about family visits. And if we have discovered the correct social conditions for human happiness, they are fragile. The cultural clash between Islam and the secular West has been fought ferociously on Dutch soil.

The main problem with this book is that it does not have the obvious appeal of French Women… Many of us would like to be French, at least on the outside. With respect, how many of us wish to be Dutch?

You tell ’em, fatty! ‘Ere, have some Belgian chocolate.

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June 7, 2007

Girls, lose your fear of tunnels!

Filed under: Automobiles,Weird by Orangemaster @ 3:49 pm
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Women who are afraid of driving through tunnels (!?) can practice doing so on Saturday, 9 June in the 6,6 km long Westerscheldetunnel, the longest car tunnel in the Netherlands. The management is holding a women’s day so that they can get used to driving under water. Some 400 women have already signed up. The tunnel people swear it’s a female problem.

The women will drive through the tunnel in a bus (?) and learn about safety in case they ever breakdown. And to make sure it’s a women’s day, massages and manicures will be given as well.

(Link: Bisnis)

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