De vrouw en de vredesbeweging in verband met het vrouwenkiesrecht

In this thoughtful essay, a pioneering Dutch physician examines how the struggle for women’s suffrage became intertwined with the quest for lasting peace. Drawing on the proceedings of an international congress held in 1917, she shows how delegates from many nations saw political enfranchisement as the most powerful tool for preventing future wars, and how even government leaders began to echo that belief.

The writer delves into the notion that men and women possess different instinctive drives—men toward conquest, women toward preservation—and argues that these differences shape each gender’s response to conflict. To illustrate the point, she cites a German study of schoolchildren’s wartime writings, revealing how boys gravitated to images of destruction while girls expressed care and rebuilding. By linking these observations to the broader peace movement, the essay offers a compelling case for why extending the vote to women was seen as essential to a more humane world.