In Search of Our Memory: Gender in the Netherlands Antilles

Abstract

The history of class, race and gender relations is largely under researched for the island territories of Curaçao, Bonaire, St Eustatius, Saba and St Maarten, the group of islands which comprise the Netherlands-Antilles. While there are archival sources which can depict some of this history, much of it remains submerged in our memories due to our self-imposed silences on these social issues. In this paper I extract some of this memory together with fragments of research already carried out, statistical evidence available, and some of the struggles which the feminist movement has waged in regard to oppressive legislation which discriminated against women, to provide a glimpse of this postcolonial variation which also constitutes part of the Caribbean.