Women's Lib, Continental Style

"From the way he treats us, it is easy to see that God is a man." So said Madame de Tencin, Montesquieu's mistress. Historically hampered by archaic laws and antique moral codes, European women have accepted their lot much more readily than their American counterparts. Recently, however, growing numbers, taking a cue from their more combative sisters across the Atlantic, have launched their attack on male chauvinism.

So far, the most spectacular high jinks of Women's Lib have taken place in The Netherlands. The Dutch fighters, many of them chic and in their 20s, call themselves Dolle Minas, or Mad Minas. The name comes from the appellative that was usually applied to Wilhemina ("Mina") Drucker, a Dutch 19th century suffragette. The Dolle Minas have mirth as well as method in their madness. To attract attention, they burned a corset in front of Mina's statue in Amsterdam. Then they marched through the city and defiantly pinned bright pink ribbons across the portals of men's public toilets as a protest against the lack of similar facilities for women.

The Dolle Minas have also embarked on what amounts to mass sensitivity training for Amsterdam males. In broad daylight, they wolf-whistle at men, visually undress them with dare-me eyes, and call out suggestive remarks. Some have even pinched the guys in a sort of derriere-guard action.

If other European Women's Lib movements do not equal the elan of the Dutch, they all agree on a list of basic goals. To a woman, they demand liberalization of divorce and abortion laws, more widespread dissemination of information on birth control, more effective enforcement of equal-pay-for-equal-work laws (throughout Europe, men often earn 20% to 30% more than women). But each country has individual problems:

SWEDEN. The country is a model for feminist groups around the world. In order to prod husbands into encouraging wives to take a job, the tax laws have been rewritten so that next year married men will be taxed at the same rate as bachelors--a financial jolt to men with non-working wives. Stay-at-home wives are frowned on as "luxury housewives" by the ruling Social Democrats. Sweden's education system recently has been deliberately changed to eliminate the differences in the assumed "sex roles." Schoolboys do needlework and study homemaking, while the girls take courses in auto repair and manual training. "Nobody should be forced into predetermined roles on account of sex," says Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, whose own wife works as a child psychologist.

Even Swedish women want more. Angry women Socialists have organized Group 8, which demands equal working conditions, more child-care centers to free mothers for work, and painless child deliveries.

BRITAIN. A British father has the sole authority to decide on the children's religious upbringing and education, which the wife can challenge only in the courts. In case of a divorce, British women often have no right to property acquired during marriage. This spring, Lib ladies picketed the Miss World Contest with signs reading MISUSED, MISCONCEPTION and MISGUIDED. Later they plastered lingerie ads with stickers saying "You earn more as a real whore."

At last month's Women's Lib conference at Oxford, the girls strung up banners that ranged from PHALLUSES ARE FASCIST to END PENAL SERVITUDE.

Then the 500 women who had gathered got down to the serious business of discussing unequal pay, problems of unmarried mothers and the dangers of false emancipation, in which a woman works both outside the home and inside as well. Even the Queen has encouraged the movement by declaring this spring that "it is becoming more generally recognized that the home is not the only place for women."

FRANCE. Although things have been getting progressively better for French women--they received the right to vote in 1946, to have bank accounts of their own in 1965, and can now legally receive mail without husbandly interference--they are still hampered by many thoughtless inequities. Day-care centers are scarce, businessmen are reluctant to hire women on a part-time basis. The French feminist movement is small but growing. One of the foremost groups is Le Mouvernent Democratique Feminine. Their aim: to politicize women so that they will demand their rights from the government. The French fashion magazine Elle is sponsoring Women's Lib discussion groups around the country; this November, Elle will play host to a three-day meeting at Versailles on the subject of women's rights in France.

ITALY. Until last year, Italian women were subject to a year in prison for adultery, while a man risked no jail term at all for the same offense. In Italy, the male still has complete control over family matters, even after his death. There is no divorce (though the Chamber of Deputies may well approve a bill making it legal some time this fall), no legal abortion, and a wife with children must have her husband's permission to get a passport. Last February in Rome, the small, left-of-center Republican Party organized a series of eight weekly seminars on the liberation of women. Groups are now operating in Turin, Milan, Genoa and Bologna. In November, the first of a series of public rallies will be held in Rome to discuss the problems, particularly the adoption of birth control and abortion bills. There are indications of popular support for some of the feminist goals. More Italian men than women seem to favor the divorce bill, and males often join Women's Lib types in carrying signs proclaiming DIVORCE PREVENTS CRIME and DIVORCE NOW.

WEST GERMANY. A recent television program explained ways in which German women are discriminated against in factory jobs. It showed a woman and man spraying autos in a factory. The man received 20% more salary because he did "heavier" work. While the woman was spraying the doors, the man was spraying the chassis, supposedly a harder job. A few German women are beginning to challenge the country's traditional male autocracy. When Bundestag Vice President Richard Jaeger recently refused access to the rostrum to any female Deputy in slacks, Socialist Deputy Lenelotte von Bothmer arrived in a pants suit. Herr Doktor Jaeger diplomatically absented himself to avoid a confrontation.

But most German women prefer more traditional attitudes. In a recent poll of German women, 68% considered unmarried career girls to be not quite normal, while 82% regarded the care of husband and child as their primary goal in life. Though 40% of all married women in West Germany hold jobs outside the home, most of them would be appalled if their Ehemann did the dishes or dusted the shelves. Says one well-educated Hamburg housewife: "If I saw my husband running around the house with a dust cloth in his hand, I couldn't go to bed with him any more. He'd be more like a brother to me." Nonetheless, a group called Frankfurt Women's Action Group 1970 last month held its first teach-in in Frankfurt. The feminists marched outside the main railroad stations with signs proclaiming OUR BELLIES BELONG TO US. Within two hours they had collected more than 1,000 signatures on a pro-abortion petition--including that of the mayor of Frankfurt. Tired of being used only as secretaries and bed bunnies, the female members of Germany's student S.D.S. staged a walkout--but not before hurling invective and rotten tomatoes at the organization's male chauvinists.

Anti-Liberation. So goes the catalogue of female complaints. With good reason. Professionally, European women firmly hold down the bottom rung of the ladder. Though every third woman works in Germany, only 3% of that nation's top jobs are held by women. In the exalted world of big business, the nearest thing to a tycoon is Beate Uhse and her sex shops. In England, for every 50 men earning -L-5,000, there is only one woman. Out of a total of 2,448 practicing barristers, there are only 133 women. In Sweden, 53 women legislators out of 384 is considered impressive. Meanwhile, women there constitute only 1% of the university teachers, 1.3% of the physicians and 6.1% of the lawyers.

But just as in the U.S., many European women simply do not want to be liberated. In Switzerland, some women are even prepared to fight against it. Next February Swiss men will vote on whether to give women the right to vote. Some Swiss women have banded together into an organization whose sole goal is to keep the ballot away from women. "We can't risk destroying the man's role in the world," says the president of the League of Swiss Women Against Suffrage. "We must give him a task to perform and allow him to be chivalrous."

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