Claeys was the first Ghent feminist and meant a lot to the fight for women’s rights. The question of giving her a street name has been on the table in Ghent for thirty years, but arose again after Claeys was performed by Tom Waes in The story of Flanders.
Campaigners want her to get her own street name or statue. That is not an issue for the time being, but Claeys did receive a memorial plaque in Ghent on Wednesday. It was unveiled by aldermen Filip Watteeuw (Groen) and Astrid De Bruycker (Vooruit) at the socialist house on the Vrijdagmarkt, since Claeys was a socialist women’s rights activist.
In February, a room was named after her in Ons Huis, where a small, permanent exhibition is dedicated to her life. (Read more below the photo)
READ ALSO. She did not teach women to cook or sew, but to read and calculate: Emilie Claeys was Ghent’s first feminist. “Give her a street”
This memorial plaque was unveiled on Wednesday at the Vrijdagmarkt. — © lrg
© Amsab-ISG
Her father died when she was still a child, so Claeys had to work in a spinning mill. She later wrote that she earned only half as much as the men. At home she took on household chores because her mother was ill. Later, the Ghent woman started working as a maid and became a mother twice.
The feminist was far ahead of her time and she became active within the Ghent socialist movement. She was even the first woman to be included in the national party leadership. As chairwoman of a Ghent socialist women’s organization, she taught reading, writing, arithmetic and French language lessons. (Read more below the photo)
The memorial plaque hangs on the facade of Ons Huis, the socialist headquarters on the Vrijdagmarkt. — © lrg
Birth control
Claeys’ feminist nature was clearly evident in sharply written pamphlets, in which she campaigned for the right to vote for women, equal pay and better working conditions. She also wrote a plea for birth control.
Ultimately, Claeys resigned from the national party leadership because the Belgian Workers’ Party fought almost exclusively for male voting rights. The feminist subsequently became responsible publisher of the newspaper Vooruit.
However, this came to an end when she started living with a married man with children, after which his wife filed a complaint. A scandal broke out and Claeys withdrew from active life. More than a hundred years later, the memorial plaque gives her back some of the honor she deserves.
“We want more than a memorial plaque”
© lrg
Is a memorial plaque sufficient to commemorate Emilie Claeys? No, according to activists from the feminist Collective 8 Maars. They showed their dissatisfaction on Wednesday at the unveiling of the memorial plaque and continue to ask for Claeys to be given a street or statue in Ghent. “The city center has many statues of important men, but there is not a woman to be seen.”
The activists already had one on Wednesday prototype of a statue to convince the city council. “We are very happy that a memorial plaque has been placed, because we helped put this into action. But actually we want more,” says Hannah Ghulam Farag. “We want a statue because we want to see more women in public spaces. We continue to exert pressure for a feminist struggle in Ghent.”
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