Women Make Up Half The Population, But This Doesn't Show in Our Cities

Women are part of the world, but are not equally represented on the street, at work, in sports, etc. 50 percent of the population are women, but if I look around, I only see street names that represent the men heroes of the past. By strolling the Hiking trails I am on a mission to discover the women of the past who were also important in history and now.

The Urban Walk: 'Deventer vrouwen van vroeger en nu' 

Deventer is one of the cities which has an urban walk about their women in Deventer’s city history. The hike is called 'Deventer vrouwen van vroeger en nu'. This urban walk can be bought at VVV Deventer. It takes about 1,5 hours to walk the whole route. I liked this urban walk because it is not only a hike telling me that a famous women lived here, but also what she was doing in that time in history.  The Hanze time, the golden age of Deventer tells me all about the men who made the golden age of Deventer possible, but not about the other half of the population who also made the golden age possible. By walking this hike I discovered that women played an important role in the history of Deventer. The route book tells me more about the women than just their age, marital status and if they had kids.

The Urban Walk: 'Vrouwen van Utrecht'

My own town Utrecht has its own urban walk about the women of Utrecht: 'Vrouwen van Utrecht'. I know the center of Utrecht pretty well, but the hike had some places I didn't know yet. Besides that the urban walk surprised me with women’s history of well know Utrecht icons. I loved that the writer of this urban walk goes very far in telling me a lot about what these Utrecht women did in history. As the writer Judith Schuil puts it: 'Vrouwen van Utrecht omdat niet alleen beroemde vrouwen of bekende vrouwen van belang zijn voor de ontwikkeling van de stad'. Which means not all these women can be found in history books, but they were important for the city to thrive. As I hike this urban walk I walk through hidden places of the center as well-known parts and I follow in these women’s footstep getting to know their contribution to trade, religion, science, books, (fine) arts, 'verzetsstrijders', etc.

The Urban Walk: 'Vrouwen Uit De Amsterdamse Geschiedenis'

This one I hiked in 2019 in preparation for The Walk Of The World (4Daagse van Nijmegen). I can't find the route book anymore but remember that it was a nice walk through a big part of the center of Amsterdam. I am sure that Anne frank, the Portuguese Synagogue, Aletta Jacobs and Majoor Boshart were stops with a story in the urban walk about the women of Amsterdam. This walk was a special edition book of E-Quality. The book included the route and information about the places and the women who lived or worked at the stops. Nowadays there are a few walks about women’s live in Amsterdam, Google is your friend to find them. Most are still only in Dutch.

Other urban women trail will follow.