More women than ever in the Senate, up to 40 percent female members

The Senate has never had so many female members. Next Tuesday, when the new Senate takes office, 30 women will take the oath or pledge. That's 40 percent of the Senate, which has 75 members. Women also make up about 40 percent of the Tweede Kamer.

Four years ago, 27 women became members of the Senate, and eight years ago the Senate consisted of 26 female members. This year, 31 women were actually elected, but Tamara Monzón of the BoerBurger Movement (BBB) gave up her seat last week for personal reasons. This now goes to fellow party member Math Goossen, a man. Monzón, however, is first reserve in case a BBB seat becomes vacant. Women are also the first replacements in Forum voor Democratie, VVD, CDA, SP, Partij voor de Dieren, 50PLUS, and Volt.

GroenLinks has proportionally the most women in the Senate, as five out of seven senators are women. The party will soon form a joint parliamentary group with the PvdA (four women, three men). Together, they will then have nine women and five men in the Senate.

The D66 and JA21 also have more women than men in their parliamentary groups. Among CDA, PVV, Volt and VVD, the seats in the Senate are distributed exactly equally. 50PLUS, Forum voor Democratie, SGP, SP and Onafhankelijke Politiek Nederland (OPNL) however, have no women in their parliamentary groups.

Since 1956, the Senate has consisted of 75 members. In that year, four women were elected to the Senate. Until the 1970s, there were at most a few women among the men. In 1980, for the first time, there were more than 10 women in the Senate, and in 1991 the mark of 20 women was exceeded. In 2007, 26 women got into the Senate, bringing the number of men below 50 for the first time.

The first woman in the Senate was Carry Pothuis-Smit, who was elected in 1920on for the Social Democratic Labor Party (SDAP), the precursor to the PvdA. Among other things, Pothuis-Smit advocated for the right of women to continue working after marriage. Until 1958, it was common for women to be fired the day they got married. A portrait of Pothuis-Smit was hung in the Senate two years ago.