Biography, Blog

‘CEO of the Netherlands’: Performing Gender at the Dutch Court c. 1980 – 1999

Harry J. Mace presented the paper ‘CEO of the Netherlands’: Performing Gender at the Dutch Court c. 1980 – 1999 at the 2015 Women’s history Network Conference held at the University of Kent.

Harry is an undergraduate international, political and gender historian at the University of Kent. He is in his third year of his degree and endeavours to pursue a career as an academic historian.  Harry was granted special access to some highly unattainable archives in The Hague and has now organised his research into a monograph.

Below is an abstract from the paper presented at the conference.

Unlike her European counterparts, the last Dutch queen of the twentieth-century
was regarded as seemingly ‘progressive’, due to her active involvement in
domestic politics and international affairs. Rather than radiating a sense of warmth
as ‘Mother of the Nation’, the media and various politicians presented Beatrix as
the “CEO of the Netherlands”.  Through her political influence in the outcome of
governmental elections to her participation in the Bilderberg group, Beatrix
transcended the conventions traditionally associated with a European queen.
Monarchs are regarded as being deprived of their historical male power: merely
actors within a nation’s governmental system. Subsequently, historians tend to
denote European monarchy as an unworthy topic of analysis, overlook its
significance and maintain that the institution of constitution monarchy is an
‘emasculated’ one. This paper, however, debunks the various myths surrounding
the role, purpose, and significance of a European monarch. With a supposed ‘iron
fist’, Beatrix mirrored anything but that of a constrained actor, ever illustrated by
the coinage of ‘Beatrixism’ in relation to her style. Utilising a range of sources
from government documents, interviews, newspaper archives and political
memoirs, this innovative paper illustrates how performing a ‘new femininity’,
ultimately, empowered Beatrix to transcend the ‘emasculated’ Dutch court and
reassert a unique level of agency as head of state.

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