Drucker was one of two daughters born to the seamstress Constantia Christina Lensing and the
German-Jewish banker Louis Drucker. Her father refused to marry her mother or to legally recognise their children, meaning Wilhelmina grew up in difficult circumstances. She received a Catholic education took up the same profession as her mother and from 1886 onwards attended meetings of the
Sociaal-Democratische Bond, the De Unie union, the (Dutch League for General Suffrage) and the freethinkers' association
De Dageraad. In the following years
socialism had a major formative influence on her. She argued from her personal experience against a wider background, analysing and understanding the social mechanisms affecting women and thus able to conceive of what action to take to bring about change. Under a pseudonym, she wrote a book attacking the
double standards of her father's
morality in only recognising children born to him by a richer woman. She also began a lawsuit against her half-brother, the liberal politician
Hendrik Lodewijk Drucker, who had received an inheritance from Louis - she won it in 1888 and thus gained financial independence. Immediately after this she and other women from radical and socialist circles set up
De Vrouw (The Woman), a weekly magazine for women and girls. In 1889, Drucker founded the
Vrije Vrouwen Vereeniging (VVV, or Free Women's Association), which in 1894 developed into the
Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht (Women's Rights Association). In 1891, Drucker represented the VVV at the
International Socialist Labor Congress in
Brussels, the second congress of the
Second International, where she and delegates from Germany, Austria and Italy called for a resolution that the manifestos of all countries' socialist parties' should include a call for full legal and political equality of men and women - this resolution was adopted by the congress. in 1917 on the occasion of Drucker's seventieth birthday. In 1893, Drucker and her right-hand-woman Dora Schook-Haver founded the weekly magazine
Evolutie (Evolution) - this lasted until 1926. Drucker also lectured throughout the
Netherlands, got involved in the establishment of several women's trade unions and in 1897 became a member of the newly founded Vereeniging Onderlinge Vrouwenbescherming (VOV, or Women's Mutual Protection Society), which worked for the rights of unmarried mothers and their children. Drucker stated that the VOV should be a militant organisation uniting all women - married or unmarried, with or without children - to work in the
public sphere for women's rights and against unjust laws and outdated morality. She explained her thinking and ideas on the mission and role of the VOV, laying the foundations for later activist organisations such as Blijf van mijn Lijf (literally 'Stay away from my body, a network of
women's shelters) and Vrouwen tegen Verkrachting (
Women against Rape). For her militant calls for action to achieve women's equality, she was nicknamed 'IJzeren'(iron) or 'Dolle'(mad) Mina, monikers that gained even more traction after her staging of a symbolic public burning of women's corsets. The highly publicised activist feminist group
Dolle Mina, started in 1970, was named in honour of
Wilhelmina Drucker, which was celebrated by a public brassiere-burning ceremony in
Amsterdam. == Works ==