Winkelen als bevrijding? Vrouwen en stedelijke ruimte in Amsterdam, 1863-1913

Abstract

Shopping as Liberation?: Women and Urban Space in Amsterdam, 1863-1913

In recent decades several historians have argued that the emergence of shopping as a leisure activity in the second half of the nineteenth century substantially enhanced women’s freedom of movement in public spaces and promoted female emancipation in general. Based on urban descriptions and digitised newspaper articles on nineteenth-century Amsterdam – on its main shopping street, the Kalverstraat, in particular – this article takes a more nuanced stance. Shopping as a leisure activity was older in origin than is often assumed and to some extent was a male activity as well. While shopping, ladies encountered numerous factors that hampered their spatial mobility, from road debris, pawing, mugging, the presence of prostitutes to ‘moral harassment’ over exploited shop girls. Indeed, a single feminist framed the right to shop and to visit restaurants in an explicit discourse of ‘liberation’. However, to argue that shopping promoted female emancipation in general would suggest a too linear and monolithic approach.