Tough Foreign Women

Titel of an article published in the newspaper Metro I have found today in the trash: Foreign Women Have it Tough.

The article goes on saying that although they are performing well at school and in the job market, foreign women in the Netherlands seem to be more subject of depressions and burn outs than other groups. Why ? They still suffer a huge pression from their community to accumulate the functions of family care taker and cleaning/cooking ladies. Too much has been put on their shoulders: the Dutch society demand their emancipation and at home their extended families demand them performing the traditional feminine roles. And there is no discussion in their communities about alternatives to that.

In the article that they never mention which communites are those. Obviously they are referring to more traditional and non western ones, with a rigid "feminine" functions. Interesting that generalization in the Dutch press. I notice they deliberately put all groups of foreigners in the same bag. Or at least all non Europeans & non North-Americans go to the same bag, as being backwards and repressed.

Note: allochtoon is a definition for a Dutch person with a foreign background. For example: a person with Dutch citizenship but with at least one of the parents born in a non-western country (African, South American or Asian ones - excepting Japan). The definition of allochtoon is opposed to autochtoon: a Dutch person whose both parents were born in Holland. To illustrate: my children were both born in Holland, speak Dutch as first language, dream in Dutch and love pannenkoeken - but are allochtoon because mamma came from the jungle thus ain't no Dutch. Yeah !!