ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a double narrative: it interweaves an overview of women writing in Dutch with a survey of the position of women in the Dutch language area. The survey of the changing position of women in the Netherlands starts from a landmark year in women's emancipation in that country: 1919, the year in which Dutch women gained the vote. Historians acknowledge that the achievement of enfranchisement which women had been working towards for decades did not actually bring about the far-reaching changes in society that feminists had envisioned. The differences between these two neighbouring countries can be viewed against a background of the reassertion of women's traditional role in Europe after the First World War and the reversal of some of the gams made as a result of the first wave of feminism. The sketch of Flemish women writers in the interbellum is much harder to draw since information is less readily available.
