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AT SE MED EGNE ØJNE – MIT KVINFO

Stort, velskrevet politisk nyrestød til den historieløse kultur- og ligestillingspolitik af KVINFOs tidligere direktør.

Bogen At se med egne øjne er en sprudlende personlig beretning om en af de mere løsslupne feministiske bølger, nemlig begyndelsen af 3. bølge i starten af 1990’erne og de mange unikke projekter med afsæt i KVINFOs bibliotek. Samtidig er bogen et fuldflæsket og velargumenteret angreb på den ideologiske iver, der i disse år rammer overalt i det danske samfund i form af nedskæringer, lukninger og udflytninger. I tilfældet KVINFO udstilles kulturminister Mette Bocks slagtning af institutionens næsten 60-årige virke med vidensindsamling og -formidling punkt for punkt som populistisk symptom på afmontering af velfærdsstaten.

Med 24 års erfaring som direktør KVINFO har Elisabeth Møller Jensen befundet sig i midt ligestillingsorkanens øje. Det giver bogen ballast og perspektiv, når 50 års dansk ligestillingshistorie beskrives med stor indsigt og humor, og det er pligtstof til den kollektive hukommelse om fx de mange politiske svigt af en solidarisk barselslov.

I bogen samler Møller Jensen også samfundskritisk de tråde, som mange har så svært ved at se i disse år, nemlig dem, hvor køn, kultur, humanisme og velfærdssamfund er uløseligt knyttet til hinanden.​

Da kritikken af KVINFOs og kvindeorganisationernes svigt af indvandrerkvinderne rasede i 2001, tog KVINFO det skelsættende initiativ til Mentornetværket for indvandrerkvinder, der succesrigt bredte sig langt ud over Danmarks grænser.

Elisabeth Møller Jensen siger selv: “Min bog er skrevet på lige dele engagement og indignation. Jeg er utrolig stolt over de resultater, KVINFO har opnået, og jeg er tilsvarende vred på de politikere, der målrettet gik efter at stække KVINFO. Jeg vil gøre mit til, at sagen om KVINFOs bibliotek aldrig bliver glemt”.

At se med egne øjne dokumenterer og behandler perioden fra Nynne Koch for første gang i 1964 registrerede kvinderelevant litteratur på Det Kgl. Bibliotek over KVINFO som genopfinder af 8. marts, arnested for Årets Pikhoved og vigtige mentorordninger for indvandrerkvinder til efterspillet om KVINFO som politisk kampplads i 2017.

Bogen er rigt illustreret og er støttet af Statens Kunstfond.​

DENGANG I LEMVIG

Elisabeth Møller Jensen’s ’family saga’ is primarily the story of her mother, Gudrun – a brilliant, charming, outgoing woman, but with a challenging and fiery temperament that veered increasingly out of control. As a teenager, Gudrun was hospitalised for treatment of mental health problems; after a passionate relationship with a German soldier during the Second World War, she married a hard-working and principled baker’s assistant, a Dane called Tage, with whom she had four children, Elisabeth being the oldest.

Tage bought a bakery in Lemvig, trade was not brisk, and the business went bankrupt; he then got a job at the nearby Cheminova factory, the global supplier of agrochemical products, but Gudrun’s condition was worsening, not helped by her massive abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol. This inevitably affected her husband and children; filled with alarm and despair, they were witnesses to Gudrun’s downward spiral. She died in 1975, at 53 years of age.

Elisabeth Møller Jensen tells this story without any window dressing; an especially powerful authenticity is added by passages quoted from letters and diaries in which Gudrun writes about her situation, about her anxiety – especially her worries about harming her children – about her love for her husband and about her struggle with trying to live a conventionally normal life.

“The idea that equality could be achieved via education was a motivating force throughout my childhood. I was an able pupil at school, and if I came home with anything less than top marks, no matter how close, my father’s only comment would be to ask why I hadn’t done better. So it was neither fate nor fairytale that I went to university and graduated with a Magister degree – we were four siblings, and we all went to university. It has become so fashionable to talk about ‘breaking the social heritage’ or ‘breaking the mould’, but that is not how I see myself – and actually, this concept has irritated me ever since I first heard of it. The wherewithal, desire and opportunity for social mobility do not simply materialise out of thin air. I have always felt that I was following tracks laid down by generations who went before me, following a pattern and a dream that I and many others in the first ‘welfare-state generation’ had the prospect of achieving. That I went to study at the University of Copenhagen, rather than the local teacher-training college, was not a strategic move in any wider plan. My mother had dreamed of becoming a teacher, her ultimate ambition, and had I been studying at the nearby teacher’s college then that dream would virtually have been fulfilled. So she was disappointed when I left for Copenhagen. She felt as if I was disappearing, that she was losing me – and she was right.”

Translation: G. Kynoch

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