1931-1994

Labour politician and advocate for equal rights

Ien Dales stood up for minorities in the Netherlands for many years. Her friendship with Elizabeth Schmitz and Nel van Dalfsen and her fight against discrimination against homosexuals became a source of inspiration for many in the queer community.

Catharina Isabella (‘Ien’) Dales was born on October 18, 1931 in Arnhem. She was the daughter of Teunis Dales, wholesaler in building materials, and Wilhelmina (Willy) Holstege. When she was ten years old her father died. This left her mother – a strong and religious woman – to earn a living.

Her upbringing in the Dutch Reformed Church influenced her character for the rest of her life. The Church benefitted her with a scholarship for an education at the centre ‘Kerk en Wereld’ (Church and World) in Driebergen. There she would eventually become director from 1969 to 1974. In 1968 she became a member of the Labour Party (PvdA), a membership that would be of great significance for her future.

Political passion

From 1977 to 1981, Ien was director of the Municipal Social Service in Rotterdam. She was able to further expand her social involvement as State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment in the Dutch administration led by Prime Minister Van Agt, which, however, lasted less than nine months (September 1981 – May 1982). In the elections for the House of Representatives in September 1982, she had a low position in the electoral list – she preferred being an administrator to being a member of parliament – ​​but was elected anyway. The following elections in 1986 yielded her more than 10,000 preferential votes. She left in 1987 to become mayor of Nijmegen. There she was given the nickname ‘Ma Flodder’ because of her unconventional behavior, her accessibility to ordinary citizens and because she was averse to outward display. At the end of 1989, she became Minister of Home Affairs in the national government led by Prime Minister Lubbers. In that role, she guided the bill for a General Equal Treatment Act (Algemene Wet Gelijke Behandeling / AWGB) through the House of Representatives in 1993 with powerful pleas.

Community of close friends

Ien lived in Utrecht from 1977 onwards on the 2nd floor of the monumental house at Koningslaan 34 overlooking the Wilhelminapark in Utrecht. The building was owned by Nel van Dalfsen (1925-1991), a former colleague at Kerk en Wereld in Driebergen. Nel lived on the 1st floor. The kitchen and large dining room on the ground floor and the garden were intended for communal use, while the 3rd floor was reserved for guests. Ien loved working and relaxing in the garden, where, according to another friend, fellow politician Hedy d’Ancona, every apple and plum was ‘lovingly picked, preserved and devoured’ by her.

During her work for the municipal Social Services in Rotterdam, a strong bond also developed with the then Rotterdam alderman Elizabeth Schmitz (1938-2024), who would later become mayor of Haarlem. She was later also given a room in the house in Utrecht. During her term as mayor, Ien Dales lived in Nijmegen, but was usually in Utrecht during the weekends. She almost always spent the weekends and holidays with her two friends from Koningslaan. After Nel's death, Ien inherited the house where Elizabeth kept her company almost every weekend from Haarlem.

General Equal Treatment Act

As Minister of Home Affairs, Ien Dales played a leading role in the creation of the Equal Treatment Act. From the mid-seventies, there were calls both inside and outside the House of Representatives for a law against discrimination against women, gays and lesbians. It proved particularly difficult to formulate a politically feasible bill. The problem was always to reconcile the principle of equality and freedom of education. The key question was whether a (openly) gay or lesbian teacher could be refused by a school with a religious foundation.

Conservative Christian denominations believed that a Christian school should have the right to refuse a gay or lesbian teacher. This provoked counter-reactions from progressive Dutch churches, including the Utrecht Cathedral (Domkerk). There, the church council wanted to send a letter to the government to indicate that the law should not make an exception for teachers on the grounds of religion. To this end, Nel van Dalfsen – Dales's best friend and then chair of the church council – invited a lesbian member of the congregation to her home in January 1982 to write the letter together with a few elders:

We would like to have someone there who is personally involved in this topic.

This was Gea Zijlstra, who was happy to cooperate.

It was Gea who approached Ien Dales, then a Member of Parliament, in 1986 with the question whether she would like to chair a forum from the National Workgroup on Religion and World View (Landelijk Werkgroep Geloof en Levensbeschouwing) of the COC about an Equal Treatment Act and the report of Christian political party CDA 1+1 = together (1+1 = samen). Zijlstra told Dales that the working group had a preference for a lesbian or homosexual chair. Dales then said that she was not lesbian herself, but that she supported the gay and lesbian movement and therefore agreed with the request.

The bill that Dales eventually defended in 1993 together with her CDA colleague of Justice Ernst Hirsch Ballin was already the fifth since 1981. On the subject of homosexuality, the core of the proposal was that a school should not discriminate on the basis of ‘the mere fact’ of a ‘homosexual or heterosexual orientation’. If there were any doubts regarding the balance between the prohibition of discrimination and freedom of education, the judge had to decide, with or without a ruling by a newly established Equal Treatment Commission. The way in which she defended the bill was widely admired both inside and outside the House, including by the COC.

Legacy

When Ien Dales suddenly died in Utrecht on 10 January 1994, it became clear how much she was loved by many. Thousands of people paid their respects during a packed funeral from the Utrecht Dom Church. A funeral procession with hundreds of following cars, escorted by motorcycle police, drove via the highway to the Moscowa cemetery in Arnhem. Three trucks were needed to transport all the funeral wreaths and bouquets.

Ien Dales was always reserved about her private life. Within the Reformed Church in Utrecht, some assumed that Ien and Nel had a lesbian relationship. After her death, then Prime Minister Lubbers ‘outed’ her in his tribute, as if she had a relationship with Elizabeth. In the biography published in 2024 Pontifical social (Pontificaal sociaal) Sylvester Hoogmoed confirms however that Ien and Elizabeth always said that their friendship and that with Nel van Dalfsen was very close, but not a matter of a lesbian relationship. Another mutual friend, who also lived in the Utrecht house for a while, Clan Visser ’t Hooft, also says in the biography that she never noticed anything of a lesbian relationship:

They never touched each other, I never saw them hug each other deeply or anything, they just didn't do that. Ien could be incredibly warm and affectionate, unbelievable, but it never had a physical component.

We know from the obituary placed after Elisabeth Schmitz's death on December 31, 2024 that she left behind a 'wife'.

Ien Dales's legacy lives on in the Dales Lecture and the Mayor Dales Prize, both established in 1996 by the COC Nijmegen on the occasion of its 25th anniversary. The prize is awarded annually to a person or organization from Nijmegen that values diversity and respect as referred to in Article 1 of the Constitution. In Utrecht a boulevard is named after her: the Ien Dalessingel. Several other municipalities also have streets named after her.

Gea Zijlstra, Gianna Mula and Maurice van Lieshout