Adema began her career as an unpaid worker for the Algemeen Handelsblad, a liberalAmsterdam newspaper; in 1939, she was appointed editor for the national section. She worked there until 1941, when she resigned as a protest against the anti-Jewish measures taken at the paper.[1] During World War II, she was active in the Dutch resistance, which brought her in contact with the group that published Het Parool, an illegal resistance paper.[1]
After the war ended, Het Parool hired her as editor for national news.[3] After three years, in 1948, Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, editor-in-chief of Het Parool, asked her to start editing a page for women and children,[1] called Voor de vrouw (maar voor haar niet alléén...) ("for the woman, but not just for her").[3] which also published reviews of children's books.[4] In that period she shared desks with authors such as Gerard Reve, Henri Knap, and Simon Carmiggelt, and was one of the people in Amsterdam around whom literary life was centered.[1] Contributors of stories and verse to the "legendary" page included Hora Adema herself as well as authors and journalists such as Annie M.G. Schmidt, Jeanne Roos, and Harriët Freezer; for almost 20 years, Fiep Westendorp illustrated the column with black and white drawings that situated the position of woman in society.[3] Adema worked for Het Parool for twenty-two years, during which time she helped nurture women authors and illustrators including Schmidt, Westendorp, Freezer, Hella Haasse, and Mies Bouhuys. In 1968 she was fired by editor-in-chief Herman Sandberg, which caused some uproar and even led to the firing of an editor at Vrij Nederland.[1]
In the 1960s, Hora Adama gained attention writing feminist newspaper columns.[5] With Hedy d'Ancona, Joke Smit, Hora Adema started Man Vrouw Maatschappij (often abbreviated as MVM, and translated as "Man Woman Society"), a radical feminist action group considered the first Dutch Second-wave feminism organization[6] and active until it was dissolved in 1988.[7]
With d'Ancona, Hora Adema founded the radical feminist monthly magazine Opzij[8] (the title translates as "move over") in 1972, together with politician and sociologist Hedy d'Ancona.[9]Opzij is the only publication that has survived from the Dutch second wave of feminism and has a large and loyal readership.[9] In 1972, the magazine printed 1,700 copies per month; by 1992 this had grown to 65,000, having developed itself "from a radical feminist pamphlet to a liberal-feminist opinion magazine with a large dose of human interest."[10] In 1992, d'Ancona and Adema were awarded the Harriët Freezer ring, an award given to contributors to women's emancipation, honoring them for Opzij and other contributions.[11] In 2007 printed over 94,000 copies per month,[9] though today it is considered a more mainstream magazine, focusing more on general opinion than on activism.[9]
^Meijer, Irene Costera (1996). Het persoonlijke wordt politiek: feministische bewustwording in Nederland, 1965-1980. Het Spinhuis. p. 298. ISBN978-90-5589-052-1.
