Gender and the Personal in Political Biography: Observations from a Dutch Perspective

This article explores the differential meanings of “personal life” in political biographies of men and women, mainly based upon Dutch examples, but making use of international literature. Though there has been a tendency to use personal detail only as a means to advertise and popularize old-fashioned political biography, under the influence of the feminist slogan “the personal is political” serious historical biographies of male politicians have become enriched with all sorts of information on their private lives: their hobbies and habits, political tastes, and to some extent also their family life. In contrast, mainstream biographies of female politicians still suffer from an overpersonalization of public women in the past and the present. Serious biographical texts as well as biographical television documentaries on prominent female politicians (and professionals) still focus too easily on women’s civil status or their relation to men and family (married or not married, with or without children). This state of affairs makes gender sensitive historians aware of the pitfalls of writing about the private lives of their female political protagonists, and several intended biographies of prominent Dutch women even remain unwritten.