My plane touched down in Houston, Texas 2 days ago and I've already started reminiscing about my time abroad. From telling my friends and families about our class discussions and out-of-class adventures, I have realized that I have a lot to write about in my final blog post. The last month spent abroad has taught me primarily how the Dutch open attitude influences all aspects of their culture, and how we can apply some Dutch practices here in the United States.
Before our departure, my vision of The Netherlands was idealistic. From what I understood, they had the best sex education in the world, everyone was sex-positive, and homophobia was non-existent. And while these statements may hold kernels of truth, The Netherlands is not perfect, like all other countries. On our first two class days with Chantal and Sophie Rose, we learned about the history of colonialism in The Netherlands. From these classes, my biggest takeaway was that there have always been hierarchies in Dutch culture with lines drawn based on race and class. In addition, Dutch people have failed to acknowledge their racist history until very recently, highlighting the country's efforts to present themselves as an idealistic country. As a class, we discussed the strategic marketing that The Netherlands employs by way of relative tolerance. There are very little rates of homophobic incidents in The Netherlands, for example, but this does not mean that people hold homophobic ideals. Because of Dutch tolerance, people keep to themselves and choose to ignore things they don't agree with. This is still a better system than in The US, I think, but I am still disheartened to know that even in such
an open culture gay people are not entirely accepted.
On a more positive note, the amount of documentation for the LGBTQ+ community located in The Netherlands is outstanding. From our visits to the ILHIA and our Queer walking tour of Utrecht, I learned that Dutch people care more about honoring histories of queer people, something not done widely in The US. In addition, the actual history we learned from Tijmen, Alex, and Pieter was surprising. Firstly, I was surprised to know how long queer people have been visible in The Netherlands. Again, they were not always accepted by a wide majority, but they still made themselves known by way of The COC and at gay clubs/bars. I think that this visibility, that has been around from the early 1900's, has helped people be more accepting today.
Another topic we learned about that did not entirely meet my expectations was the general attitudes towards sex and sex work. What the Dutch call "Comprehensive sex ed" pretty much met my expectations. Content is covered from an early age, and children are encouraged to ask their parents questions to make discussing sex a normal topic. As a result of this sex education, there are low rates of unwanted teen pregnancies and Dutch teens have sex at a later age than American teens. However, due to sex happening primarily in the context of committed relationships, use of condoms is not as high as one might expect. In addition, prevention of STI's is not as much of a focus as preventing pregnancies. I thought it was interesting that having safe sex was more so defined as use of the pill rather than use of condoms.
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Even though there were some incongruences in my expectations and what we learned in class, my overall impression of The Netherlands is incredibly positive and I will take what I have learned in my day-to-day future life. Firstly, I plan on being a parent that gives my children autonomy. I want to treat my kids as adults and not shelter them away from scary or taboo topics. Things like sex, sexuality, gender, and race will be on the table because I want my kids to grow up as informed world citizens, and I think having an approachable attitude is the first step (The Dutch have done a good job modeling this). In addition, I will continue to be critical of information that is presented to me. Most of what I knew about The Netherlands before this summer was information that aligned with their marketing of themselves as a country. So, in my continued pursuit of knowledge, I will be sure to pull information from a variety of perspectives (i.e. learning more about women in the queer space of muslim immigrants in The Netherlands) to gain a more nuanced full picture.
751 words
I have acted with honesty and integrity in producing this work and am unaware of anyone who has not. /s/ Davis Warms
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