 This
interview took place at George and Truus Kester’s home,
in Hoek van Holland. It was a
summer’s day, the sun was shining,
there was a sea breeze and now
and then a seagull flew over.
The first thing that struck me when
approaching their house, was the
lush and the pretty garden full of
flowers, vegetables and fruit that
he had grown. It was clear that
someone in this house has green
fingers and that is not surprising
because George has been working
with plants for many years and he
had a successful flowers nursery,
which he and his wife built from
scratch. He is 62 years old, still fit
and full of energy and the proud
owner of a small plot of land.
He retired from the nursery some
years ago but simply can’t do
without contact with all that grows
and blooms. As well as that he
sings whole-heartedly in a choir,
goes on adventure holidays and
regularly takes care of his grandchildren.
George
Kester was one of the first ’
Friends of Feminenza’ in the
Netherlands and I met him to find
out a bit more about what moves
him in his life.
When you look at your life do you
see a thread running through it,
that you always return to?
Yes, in my agricultural background, the joy
of seeing something grow and bloom.
There is also self-development, reading
and thinking about things and seeing the
humorous side of life, which puts things
into perspective. Wisdom is not for sale and
most probably one will never fully acquire it,
but gradually one may become a maturer
human being.
When I had the nursery it used to occupy
my life completely. Now that I have retired,
I draw a lot of satisfaction from gardening
and listening to music, which moves me
very deeply.
When you look at your life, what
do you value?
I value having good relationships with my
family and friends. Also I have a great interest
in people and what moves them and
try all the time to understand them more. It
also brings joy and satisfaction to be able to
help people to think differently about something
or to deal with things in a differentway. We do not stand still
but always try
to look further ahead and to develop and
keep an open mind. Why did you become a Friend of
Feminenza?
When
I got to know about Feminenza I had already been thinking about
men and
women for years. Because I have a good
relationship with my wife Truus, I wanted
to support a women’s group. For a long
time I have been convinced that more is
possible for women in the world and that
attracted me to Feminenza. If you look
at world history, I find that women’s
behaviour is very different to men. It seems
to me that men are always struggling with
macho behaviour and it causes a lot of
aggression, both close to home and in the
world. Women give birth to new life and
have a natural caring quality and I find that
beautiful. I don’t think that a woman is
better than a man, but she is different and
needs to get more opportunities. I foresee
a third wave of emancipation, in which
more will be talked about and done from
the feminine standpoint. This means not
copying the men, but for the women tolook at themselves and to
see who they
are and what they can do. That will be so
enormously rich and varied. I find this to be
very important, and that is why I support
Feminenza and believe that it can fulfil a
role in this process.
I think
we need to have more patience in the context of emancipation, but
also
for example in the area of integration of
people from other cultures in our country.
Patience is needed because human life is
so short and things can’t be changed
overnight. I think that if we were more
thoughtful about everything that in the
end we would save time.
If issues were looked at from different
angles with more consideration, then wiser
and maturer decisions would be made.
This is something men need to develop,
instead of doing things the way they have
always been done. I find that men, because
they are orientated to problem solving,
want to put things right quickly and therefore
buy a car or a house for instance at
speed. Women sometimes take time to
weigh things up before they make a
decision and that I think this is a big clue
for the future; patience and time are
needed because we all live at too fast a
pace.
When
men and women start to understand each other, then the men might
start to
think about things a bit longer and the
women might be able to make quicker
decisions. Men always feel the need for the
arrow to hit the bull’s-eye and deal with
things directly. This approach was needed
in the Stone Age to survive, but in our time
men need to learn to handle things in a
different way. In history women have often
been regarded as lesser because they are
different. I think that this is nonsense
because women are as capable as men, so
this is a mistake. I find that now is the time
for women to make a third leap towards
emancipation, in which they can use their
talents to their full extent.
Does this say that both men and
women need to change?
Yes
I think so and the fact that even I can think about it in this
way says that it is
becoming common knowledge, because
I am no professor nor did I receive a specialeducation. I can
only talk from my own
vision and I don’t pretend to know
it all, but something is abroad amongst
people about how things need to be and
can be different. Of that I am convinced. Men
don’t want to feel that they have
failed and so often they will just pretend
that everything is all right. That is why men
sometimes act the way they do. A good
example is in asking directions when you
get lost. A man will never do that, he would
rather drive around a million times. Still,
I believe it is time to look at these patterns
and ask ourselves if they are useful and to
see the humour in it, which is very important
because it puts things into perspective.
A
lot of research has been done in America and England for
the past twenty years about
the differences between men and women.
By now it has been proved irrefutably that
the two genders are different and that it is
important to recognise the qualities of both.
I think that will be the way it is in the
future and I am very optimistic about that.
We must find new ways of thinking and
going on. We can’t keep waging wars and
letting people die from hunger, can we?
One
of a woman’s strong points is that
they invest a lot of time in communication,
whilst men are more occupied with achieving
goals. In itself this is fine and because
of this men have established great things in
the past, but now we live in a consumer
society in which everything is possible and
new things are being invented all the time,
but it is not making us happier. We are
standing at a crossroad and it is time for
change. I think that women will play a very
important role in this change by employing
qualities such as patience, understanding,
love and attention.
I
think that women need to get more chances and men need to
learn to communicate
more. When you sleep on something
overnight, you have a better result than
when you try to force a decision, which men
are sometimes inclined to do. The influence
of the need to achieve in the man needs to
be tempered a bit by the caring nature of
the woman who can have a better overview
and is more able to say ‘no’ when something
does not fit. Women are much more
able to see the consequences of actions;for example to them the
death of one child
during wartime is too much, whilst some
men would justify their decision by making
a calculation.
George:
For a long time I have been convinced that more is possible
for women in the world and that
attracted me to Feminenza. |
Do you think that Feminenza
can fulfil a particular role in this
process of change?
I think this process has already started
within Feminenza. It is to do with thinking
and handling things in a different way and
the will to do and act upon it; that is what
I can see, for example, in the Feminenza
Magazine.
What do you think the world will
look like in 2040?
It is my hope that there will be much less
violence because women worldwide and on
all levels will have gained more influence
and that they will be known and respected
because of their qualities.
I think that this development has already
started. I see more and more the influence
of women in all kinds of areas such as art,
the movies, in government and in companies,
but there is a long way to go and
we must be patient.
It is still difficult for women to fulfil certain
functions because they need to be everything;
career woman, mother, wife, caretaker
of the family and caretaker of their
husband! If you add to this a high profile
job, the pressures can be just too much.
The thinking about this needs to change
and women themselves need to initiate that.
I foresee a lot of changes and opportunities
for women in the coming 30 years and
I believe that the world will look fundamentally
different by the year 2040. That is
something I want to contribute to in my
lifetime. |
