Francisca de Haan

Francisca de Haan is a Dutch historian and writer who specializes in women's and gender history. Since 2002, she has taught at the Central European University in Budapest where she is currently professor of gender studies. Her publications include "A Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms: Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe, 19th and 20th Centuries" (2006) and she is the founding editor of "Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern and South Eastern European Women’s and Gender History" (since 2007). From 2005 to 2010, de Haan was vice-president of the International Federation for Research in Women's History.
Brought up in the Netherlands in a family which included a few independent, unmarried teachers, de Haan aspired to become a teacher from an early age. She later developed an interest in history and in an academic career. After graduating as an M.A. at the University of Amsterdam in 1985, she earned a doctorate in history from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam in 1992.
With the notable exception of her book about the Dutch Jewish van Gelderen family ("Een eigen patroon. Geschiedenis van een joodse familie en haar bedrijven, ca. 1800-1964", published in 2002), De Haan's work is devoted almost exclusively to the women's movement. It was encouraged in particular by her involvement in the editorial team of the Dutch journal "Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis" from 1995. She has taken a special interest in the three most influential women's organizations in the Cold War years: the International Council of Women, the International Alliance of Women and the Women's International Democratic Federation. In this connection, she has traced the development of interest in women's rights at the United Nations.