Bente Hansen (4 March 1940April 2022) was a Danish writer, editor and
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and Entitlement (fair division), entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st c ...
activist who was a prominent supporter of the
Danish Red Stocking Movement from 1970. She published a number of books on socialism and the role of women and was coordinating editor of the daily newspaper ''
Information
Information is an Abstraction, abstract concept that refers to something which has the power Communication, to inform. At the most fundamental level, it pertains to the Interpretation (philosophy), interpretation (perhaps Interpretation (log ...
'' in the mid-1970s, giving special attention to
social movement
A social movement is either a loosely or carefully organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or Political movement, political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to re ...
s.
Biography
Born on 4 March 1940 in
Kolding
Kolding () is a Denmark, Danish seaport city located at the head of Kolding Fjord in the Region of Southern Denmark. It is the seat of Kolding Municipality. It is a transportation, commercial, and manufacturing centre and has numerous industria ...
, Hansen was the daughter of the veterinarian Hans Kristian Hansen and Grethe Vera Nornild, a teacher. Her sister was
Litten Hansen.
After matriculating from Vestjsk Gymnasium in
Tarm, she spent a year in
Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
, returning to Denmark to study literature at the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University.
...
. From 1961 to 1966, she was influenced by the strong women's traditions of Kvinderegensen, the women's college where she stayed. She received her M.A. in 1966.
On the political front, she was influenced by a group of students from the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
she met in 1959, becoming an active left-wing socialist and a member of the
Socialist People's Party. A talented orator, she was a strong supporter of free abortion and equal pay, causes she also developed as editor of the bimonthly journal ''Politisk Revy'' from 1966. From 1970, thanks to contacts with
Ninon Schloss, she consistently devoted a column to the Red Stocking Movement. Over the next 15 years, she became one of the unofficial leaders of the women's movement in Denmark, participating in the gathering on the island of
Femø in 1971. Together with
Vibeke Vasbo and
Mette Knudsen, she drafted a number of documents which became the ideology of the Red Stockings. She was the main speaker at the first women's meeting in Copenhagen's
Fælledparken
The park Fælledparken in Copenhagen, Denmark, was created 1906–1914 by landscape architect Edvard Glæsel in cooperation with the Copenhagen Municipality on the commons (Danish: ''fælled'') previously named ''Nørrefælled'' and ''Østerfæ ...
in 1975.
[
Her role as an editor at ''Information'' from 1976, where she was one of just three women editors opposed by 33 men, proved too difficult, leading to her resignation in 1977. She nevertheless continued as a commentator at '' BT''. She later participated in developing a major television series on women in the labour movement, broadcast in 1986. By 1990, as a result of exhaustion and increasingly poor health, she had to cut back on her activities.][
Hansen died in April 2022 after prolonged illness.
]
Selected publications
Hansen published the following books in Danish:
References
External links
Bente Hansen's website
(in Danish)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen, Bente
1940 births
2022 deaths
People from Kolding
Danish editors
Danish women editors
Danish feminist writers
Danish women's rights activists
Danish women in politics
Dagbladet Information people
Danish socialist feminists
20th-century Danish women writers
21st-century Danish women writers