Joke Swiebel

Joke Swiebel is a Dutch political scientist, and a former policy maker, politician and activist. Since the 1960s, she has been involved with the feminist and LGBT movements. She served as first chair of the Federation of Student Working Groups on Homosexuality and on the board of the COC Nederland while a student. In the former capacity, she was one of the organizers of the first LGB demonstration in the Netherlands — and probably all of Europe — which was held on 21 January 1969. It was a protest against a discriminatory provision in the Criminal Code, introduced in 1911, that set a significantly higher age of consent for homosexual than for heterosexual contact.After earning her master's degree in 1972 from the University of Amsterdam, she led the political science library at that institution until 1977. She was involved in the creation of the women's studies program at the university and worked to coordinate between activist groups to ensure that neither gender or sexual orientation were the basis for discriminatory policies.