When patriarchy is optional. Interrogating the construction of the -white- Dutch identity through the analysis of gendering and degendering processes in policies concerning violence against women.

This thesis examines the connection between the degendering process that the concept of violence against women has suffered in the Netherlands over the last three decades and the ‘othering’ process of Muslim ethnic minorities in the Dutch context. The Netherlands is exemplary when it comes to implementing politics of gender and sexuality on national and cultural identity politics. This study analyses the culturist discourse that exists in the institutionalisation of different forms of violence when gender is either addressed or erased from the definition. It goes on to identify gender equality in the Netherlands and how the official discourses are embedded in the social imaginary. It concludes with a discussion of the prominent role that the problematisation of the ‘Others’ occupies in the construction of the white Dutch identity regarding women’s emancipation.