I am the only woman there

The introduction to ‘A Seventh Man’ expresses the hope for a separate book about the experiences of female guest workers. Bertien van Manen was inspired by this and made her series ‘Vrouwen te gast’ in the 1970’s. In a fairly formal and distant manner she shows the female labour migrants or the wives of labour migrants who came to the Netherlands in the context of family reunification. Turkish, Moroccan, Tunisian, Spanish, Yugoslavian and Italian women were photographed in their struggle to survive in a foreign culture. Bertien van Manen photographed the often primitive living conditions, work, parties, and leisure activities. The book is a plea for action from the women’s movement in general and the women’s secretariat of the Dutch Trade Union Federation (FNV) in particular.