Werksters

Werksters is a Dutch noun that refers to female workers. It is the plural form of werkster, which is formed from werk meaning “work” and the agentive suffix -ster, a pattern used in Dutch to denote a person associated with a particular activity. The term has historically been used to describe women employed in various kinds of labor, including domestic service, textile and factory work, and other paid occupations.

In 19th- and early 20th-century Dutch sources, werksters appear in discussions of labor, class, and gender, and the word figures in both descriptive accounts and polemical writing about working conditions. In feminist and social-history contexts, references to werksters are sometimes used to emphasize the gendered dimensions of labor. Today, the term can carry dated or regionally specific connotations and may be perceived as archaic or informal depending on the context.

In contemporary Dutch, more neutral expressions such as werkende vrouw or vrouw die werkt are typically preferred in formal writing. Nevertheless, werkster or werksters can still appear in literary works, historical texts, or discussions of past work conditions to evoke a particular era or social dynamic.

See also: werk, werkster, arbeid, gendered language.