Carry Pothuis-Smit

Wilhelmina Carolina Benjamina "Carry" Pothuis-Smit (12 February 1872 – 30 August 1951) was a politician and feminist in the Netherlands. She was the first woman elected to the Senate of the Netherlands on 23 March 1920.

Life The daughter of Barend Marinus Smit and Wilhelmina Carolina Benjamina van den Honert, she was born Wilhelmina Carolina Benjamina Smit in Amsterdam. She earned a teaching certificate in Arnhem when she was eighteen and then taught in Haarlem and later in Amsterdam.

She served on Amsterdam city council from 1919 to 1924 and in the Dutch senate from 1920 to 1937. She worked to promote social services while she was a member of city council. In the senate, she supported the right of married women to work and the right of women teachers to be able to marry and keep their jobs; she also campaigned for national disarmament.