Career
She is currently wethouder (alderman) in the executive of the city of Amsterdam for GreenLeft. Van Es became assistant to the PSP parliamentary party in 1975. During the 1981 election she was elected to parliament.
From 1985 she was chair of the parliamentary party, which after the 1986 election was represented only by her.
She was a consciously single mother from 1988. She was replaced as an Member of Parliament by party member Leoni Sipkes.
After her political career, Van Es worked for the broadcasters VPRO and NOS. In October 1997, Van Traa died during a car crash. After her journalist work, Van Es led the political-cultural centre De Balie in Amsterdam and chaired the GGZ-Netherlands, a health organization, between 2002 and 2007.
In 2001 she was asked by the cabinet to help Máxima Zorreguieta, then the future wife of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange integrate in the Dutch society.
She worked from November 2007 as director-general of Government and Kingdom Relations, one of the highest-ranking civil servants within the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.
