Career
Adema began her career as an unpaid worker for the Algemeen Handelsblad, a liberal Amsterdam newspaper. In 1939, she was appointed editor for the national section. She worked there until 1941, when she resigned as a protest against the anti-Jewish measures taken at the paper.
During World World War II, she was active in the Dutch resistance, which brought her in contact with the group that published Het Parool, an illegal resistance paper.
Parool and Voor de vrouw: 1940s to 1950s
After the war ended, Het Parool hired her as editor for national news. which also published reviews of children"s books In that period she shared desks with authors such as Gerard Reve, Henri Knap, and Simon Carmiggelt, and was one of the people in Amsterdam around whom literary life was centered.
Contributors of stories and verse to the "legendary" page included Hora Adema herself as well as authors and journalists such as Annie M.G. Schmidt, Jeanne Roos, and Harriët Freezer. Foreign almost twenty years, Fiep Westendorp illustrated the column with black and white drawings that situated the position of woman in society.
Adema worked for Het Parool for twenty-two years, during which time she helped nurture women authors and illustrators including Schmidt, Westendorp, Freezer, Hella Haasse, and Mies Bouhuys.
In 1968 she was fired by editor-in-chief Herman Sandberg, which caused some uproar and even led to the firing of an editor at Vrij Nederland. Feminist activism and Opzij, 1960s and after
In the 1960s, Hora Adama gained attention writing feminist newspaper columns. With d"Ancona, Hora Adema founded the radical feminist monthly magazine Opzij (the title translates as "move over") in 1972, together with politician and sociologist Hedy d"Ancona.
In 1972, the magazine printed 1,700 copies per month.
By 1992 this had grown to 65,000, having developed itself "from a radical feminist pamphlet to a liberal-feminist opinion magazine with a large dose of human interest." In 1992, d"Ancona and Adema were awarded the Harriët Freezer ring, an award given to contributors to women"s emancipation, honoring them for Opzij and other contributions. In 2007 printed over 94,000 copies per month, though today it is considered a more mainstream magazine, focusing more on general opinion than on activism.