Feminism

One cannot live in Sweden without being drawn into serious discussions about feminist issues. As a dilligent student that I am, I started to document myself about these theories and found them relevant not only for women but for all the marginalized groups (and yes, I do agree with the post-modernist assumption that everything expresses a power relationship).

Listen to this: "if a group is kept out of something for long enough, it is overwhelmingly likely that activities of that sort will develop in a way unsuited to the excluded group." (Janet Radcliffe-Richards). Nothing can be truer than this, I think, and it does not refer only to the incompatibility between the current design of the work market with child-rearing; it is a great strategy to make the marginal group not only excluded, but un-necessary in the kind of positions that the dominant group reserved for itself.

And even a more radical position, I am not sure that I completely agree with it but it must be largely true: "virtually every quality that distinguishes men from women is affirmatively compensated in this society. Men's physiology defines most sports, their needs define auto and health insurance coverage, their socially-designed biographies define work place expectations and successful career patterns, their perspectives and concerns define quality in scholarship, their experiences and obsessions define merit, their objectification of life defines art, their military service defines citizenship, their presence defines family, their inability to get along with each other - their wars and rulerships - define history, their image defines god, and their genitals define sex." (Catherine MacKinnon).

Politics: The Feminist Initiative

Two days ago, the usually tepid Swedish politics registered a surge in temperature with the official appearance of the Feminist Initiative. Lead by a former Left Party member, Gudrun Schyman, the Initiative is an organization meant to further and protect the rights of women in the Swedish life. If they score well on opinion polls, it is very likely that the FI will seriously consider participating as a political party in the general elections scheduled for 2006.
What is interesting to me is first that it is here, in Sweden, where most would agree that feminists have made most progress in their campaign for equal rights between men and women, that this organization should appear. And then secondly, I am really curious how this FI will fit politically.
Many of my feminist friends are critical against Gudrun and foresee not a strengthening of the feminist movement in Sweden but on the contrary a decrease in the overall popularity of the left, traditionally the political zone where the feminist interests were promoted. By possibly candidating in the 2006 elections, the FI risks to split the left wing vote and to allow a right wing government to take over.
Personally, I see the Feminist Initiative as a protest sign against traditional Swedish politics (which one can safely say is rather boring), and as a chance to revitalize the public debate around many social issues. For example, a "man tax" was proposed, to be paid by all male Swedes, as a mode of prevention (?) or compensation for domestic abuse suffered by women. Of course this is a very provocative thought, and full of flaws, but I thought it was cool to get some wake-up call!