In Britain feminism has been unfairly characterised as being purely about bra-burning and Germaine Greer, in Sweden it is a pretty mainstream political issues that seems to be growing in importance all the time.
To understand what I mean, take this collection of both weird and wonderful articles from The Local, a website containing Swedish news in English, from just the last few weeks.
More women are now being ordained as priests than men by the Church of Sweden (it wouldn’t surprise me if that was also the case in Britain too).
Sweden is also currently thinking of banning sexist ads
I suppose this sort of debate is good, and Sweden tends to be seen as a leader in ensuringsexual equality, far more so than the UK. Having said that the UK has had a female Prime Minister, whereas Sweden (one of the pioneers of allowing women to vote) has still not had one. Mind you, if the current opinion polls are anything to go by then leader of the Socialdemocraterna (or Social Democrats in English) – Mona Sahlin – looks set to be the first one at the next general election in 2010.
What is also intriguing is that Sweden has its own feminist political party – Feministiskt initiativ (or Feminist Initiative in English), although their 0.68% of the vote at the last election wasn’t exactly a stunning result. We’ve managed to elect members of a pensioners’ party to the Scottish Parliament, so is there room for a women’s party in the UK?
