Behind Sweden's Gender Lines

A new graffiti has appeared on the streets of Stockholm, Sweden. "Men are animals," it says.

The slogan has become a symbol of a heated debate in this country over why full gender equality has not been achieved despite decades of legislation promoting it.

"There is an anger," says Hanne Kjoller, a columnist for the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. "The things we have achieved, we achieved them years ago."

The "'men are animals' controversy," as its known here, exploded onto the front pages of newspapers in May, after Ireen von Wachenfeldt, a government official who is one of Sweden's best-known feminists, was featured in the Swedish Television documentary, "The Gender War."

At the time, von Wachenfeldt was head of ROKS, the national network of shelters for abused women, which is a government institution. A reporter on the program noted that the organization had printed excerpts of the "SCUM Manifesto."

The "SCUM Manifesto" was published in 1983 by Valerie Solanas, a radical U.S. feminist previously known for attempting to assassinate Andy Warhol in 1968. In the book's title, SCUM stands for the Society for Cutting Up Men. Within its covers, Solanas calls on women to "destroy the male sex," arguing that medical science made it possible to give birth only to females and without the aid of males.

The Swedish TV reporter, Evin Rubar, asked von Wachenfeldt about the statement from the manifesto: "To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."

"Is that your standpoint?" Rubar asked. "Yes, it's my standpoint," the director said. "That man is an animal?" the reporter said. "Man is an animal," von Wachenfeldt said. "Don't you think so?"

The documentary sparked fierce reactions across the country. Some women's shelters have left the national network in protest, and von Wachenfeldt resigned in the midst of the controversy. But her remarks opened a national discussion on the topic of women's equality.

A Model of Equality

The assertion that "Man is an animal" might seem out of place in Sweden--a country that has been a model of sexual equality--where society sees it as an integral part of the egalitarian ethic of its welfare state.

After the women's liberation movement took off in the 1970s, the Swedish government passed laws mandating equality in every aspect of public life and even some aspects of private live. The government prohibited violence against women, required salary parity for men and women in similar jobs and gave men and women the right to equal parental leave. In the 1990s, Sweden's government became the first in the world where half the ministers were women. Earlier this year, Sweden was ranked the most gender-equal country by the World Economic Forum.

But being first in the rankings is not enough, say feminists. Women still earn on average only 71 percent of what men earn, and some studies--though these are disputed in feminist circles--suggest that domestic violence is a larger problem than widely believed.

"There has been a strong women's movement here that has achieved a lot," said Lotten Sunna, Stockholm-based spokesperson for Feminist Initiative, a new empowerment movement that is focused on putting feminism even higher on the political agenda. "But that has also led to a false belief that we have reached equality, that we are there, and as a result of that things are starting to back up again."

Women Not Prioritized

Sunna argues that the current Swedish political establishment does not prioritize women's issues. That's the case, she says, even though Prime Minister Goran Persson has labeled himself a feminist, 45 percent of Swedish parliament members are women and most national political parties have made feminism part of their political platforms.

"It's the politically correct thing to say, that I'm a feminist," Sunna said.