Saturday, January 08, 2011

A Swede rebels

Is there resistance in Sweden to state-imposed feminism? I'm pleased to report that I've found at least one objector. Her name is Tanja Bergkvist, she's a mother of young children and she has a PhD in mathematics.

I'm a bit reliant on google translator for understanding her articles, but it's possible to get the gist of what she's arguing. For instance, in 2008 she wrote an article for a Swedish newspaper in which she criticised gender researchers who claimed that playgrounds were sexist and therefore harmful to children.

Tanja Bergqvist's response was to wonder how humanity managed to survive for thousands of years before the arrival of the gender researchers. She wondered if it would soon be thought better to take children from parents at birth and hand them over to be raised in gender neutral indoctrination centres.

She noted that already in preschools hero stories and dolls had been removed and that during gymnastics girls weren't allowed to wear feminine outfits but instead dressed like boys in T-shirts and shorts.

She asked how it fitted into official diversity policy that girls weren't allowed to express themselves differently to boys and what kind of message it sent to girls that it was the girl's clothing that was disallowed.

She then cut to the heart of things by asserting that gender roles are not only hardwired (genetic), but that they have played a positive role in human development. The difference in gender roles shouldn't be thought of as a problem if they are equally valued.

Boy and girl babies already show differences in play, she continued, which is evidence that such differences are natural rather than socially constructed. The aim of making play gender neutral is therefore unlikely to be practicable. What if girls prefer to pick flowers and boys to collect rocks? Would the authorities then act to remove such gender-encoded items from the forests?

You can see, I think, even given the limitations imposed by the translation, that Tanja Bergqvist is making some serious and principled objections to the state sponsored feminism in Sweden (there's more at her website here).

She is certainly up against it. In Sweden the government has adopted a policy of gender mainstreaming. That means that all government agencies must take part in transforming Swedish society along the lines of feminist patriarchy theory. Here is Jens Orback explaining the Swedish approach to the UN back in 2006:

Our work for gender equality is governed by our understanding that a gender-based power structure exists, meaning that we see that women are subordinate to men and that this is something we want to change. To be successful in making these changes we must ensure that a gender perspective is present in all policy areas. The gender mainstreaming strategy is therefore essential if we want to achieve a gender equal society.

In 2004 Lise Bergh had this to say to the UN on behalf of Sweden:

Equality between women and men, girls and boys demands no less than a fundamental change of society. Our societal, political and cultural institutions, be they public or private, must be changed. In every field of life and whenever women and men are affected by political reforms and decisions, a gender perspective must be the point of departure. All political issues have gender implications and gender equality must therefore be addressed wherever political decisions are taken or resources allocated and wherever norms, rules and values are set.
Yvonne Hirdman

And what does this radical change the Swedes are determined to implement involve exactly? You can get some idea of the answer in a training document, the Gender Mainstreaming Manual. This explains that Swedish officials are to be trained in a concept of gender equality drawn from a little known Swedish historian by the name of Yvonne Hirdman (p.15)

Hirdman doesn't use the term patriarchy, but refers instead to "the gender system". She believes that the gender system influences all the structures of society and is perpetuated through "segregation" (men and women doing different things) and "hierarchy" (men being considered the human norm).

So, logically, if you follow this theory of gender equality you have to change the structures of society so that there is a unisex system instead of a differentiated one.

Imagine you were an official in some Swedish government agency. This is what would await you:

Before gender mainstreaming work begins, all staff must acquire a basic understanding of Swedish gender equality policy and the gender mainstreaming strategy. The training they receive should encompass gender equality and gender theory, Swedish gender equality policy and the mainstreaming strategy. (Gender Mainstreaming Manual, p.13)

Fun times.

Anyway, if the Swedish state has its way then society will be deliberately and systematically transformed so that gender will no longer matter. There will be no differences in the work and family patterns of men and women; men and women will remain independent of each other; and there will be (in theory) equal autonomy ("the same power to shape their own lives" p.15).

Tanja Bergqvist is one woman throwing cold water on the plan. She believes that sex distinctions are natural and hardwired; that they serve a useful purpose in the development of human society; and that the Swedish state is being intrusive in its zeal to overcome gender.

And I'm with Tanja. Masculinity and femininity are real qualities which are rightly expressed in patterns of human relationships. Our "power to shape our own life" is impoverished if something as important as our sex is disallowed as a functioning component of our lives. And men and women are made for interdependent relationships rather than for a unisex independence.

Finally, it should be crystal clear to anyone who merely glances through the Gender Mainstreaming Manual, that a liberal state like Sweden is not neutral. It runs according to a very specific state ideology that is systematically implemented through state agencies. Nor is this a moderate and benign ideology; its own proponents agree that it is a radical policy aimed at a "fundamental change of society".

The liberal mask is well and truly off in Sweden.

15 comments:

  1. I do not envy any sane person in Sweden, the Danes and Finns i talk to and have lived with consider the Swedes to be insane and cannot understand why the rest of the world has such a benign view of them.

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  2. The Swedes in America had a reputation for being comically unimaginative and literal-minded, to the point of lacking common sense. Then there's their more recent reputation for moral vanity--viewing themselves as a model for the world. Put it together I suppose and you get the Swedes as the vanguard of liberalism.

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  3. Truth is beauty, beauty truth! What a rebel.

    Thanks for the link to one of the good Swedes. Re: Mr. Kalb's comment above, it's interesting to note that Sweden was a militaristic, fairly devoutly Lutheran imperial power until the 19th c with no liberalism I can think of. My cursory theory is that Sweden, like Spain, Italy, and the Mediterranean south, had no antibodies to it.

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  4. What a hisdeous troll Yvonne Hirdman is. Evil is written plainly on her face. No wonder she's made it her life's mission to screw up men, women, and the relations betweent them.

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  5. Vincy said,

    "it's interesting to note that Sweden was a militaristic, fairly devoutly Lutheran imperial power until the 19th c with no liberalism I can think of."

    Now I guess they're "militaristically" left wing or social changers.

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  6. ""it's interesting to note that Sweden was a militaristic, fairly devoutly Lutheran imperial power until the 19th c with no liberalism I can think of""

    Going back to Gustav Adolphus there has been a tradition in Sweden for "Benevolent" absolute rulers, whether monarchs or not.

    That might explain the modern attraction to big state "Gummint will fix it" liberalism and the naive childlike faith that government departments can alter human nature.

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  7. That is amazing.

    It's actually slavery of women. Women are no longer allowed to express themselves. When I was a young girl I hated dressed (couldn't run fast enough)....but I chased the boys :), had long hair, and spent hours and hours copying fashion magazines even in kindergarten!

    These crazy feminists would take ME away from ME.

    Thanks for the article Mark.

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  8. Umm... Is everyone still mad at me, or am I allowed to come back now?

    Do I have to grovel first? I really hate groveling, but I miss Jesse and Mark and everybody. I'll be on best-behavior this time, I promise. Pretty please? I'll be cute and diminutive, and sweet and submissive, and passive and acquiescent, and all that good feminine stuff.

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  9. Lol I was going to make a comment on the last thread, "If Alte was hear she'd say..." :P.

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  10. Oh, that's good. I don't have anything to say, just feeling wistful and repentant. Later, then!

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  11. Interesting. Did not know that the Swedes were such nutcases, and regarded as such even by their scandinavian neighbors.

    But after reading this, their prostitution and rape laws make more sense.

    I wonder what they will do so that a woman can fight on equal terms in heavy weight boxing. The male superiority in boxing is due to only gender bias.

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  12. Being a Swede, I might be able to contribute a bit. Reality is that the media, universities and government have been taken over by a mafia of the "politically correct". These people are in no way a majority, but they are the only ones that get heard. Our politicians are through-and-through sheepish - as soon as any interest group of any kind screams discrimination, we pay out research grants to look into some gender aspect of the lesser sperm whale or what not.

    Reality, however, is that about half of the adult population (accotrding to my estimates) are idiots, and us in the other half spend our days mocking and making fun of the first half. Incidentally, the first half usually either works in the public sector or lives on welfare, while us in the second half work private sector jobs and create all the wealth that supports the first half of the population.

    We are still waiting for the revolution here up north, so I wouldn't advice moving here - at least not if you plan on having kids. If you have a sound world view, you can probably make it through decently despite the current paradigm, but please avoid putting any children through the mental castration of Swedish public shooling. It tends to leave you either bitter or stupid.

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  13. re hpx83

    I live on an island close to Sweden and within Swedish jurisdiction.

    Hpx83s description is absolute correct.

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