Opinion

Leading the Swedish way

I met Annika Skogar, a young political science student from Lund, Sweden in the January of 2013. Lund, she informed me, is situated in the south of  Sweden, some 40 minutes away from Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. She worked for the student's magazine at Lund University and was also involved in Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

She was in Goa on a scholarship from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and was researching on women issues, gender equality in politics and engaged in meeting politicians, activists, government officials and other stakeholders since the summer of 2012. This was when she came across Evescape (the women's magazine I had launched that year) and wanted to meet me.

That was also the year when the BJP led Goa Government under chief minister Manohar Parrikar had launched the Laadli Laxmi scheme, as a response to the skewed male-female ratio. Evescape believed that a solution to the female feticide can be reached through a change in people’s mindset and to do this every issue of the magazine had one picture spread dedicated to celebrate the girl child wherein parents sent photos of their daughter/s and wrote a short note about why they love her/them. This impressed Annika to a great extent and wanted to know more about my work.

She told me that she had also researched the statistics of the State Election Commission and was intrigued that women in Goa tend to vote to such an high extent, more than any other state in India, and at the same time are highly under represented in the Goa Legislative Assembly. This she told me was a contradiction considering the high standards of living and high lieracy rates. She believed that Goa should have been that one state in India with many female representatives. Another thing that she felt is that Goa is much more patriachal than we can expect and that women's tendency to go to the ballot box don't necessarily mean that they are doing it due to interest in politics.

Annika believed that if more women would get a chance to take part in politics, the substance of politics would change for better, as women have different experiences than men and therefore different priorities. She added that gender equality in Goa's politics could be possible if men give away some of its power and women are encouraged to take it. To me this conversation was interesting.

Like all others, I knew Sweden for the Volvo, IKEA (the furniture company), the Swedish Krona (Sweden is a part of the European Union but does not have the Euro) and the Nobel Prize. But most importantly, Sweden has one of the highest levels of gender equality in the world and that was what made this entire meeting significant to me. Every year, the international organisation World Economic Forum ranks more than 140 countries based on the gap between women and men according to indicators within health, education, economy and politics. Since 2006, Sweden has never ranked lower than fourth and has come a long way in making sure that women and men are treated equally in the workplace.

Gender discrimination in the workplace has been illegal since 1980. The Swedish Discrimination Act from 2009 demands that employers not only actively promote equality between men and women, but also take measures against harassment. The act also states that employees and job applicants who are, have been or will be taking parental leave may not be treated unfairly. Cases of discrimination can be reported to the Swedish Equality Ombudsman, a goverment agency that protects equal rights.

In 1974, Sweden was the first country in the world to replace gender-specific maternity leave with parental leave. The so-called parental insurance enabled couples to take six months’ off work per child, with each parent entitled to half of the days. However, a father could sign his days over to the mother – and as a result, two decades later, 90 per cent of paternity leave in Sweden was being used by mothers only.

I have been following this Nordic country for precisely this reason -- gender equality. Only last year, I read in The Local (a Swedish online publication of which I am a subscriber) that Sweden was ranked the best place in the world for women in a survey published on International Women's Day. Based on 9,000 respondents' opinions and ranked among 80 countries, the US News & World Reports' Best Countries survey put Sweden top in the Best Countries For Women category, said the report.

Sweden scored highest in a compilation of five factors that are relevant to the well-being of women: cares about human rights, gender equality, income equality, safe and progressive. Survey participants from around the world consider Sweden the No 1 country that most strongly exemplifies gender equality and cares about human rights, and rank it in the top-ten for the three other factors included.
Gender equality comes from the belief that when women and men share power and influence equally, it leads to a more just and democratic society. A well-developed welfare system makes it easer for both sexes to balance their work and family life. Applying gender teaching in Swedish preschools is increasingly common, says Annika. The aim is to give children the same opportunities in life regardless of their gender, through teaching methods that llow each child to growinto a unique individual.

She informed me that gender equality is an important topic that is addressed continiously throughout elementary school to prepare students for further education. A greater proportion of women than men complete their uppoer secondary education. Women comprise roughly 60 percent of all students in under graduate university studies and almost two thirds of all degrees are awarded to women. Apart from legislations alike the Act on violence against women, Prohibiting the purchase of sexual services, the Abortion act, etc, it is one of the few countries in the world to break the tradition of a male archbishop when in 2013 Ante Jackelen was elected by the Church of Sweden as its first female archbishop.

Significantly more women than men participate in adult education and its parliament consists of about just as many women as men. This Nordic country has one of the world's highest representation of women in Parliament. After the 2014 election, 43.6 percent (152) of the 349 seats were taken by women. But this did not happen over night. When Swedish women gor thieir right to vote for the first time in 1921 , politically active women relaised that the male dominated political parties were hostile towards women and women's interests. Thus women formed their own party by breaking away from mainstream political parties. The second wave of women's political activity during the 1960s and 1970s was aimed at securing not only equal rights but also equal opportunities for women and, more generally, a gender equal social order.

Moreover, the Swedish case illustrates the fact that a proportional system can be used to advance women's representation  but this could not have been accomplished without other favourable factors such as a rather women friendly welfare state, mobilisation os women in political organisations and groups as well as in the labour market and parties responsive to women;s demands. The establishment of a women's party and its potential threat forced the established parties to increase their efforts to attract more women both as representatives  and voters.

Another important aspect to be noted about Sweden is Gender Mainstreaming which describes the incorporation of the gender equality perspective into the work of the government agencies at all levels. The idea is that gender equality is not a a seperate, isolated issuebut a continual process. To create eqaulity, the concept of eqaulity must be taken into account when resources are distributed, norms are created and decisions are taken.

There is so much to learn from the Swedish experience for India and its polity that harps about "women led development". Many women in the country are nevertheless joining hands to move beyond this establishment's rhetoric and most importantly the effort is based on the Sweden model.


https://www.girlsglobe.org/2013/01/31/the-lost-daughters/

Author: Rajeshree Nagarsekar/Email: rajeshree.nagarsekar8@gmail.com/Twitter:RajeshreeIN