Gender Issues in Sweden: Socio-Political and Historiographical Aspects

Abstract

Gender equality in the political, legal, social, economic, and cultural spheres of modern Sweden is highly relevant to society. This issue affects all aspects of the country's life and is one of the most important points for understanding Swedish identity. The most equal opportunities for women and men are primarily manifested at the state and political levels. In the global media space of the last decade, great attention has been paid to the women's hashtag movement #metoo against cases of sexual harassment by men towards women. This phenomenon has had a significant impact on many aspects of life in Sweden. The susceptibility of Swedish society to gender inequality issues has also been influenced by the scientific achievements of humanities research. Scholars have made significant progress in developing gender issues. If the first works on women's topics were empirical studies that described events involving the weaker sex, then, from the second half of the 1970s historians began talking not about gender equality (jämlikhet), but about gender parity (jämställdhet). The emphasis was not on the biological difference between men and women, but on their social inequality. The new interest of scholars in studying the role of the state in different periods of the history of this country became a novelty in gender historiography in Sweden since the 1990s. It is in the field of studying gender issues in the last five decades that Swedish humanities have achieved the greatest success.