Challenging the Myth of Gender Equality in Sweden

Description

Sweden is often considered one of the most gender-equal countries in the world and held up as a model to follow, but the reality is more complex. This is the first book to explode the myth of Swedish gender equality, both offering a new perspective for an international audience, and suggesting how equality might be rethought more generally. While the authors argue that the gender-equality mantra in Sweden has led to a society with increased opportunities for some, they also assert that the dominant norm of gender equality has become nationalistic and builds upon heteronormative and racial principles. Examining the changing meanings and parameters of gender equality against the country's social-democratic tradition and in the light of contemporary neoliberal ideologies, the book constitutes an urgent contribution to the debates about gender-equality policies and politics. CHALLENGING THE MYTH OF GENDER EQUALITY IN SWEDEN Contents List of figures and tables Figures Table Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: challenging the myth of gender equality in Sweden The emergence of a mythical mantra Critiquing the Swedish model of gender equality: key issues Structure of the volume 1. When feminism became gender equality and anti-racism turned into diversity management Introduction From the women’s movement to the women’s lobby From anti-racism to diversity management The intersectional challenge Final remarks 2. Normalisation meets governmentality: gender equality reassembled Introduction The normalisation of different articulations of gender equality Gender equality as something we have already accomplished and the disappearance of gender: reassembling the normal in terms of risk Gender equality as a measurable quantitative complementarity: reproducing gender/power relations Gender equality as a narrative of and for ‘us’ – by producing the ‘other’ How is feminist critique possible when reflective critique has become part of normalisation processes, and freedom of choice the very ground for politics? 3. Emotionally charged: parental leave and gender equality, at the surface of the skin Introduction Pregnant subjectivity Equality politics – a politics of reversal? Or of corporeal permeability? Approaching images Soft touch The technology of garments Through the lens of the camera The white gaze … and the sentimental gaze Conclusions 4. Rethinking gender equality and the Swedish welfare state: a view from outside Introduction Migration, welfare changes and racialised violence ‘Fear on the rise’: cultures of violence, whiteness and facelessness Taking the place of the subject: the fear of (small) numbers Masculinity in crisis Predatory identities and the fear of numbers, large and small Accounting for majoritarian fears Charting ambivalence: the conundrum of the individual versus the masses Challenging neoliberalism’s insistence on the individual: the persistence of inequalities Afterword 5. How is the myth of Swedish gender equality upheld outside Sweden? A case study The Egalia case: ‘stupefying gender madness haunts Sweden’ The Yahya Hassan/Athena Farrokzhad case: ‘Swedish in the head’ The Swedish gender-equality mantra Swedish exceptionalism Conclusion 6. Gender equality under threat? Exploring the paradoxes of an ethno-nationalist political party Introduction Swedish gender equality at the cross-roads Racism and the field of the political Gender and cultural-racist parties Women in the Sweden Democrats Neoliberalism, gender and support for racist parties Four paradoxes: a feminist reading of the Sweden Democrats Conclusions 7. ‘What should we do instead?’ Gender-equality projects and feminist critique Introduction The promises of gender mainstreaming: background and theoretical points of departure Images of Swedish gender mainstreaming Women’s work: a mainstreaming project Wearing gender spectacles Numbers that count Gender mainstreaming on the market Conclusions: gender mainstreaming and feminist critique 8. Frictions and figurations: gender-equality norms meet activism A feminist event A field of political struggle Frictions 8 March: Women’s Day On not understanding the problem Separatist spaces Body talks Afterword: rethinking gender equality To politicise but also challenge the gender-equality norm Intersectional awareness Don’t be nostalgic: on temporality and economic subjectivity Undermining the notion of gender equality as a national trait Index