Political participation of women, in all their diversity, is essential to gender equality. That is why alliance Politica commits herself to the sustainable equal representation of women in politics. One of the elements is the international programme: an annual inspirational trip to a different country, to learn how that country works on achieving gender equality in politics. Therefore, from 11-14 October 2023 we travelled to Stockholm! Here, we visited political parties and women’s rights organisations, spoke to politicians and experts, and learned which best practices we can take from Sweden back to the Netherlands. During the trip participants from Stem op een Vrouw, WO=MEN, NVR and Emancipator were present. Other attending participants were from Young Feminist Ambassadors, Elance Academy, S.P.E.A.K., SharePower and VNVA (Association of Dutch Female Doctors).
Day 1
In the early morning, we flew from Amsterdam Schiphol to Stockholm, where we, after a short stop at the hotel, immediately hit the road. The first stop? A feminist walking tour through the city, guided by guide and founder of the tour Charlotta (Lotta) Holmgren. Lotta told us about the fight of the Swedish suffragettes and took us to historical places in the city, like buildings where women’s rights groups used to gather and squares where demonstrations took place. She told us about the statue in front of the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament), named
Come as you are!. This work of art consists of, among other things, two young women who carry forward the first five elected women for the Swedish Riksdag in 1921. This shows that the fight for democracy and equality persists, despite their achievements.
After this walk through the past, it was time for a visit to
Kvinna till Kvinna. They are one of the leading feminist women’s rights organisations in Sweden. The organisation works in areas affected by war and conflict to reinforce the influence and power of women. To achieve this, they work together with over 140 partner organisations in 20 countries. We discussed with them three important topics: the diminishing space for women’s movements and human rights defenders, the political participation of women, and feminist foreign policy.
Day 2
In 2022, the Swedish Parliament established the
Gender Equality Working Group, a working group with representatives from all the political parties within the Riksdag. The goal? Improving gender equality in the parliament, with a specific focus on the working conditions for female parliamentarians. We spoke to Julia Kronlid, parliamentarian for the Swedish Democrats. A controversial party in Sweden, because of their far-right point of views. This was an interesting insight into Swedish culture: the importance of a working environment geared towards the participation of women is widely supported. All parties are committed to this, which is a big difference with the Dutch situation.
Kronlid told us what the working group is currently concerned with:
- The manners between members of Parliament
- The dealing with hate and threats from the outside; and
- The combination of working in parliament and family life. We discussed working procedures, the possibility of working from home and daycare in or close to the Riksdag.
In Sweden, a lot more has been arranged concerning the combination of work and family life compared to the Netherlands. Kronlid told us that she went on maternity leave one day after her first day as a parliamentarian, and it did not cause any problems during her candidacy. Female politicians have the same rights as other working people in Sweden, and those rights are also much more extensive than in the Netherlands. For example, maternity leave is six months, there is a shared parental leave of 240 days – through which both parents take a required 90 days, and the remaining days are free to divide - and daycare is well subsidised with the goal of keeping this affordable for everyone. What a difference with the Netherlands: there exists no official maternity or parental leave for politicians. Pregnant politicians must request sick leave, and there is nothing arranged for parents. Besides that, the Netherlands has one of the most expensive daycare systems in Europe.
It was one of the most important lessons from the Stockholm trip: extensive parental leave, the right to maternity leave for everyone – including politicians, support from all political parties for gender equality and affordable daycare have been crucial conditions to the full participation of women in the labour market and in politics.
After our visit to the Riksdag we continued to our meeting with Carolina Gustaffson, the chair of Kvinnors Organisering. This is the women's organisation within the leftist party
Vänsterpartiet. The goal of the organisation is achieving equal chances to participate in the party on all levels. They call their work
‘internfeminisme’ and have been systematically working towards a feminist party culture since 2012. But how do they do this? Gustaffson explained they work on this using their handbook that serves as an action plan to counter patriarchal structures within the party. In practice this means they organise separate meetings for men and women to discuss which role they take on within this process. Next to that, they hold training sessions for members on how they (consciously or subconsciously) hold sexist attitudes within the party and how you can recognize ‘Master Suppression Techniques’, strategies used to exclude others.
After lunch and some spare time, we travelled to the office where
MÄN and MenEngage are based. MÄN is a Swedish non-profit organisation working on the promotion of gender equality, combat violence by men and redefining masculinity. During this visit we talked to Luis Lineo, who works at MÄN, MenEngage and is active within the Feministisktinitiativ party. Lineo told us that MÄN focuses on 4 pillars: promoting care (men's caregiving), supporting young men, question existing norms and prevent violence. To prevent violence, they increase the awareness and knowledge on violence, expose gender stereotypes and norms and motivate men to take action when they see violence happening.
MÄN is a member of
MenEngage Europe. Sofia Strive (MenEngage) explained to us that this organisation involves men and boys in themes such as women's rights, gender equality, LGBTQI+ rights and social justice, with the goal of working together towards a future where everyone is equal. Among other things, they hold training sessions on the capacity building of an organisation, standing up for women's rights and gender equality, organise webinars about topics such as gender-based violence. The European network consists of 88 organisations and 12 individual members from 33 European countries – From Russia to Portugal and from Turkey to Finland.
During the meeting at MÄN's office we also met Farida Al-Abani, the former party leader of
Feministiskt initiativ. The vision of this party is: a society that everyone can see and everyone embraces. They use feminist and anti-racist perspectives to find egalitarian and sustainable solutions to political conflicts, in Sweden as well as globally.
Day 3
On Friday morning we visited
Centerkvinnorna, the in 1932 established women's organisation of the political centre party
Centerpartiet. The party, among other things, contributed to the Equality Act (1979), through which men and women formally received equal rights in Swedish social life, for example regarding working conditions and development opportunities. Karin Andersson of the Centerpartiet was the minister for Equality at the time when the Equality Act was adopted. Centerkvinnorna has about 5000 members which makes it the biggest political women's organisation of Sweden. Special about this is that members do not have to be a member of the Centerpartiet, but through their membership of Centerkvinnorna they do have voting rights within the Centerpartiet. Besides this, political women's organisations in Sweden receive direct financial support from the Swedish government, where in the Netherlands these organisations are dependent on financial support of the party to which they connected.
Centerkvinnorna develops their policy according to what they call the three freedoms: economic freedom, structural freedom and sexual freedom. They work on the participation of women within the party, improving the working conditions and the involvement of women in the party, and supporting (upcoming) female politicians. They do this through offering training to local departments of Centerkvinnorna about discrimination, hate (from the outside) and the ‘master's suppression techniques.’
After visiting Centerkvinnorna it was already time for our second-last working visit to the
Olof Palme International Center (OPIC), an organisation committed to international solidarity and advocacy of the labour movement. They owe the name Olof Palme to the former party leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and twice prime minister of Sweden until he was killed in Stockholm in 1986.
OPIC works internationally on democracy, human rights, peace and social justice, in the spirit of Olof Palme. They do this through political parties and networks similar to the Swedish Social Democrats. They support these political parties in achieving gender equality by organising, amongst other things, training sessions and supporting the development of their party. Next to that, they work on the representation and qualitative participation of women in parties by organising training sessions for female politicians, encouraging the qualitative participation of women within parties, and by supporting for example the creation of quotas or policy development within the area of gender equality. Lastly, they support progressive movements and parties that create change within society and in the daily lives of people.
The final stop of our study trip was a visit to the
Swedish Gender Equality Agency, a government organisation which is part the Ministry of Employment and is established to contribute to the effective implementation of the Swedish gender equality policy. The highest goal of Swedish policy on gender equality is that men and women have the same opportunities, rights and responsibilities in all aspects of life. The agency works according to six stated goals to gender equality: equal distribution of power and influence; economic gender equality; equal education; equal distribution of unpaid domestic labour and care; equal healthcare; and violence to women by men must stop.
In Sweden, only 35 out of 290 municipalities have a majority of female representatives. Other conclusions from their research on political participation state results comparable to research in the Netherlands. These conclusions include less women than men in higher positions; women and men are involved in and work within different policy areas (differences in which commission they hold a seat); underrepresentation and dropout rates are higher among young women; and women, especially young women, deal more often with poor working conditions than men.
Day 4
During the closing meeting, Stem op een Vrouw, WO=MEN, NVR and Emancipator together with participants from Young Feminist Ambassadors, Elance Academy, S.P.E.A.K., SharePower and VNVA (association of female Dutch doctors) and RooieVrouwen jointly reflected on the trip. It was discussed what information was acquired during the trip. The participants were asked to write down three actions they would take once they got back in the Netherlands. Next to that, it was encouraged to seek cooperation with the different organisation that joined the trip.
Lessons learned
Our time in Stockholm gave us a good insight into the emancipation and the position of women – and female politicians – in Sweden. In a number of areas Sweden is definitely ahead of the Netherlands: the extensive maternity- and parental leave and the affordable day care are crucial to the emancipation of women in Sweden. This results in smaller differences between men and women on the labour market. Together with good legislation to counter the gender pay gap, it makes the economic position of women in Sweden relatively strong. Standing up for the economic position of women, as we witnessed, is essential to the full participation on the labour market ánd in politics. Because politicians, unlike the Netherlands, have the right to maternity and parental leave. This significantly lowers the barrier to become politically active, and it is made easier to combine politics with having a family.
Another difference is the widely supported attention to improving the position of female politicians in Sweden, of which the ‘Gender Equality Working Group’ but also the government subsidies for female political networks are examples of. In the Netherlands we see that progressive parties in particular pay attention to this issue, but it still lacks the structural financial support for female political networks.
At Politica, these lessons learned are being converted into advice for the Dutch political parties and women networks. Does your party want to discuss this issue with us? Please contact us!
