Kaj Fölster, Sweden: Humanisterna

No development of our humanistic goals is possible without continuous progress in gender politics.

Sweden and Germany, although so different in size and history, are interesting to compare in respect to the development of women's and men's equal rights and their acceptance in society: Both Sweden and Germany are well-established Welfare States, democracies, with equal rights of women now inscribed in their laws, political programmes and institutions. In both countries the political parties proclaim the wish to make efforts to overcome the still prevailing unbalance between men and women in all fields like for ex. labour market, wages, parental responsibilities and top posts. In both countries the political development is to a great extent secular, non-religious, and their policies in international organisations are steered to strengthen women empowerment. There is however still a long road ahead. Opposing forces who wish to postpone the further development of equal conditions for men and women are in both countries even getting stronger in the present times of economic restraint. Arguments seem to grow more subtle, but not less dangerous.

But looking closer at the two countries we see basic differences. Still the Swedish progress in gender politics is looked upon with envy by the German women's organisations and gender politicians. In this brief address here I want to stress how these two countries represent two different models in their endeavour to achieve the different steps towards the empowerment of women. This approach gives us clues to necessary conditions and criteria for emancipation and empowerment. At the end I will summarize these.

Although I would strongly emphasize that both countries belong to a European cultural pattern of patriarchy, which has deep common roots, still vital, I would like here to show briefly how different historical processes have given the two countries different modes of development, also different obstacles to overcome and thus influenced the steps towards the equality of the sexes.

GERMANY: The coming of industrialisation started earlier in Germany than in Sweden and can briefly, very briefly, be said to have had two consequences, were the Swedes followed in a slower path.

1.The migration into the growing towns, loosening of the family-ties, women becoming either wage-workers or copying the bourgeois life style of becoming house-wives.

2. The fast growing political struggle for equal rights, which influenced the women to claim their rights also.

Thus the modern economy and family pattern changed considerably. The political demands, developed by the growing Labour Movement and the Liberals, grew into forceful reforms of political rights, to which the women claimed full participation. The first legal reforms for the equality of the sexes concerned the rights to heritage and ownership. Then followed the right to vote. The social insurances, equal educational, vocational and professional rights, the liberating reforms in sexual policies and many others followed, one by one. But each step demanded much effort.

The Church, or Churches, were in both countries strong opponents to all changes in the traditional family pattern, and acted on all levels against the emancipation of women. They launched veritable devil-campaigns. But they, and the other conservative forces, could not stop the different movements of liberalisation of thought and legislation. The Germans, being earlier more industrialized, having strong liberal and socialist political parties, often showed the way; the Swedes were very much influenced of what happened in that country. But they had also their own strong rural and pre-industrial traditions, which were on the whole less feudal, less authoritarian and with less hierarchical structures which characterized many of the German states, slowly uniting to become one federal nation.

The First World War threw Germany into a destructive militaristic era and political turmoil which was not favourable for a calm development of reforms and betterment, as was the case in peaceful Sweden. However the 1918 revolution, the overthrowing of the Kaiser, the 1919 Constitution definitely shaped a new political and societal order, including the women's right to vote (in Sweden 1922) and other gender equalities. The "equal rights of women and men in law" was written down in the new Constitution. The emancipation movements in society were very strong, but negatively affected by the crash of the economy.

Then came the devastating development in Germany through the Nazis, forbidding and destroying every liberal form of thought or action. All human rights were trampled down, and with this also the possibility for women to claim any rights; they were condemned to serve the ideology which forbade them to study, to have higher jobs, to use any form of sexual individual liberties (birth control, right to marry across the narrowly set ethnical and moral boarders and so on). Moreover the prevalent extremely militaristic culture trampled down all feminine qualities and aspirations except those needed for caring for the offspring in the most narrow sense.

In 1945 this was over, but not the traumata and the devastations. The Western part of Germany laboured hard to build up a democratic society; in the 1949-year constitution also the improved paragraph of "Equality of Women and Men" was also placed in the very beginning of the constitution. But the democratic and political rights of women, now politically and legally well anchored, did not extend to a similar modernised value system in the still fairly strict family model or in the economic society. The picture of "the caring mother in the home -the income-earning father outside" became, in spite of all developments going in the other direction, the dominant model around which all social welfare and labour investments were built. The new models of social securities like old age pensions, sickness insurances were of course constructed for everybody, but were built around the old pre-war concept of family responsibility. They were constructed to serve and protect the whole family of the employee, the "bread-earner". The women were considered the guardians of the homes, and their rights as such guaranteed and well established, which also means paralysing.

As the educational level of the women increased and they pushed on to the growing labour market and professions the anachronism or the split between reality and propagated norms became visible. So very few day nurseries were built, the social insurances were not made individual, the schools were, and still are, all half-day-institutions, which means a total incorporation of mothers to handle home-work and outdoor activities of the children. But also the inner value system, the accepted norms, formed the picture of the all-prevailing mother as the ideal woman. She was responsible for the private life, and no state or society should break in to that.

In East Germany the women immediately after 1945 were wanted on the labour market, and the independent economic situation of East German women, which certainly can be called an economic emancipation, derived from this concept. Nursing possibilities, day-care and long-day schools quickly took over many traditional mother-functions. The women were set free - to work outside the home. We should however not forget that the old women did not get this care or state welfare. Old people, who are after all mostly women, were shamefully treated. Their importance for the productivity was low, and the state, a well organized dictatorship, did not want to invest in them. Thus the criteria for welfare institutions were the setting free of labour, strengthening production. The women's liberation or individual choice was not a topic for discussion. The political rights were for all men and women reduced to a minimum as the country was ruled by a one-party-system, and "equality" was meant solely as equality between the socio-economic classes, with the ideological goal of the classless society. The say of women in public matters, their taking on public functions was, as said above, not equal to those of men. In theory yes, but in practice they had, although heavy responsibilities in leading jobs, very few positions in the bureaucratic setup of the all-decisive party structures. The everyday life was also hard and burdensome for the fulltime working mother.

Dictatorships are always based on strict power and obedience to the governing rules, and therefore, as we can observe everywhere where dictators rule, never include more than a few individual women into the party structures on the upper levels. The importance of the Military is also a criterion for all dictatorships, and strongly supports the male superiority in public and political life. Militaristic states never, that is my theory, allow women participation, or even women values to enter their ruling philosophy.

Then, after 1989 the Germany of today took form. The family-construction of the social welfare system of West Germany was overnight introduced over all Germany (18 Millions East Germans to the 68 Millions West- Germans). But in the process of turning over the ruined East German economic system the women lost to a greater extent than men their jobs, i.e. they had to a large extent to change their economic independence and retire inside the private walls as "house-wives", which they certainly had not wished for, as surveys definitely show. They were thus forcefully pushed out of their pattern of life which had been a combination of full-time employment and family-life, supported by caring institutions. Surveys among young people from East and from West Germany show clearly that these two, employment and family, are their goals, and they see the meaning of life and their place in the combination of these.

SWEDEN: In comparison I now turn to Sweden. The more equal conditions in the rural society of Sweden contributed certainly to the new value systems demanding equal opportunities and treatment of women and men. But we can in the modern set up also see what a difference it makes when women are treated as independent economic individuals and not bundled up into the economic concept of "family". In Sweden the separation of men and women as economic individuals, i.e. not combined into a family-unit in all matters where the state gives economic support or demands tax-payments, was introduced in the early -70ies. That was also the period of massive integration of women on the Labour Market. There they were also needed, so the acceptance had grown that women are thus not thought of (in statistics as well as in attitudes) only in family-terms or marriage-relation. In all social and financial relationships to the state the women are not covered by the male "bread earner" - according to the old family model which Germany, among other countries like Italy, Spain and Greece for ex. still are unable to break up.

Of course family politics are very important to the Swedes, thus also for their government. This can for example be seen in the universal, i.e. nation-wide coverage of family supporting institutions. The concept is to give community support in the form of services and benefits to the family members. Community responsibility, paid by taxes, has taken form in good (in quality as well as quantity) nursery schools, as well as in the all comprehensive school system, also caring for the free time or the in-between-time, caring, or giving the family support in an optimal way also for children with different handicaps, in the poorest regions - the list of examples can be made long. This makes it possible for women to avoid the dramatic choice between family or employment. Both shall and can be combined, that is since many decades the political goal, and the results clearly reflects in the statistical results.

The Swedish Church - until recently a state Church - has not like in Germany or many other countries, lately put up very much resistance to this modern pattern of life, and also the number of women priests has increased considerably in the last 40 years. The religious opposition concentrates mostly on arguing against the reforms in sexual policies, the last to become law being the right to marry for homosexual couples. This relative lack of religious argumentation or driving campaigns against the modernisation of family life, has made the political process easier.

But a must for the empowerment of women is also the restructuring of the labour markets conditions; the very male dominated structures cannot remain untouched when women enter. As the number of employed women is just as high as that of men in Sweden (78%) this fact has automatically produced forceful discussions about the adaptation of working conditions to both sexes. When the employers rely on women to the same extent as to men the focus has to turn to their conditions of work. This has the very good effect that the humanisation of working conditions gets a heavier weight when women enter the job sectors.

But just as important is the other side of the same question: When most women in the country find it natural and normal to go in for employment to the same extent as men, the incorporation of the fathers into the family responsibilities become an integral part of this model. Their responsibilities for the caring duties have consequently to be promoted, in the legislation as well as in the attitudes. The parental leave with a parental insurance, which means a substitute wage while missing work because of childcare at home, is already 30 years old. The family-centred model in countries like Germany which gives an "educational benefit" every month for the person who stays at home with the new baby tends to keep the wife at home, loosing on the labour market, loosing in her pension rights and loosing possibilities on the whole to enter outside life.

Shall we in Sweden however be happy that already 25% of the fathers take this leave, or shall we be upset that only so few use their legal rights to act equally ? Sweden, the country of gender equality, has here and also in many other fields big gaps. In comparison Sweden, or let us say the Nordic countries, have come further than the other comparable countries. However there are, this I want to underline, still much to do, very much; the resistance as I have said earlier, takes very subtle forms..

The possibility for Swedish women to go out to work, to be supported in their family duties, also has given them the possibility to enter politics on all levels. The representation in parliaments on different levels, in high political functions like minister and state secretaries etc. is now high, - 50% or near to that. Looking back in time we can see a clear correlation between women entering the labour market, leading to their taking on political positions, entering the public arena, and this leads to the building up of good public family-supporting social structures and also realising sexual reforms freeing the women from the subordination under the patriarchal power over their bodies and reproduction capacities.

CONCLUSIONS: My thesis is that the three processes just mentioned as a correlation in Sweden (economic independence, entering politics and power institutions, getting through reforms towards equality between men and women, with regard taken to the wellbeing of children and all other criteria of life qualities) go hand in hand in all democracies.

I have however in this short review of comparison between Germany and Sweden pointed out some other preconditions which should prevail in a country in order to promote women's empowerment. I think they can be applied universally. I would like to summarize them like this:

· General economic progress and welfare - not a state of want and growing misery.

· Peace in the country - not a concentration on military strength and power.

· Democracy which includes the basic human rights - not a dictatorship.

· Secular conditions for the state, the political and educational institutions.- not a religious dominance or interference in these.

Also:

· Opening up the labour market, the educational and political institutions - not keeping these for male dominance.

· Making the welfare systems (like social security, tax system etc) individual-based - not family-based where the main earner will always remain the "head" of the household.

· Recognizing childbearing and child raising as a common duty - not handling this as a private (always female) domain.

In the UNDP Gender related Development Index measuring life qualities like child health, life expectancy, educational standards, women participation on labour market, in politics - Sweden, or let's say the Scandinavian countries are at the very top. There is no question that these qualities of life all promote the empowerment of women. Yes, we know by all international studies that these life qualities are being built up because of the growing empowerment of women. This can be seen the world over. We humanists are certainly taking part in these developments. The humanistic movement also profits by the empowerment of women.