Sweden is the country with the highest level of gender equality in the world. Many say so and that is often what Sweden is known for abroad. In a way this is true. We have progressed a lot in many areas. The achievements in some, like for example child care and parental insurance make women in other countries go green with envy. And they have absolute right to feel so. Without the persistent and indomitable co/work of many brave and creative women within the parties and outside the parties, we wouldn’t be where we are today. None of the rights have been "given" to women. Neither by the "left" nor by the "right". We had to seize power ourselves. From the suffrage to the law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services. Do not forget this!

Measured by international standards Sweden has achieved a lot. But in relation to the goal - an equal society in reality - we still have a long way to go. Therefore it is really worrying that the discrepancy between the political rhetoric and the practice is so huge. Everyday reality of women is not in accordance with the declarations we are so proud of – neither here nor there, neither in our parliament, nor in EU Parliament nor with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. We have a long way to go to reach the society where nobody is discriminated or subordinated due to gender. Still long way. Too long, think many of us and that is why we are taking new political and democratic initiatives to put these issues on the top of the political agenda. This provides every woman working with women’s human rights more space for action in the politics.

Together we strengthen the work needed to make the necessary step beyond the patriarchal power order in the society. Power order that has certainly existed for a few thousand years, that has survived every revolution, that has been a basis of every existing economic and political system and that besides this is being protected by every fundamentalist religious movement, but that should not be allowed to continue framing our lives for the sake of this.

Consequences of the patriarchal thinking

The consequences of the patriarchal thinking are also visible in the rest of Europe. The results are economic and political stagnation. Women who educate themselves, and more and more of us choose this option, are certainly not doing this to become housewives. If the society does not offer social services at reasonable costs in the form of the fully paid pre-school and school, women choose not to have children. If the geriatric care does not function, women are forced to leave the paid job and they cannot use the benefits of the education that both they and the society have invested into. If the EU economic politics have as an idea that the society should withdraw from the social responsibility of offering welfare and social services, the responsibility will be shifted back to the families, i.e. women. It is expected that the private market of services will offer welfare in the form of profitable enterprises for those who can afford this. In reality it implies that many women’s unpaid work will increase and in the families where the man can afford this, other women will "work as servants". On the conditions that have perhaps been created in their own country, according to the principles of the country of origin, or at the patriarchal labour market in a Europe where the men agree that the women’s work is always of less value... Very often this work is done by women who on their part take care of children and older parents in a country, far from Europe, in the other part of world.

That’s how the gender power order, that is global in its scope and local in its concrete expression is being maintained and reproduced. The monster is the same – the perception of women and with it the work that is stamped as female, that is less worth. Therefore, the whole labour market politics, both here and there should be reviewed through the feminist glasses. Demands for equal rights to work, regardless of gender, should be self obvious, as it should be self obvious that the society must guarantee these services and care that are a precondition for making it possible for anyone to combine parenthood and professional life, regardless of gender.

Every unjust distribution of power results in violence as its extreme.

That is why male violence against women is without doubt connected with this fundamental gender power order. Here and there. In Sweden, Europe and the world. Anybody who thinks that it is just a coincidence that nine of ten cases of death caused by violence are committed by a man should seriously reconsider the matter once again. The proposition of Maria Carlshamre, that was recently adopted by the EU Parliament (with 545 votes for, 13 against and 56 abstained), refers to the extensive study in Sweden, Germany and Finland which shows that at least 30-35% of all women of the age 16 - 67 were exposed to physical or sexual violence. Furthermore, 700-900 women die every year in the EU as a result of the violence of their partner. Researches also show that 65-90% of prostituted women were exposed to sexual assaults already in their childhood or later in their life. Many countries do not have complete statistics about the man’s violence against women, something that the EU Parliament is now asking for.

All those who voted in accordance with this proposition stand thus behind the definition of man’s violence against women as a violation of the human rights and declare awareness and insight that this violence reflects the unequal distribution of power between women and men in our society. That clearly implies that we shall be never able to get rid of the violence if the distribution of power between genders is not equal. That means that we always need to look at the whole picture. We must understand that low salaries and insecure employment are a part of the same monster that is expressed in violence. We must understand that sexism, porno industry and prostitution are a part of the same monster that is expressed in the trafficking in women and children. We must understand that lack of women at leading positions in politics and economy, nationally and internationally, means that the picture is actually not whole.

WC in football has cemented the perception of the male’s sexuality as unquestionably uncontrollable

Now when EU member country Germany prepares for the WC in football by building mega brothels and designing fast purchase of sex in the form of "performance boxes", small car-port-like boxes, that with its full equipment with condoms and snack machines are going finally to cement the perception of the male’s sexuality as unquestionably uncontrollable, the whole EU should stand up and protest. But here has the hypocrisy reached its peak. The prostitution is allowed in Germany. The fact that a crime in the form of trafficking is being planned, as German "own" prostituted women won’t be enough, seems not to worry the ministers very much. Women from various organisations in many countries have reacted and are now planning actions and petitions. I myself have got the promise of the Minister of Justice to raise this question for his colleagues in the EU. It goes slowly, but still there is a progress. The minimum we can demand is a top meeting of the ministers and a decision to immediately stop all preparations of committing crime and violations of the women’s human rights!

So, there are still things to be done – both here and there. Those who give up should be ashamed. I believe that it has become clear to more and more people that the feminist dimension widens the political boundaries and vitalises the democracy. And it is self obvious that the parliamentary arena cannot be an excluded of it, neither here nor there.

Gudrun Schyman, Member of Parliament, Spokeswoman of the Feminist Initiative in Sweden and Member of the Board of the European Feminist Initiative.