Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research Facebook page. Fair use.<\/i><\/p>\n
On December 17, 1918, the historic decision was taken The results of the Swedish Parliamentary elections After the September elections, however, the two Under these unusual conditions, the 2019\/2020 budget The new budget guidelines in this fluid political Put simply, the Agency has approximately a year till The domains of activity were research and In the Parliamentary debate on Friday 14 December 2018, Most tellingly, in his intervention, Fredrik Lundh Tellingly, Adam Marttinen (Sweden Democrats) remarked The situation has been monitored with increased In addition, the board of Swedish Gender Researchers\u2019 Unfortunately, in the context of ongoing political At the same time, on Tuesday, December 18, 2018, a The premature closure of the Swedish Gender Equality First, it strengthens the hypothesis that the ongoing Second, it is further proof that right-wing populist Third, it shows that conservative and right-wing And last but not least, it argues that Sweden, which has Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research Facebook page. Fair use. On December 17, 1918, the historic decision was taken in the Swedish Parliament in favour of introducing universal and equal suffrage for women and men. 100 years later, the date marks the very day when confirmation came that the Swedish Gender Equality Agency (J\u00e4mst\u00e4lldhetsmyndigheten) would be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin the Swedish Parliament in favour of introducing universal and equal suffrage
\nfor women and men. 100 years later, the date marks the very day when confirmation
\ncame that the Swedish Gender Equality Agency (J\u00e4mst\u00e4lldhetsmyndigheten<\/em>) would be closed down, thereby delivering
\na serious institutional blow to the coordination and harmonization of Swedish
\ngender equality efforts that have been undertaken over the past century. <\/p>\nAn
\nuncertain parliamentary landscape and a rejected transitional budget<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nwhich took place on 9 September 2018, marked a significant shift rightwards.
\nThe right-wing populists Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna<\/em>)
\nbecame the third largest party, redrawing the political map which had previously
\nconsisted of two alliance blocks. Traditionally, the two blocks were opposed\u00a0 \u2013 on the one hand, the progressive \u201cred-greens\u201d
\nconsisting of the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna<\/em>);
\nthe Green Party (Milj\u00f6partiet<\/em>); and
\nthe Left Party (V\u00e4nsterpartiet<\/em>). On
\nthe other, the neoliberal conservative \u201cblue\u201d alliance that reunited the
\nconservative Moderate Party (Moderaterna<\/em>),
\nthe neoliberal Center Party (Centerpartiet<\/em>),
\nthe Liberals (Liberalerna<\/em>), and the
\nChristian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna<\/em>).\n<\/p>\n
\nalliance blocks lack sufficient support in Parliament to form a stable
\ngovernment. Despite intense negotiations, some 100 days after the elections, there
\nstill is no governmental formula with a parliamentary majority. <\/p>\n
\nwas drafted as a transitional budget by the outgoing L\u00f6fven government (reuniting
\nthe Social Democrats and the Greens), and stipulated continuing along the line
\nof the policy priorities set in the previous mandate. The transitional budget
\nwas nonetheless voted down on 12 December 2018. In its place, budget guidelines
\nhastily drawn up by the conservatives Moderate Party and Christian Democrats also
\nreceived the backing of the Sweden Democrats. This signalled a fresh intention on
\nthe part of right-wing populists to build an alliance with the conservative Moderate
\nParty and Christian Democrats. In so doing they bypass the opposition of the
\nCenter Party and Liberals who have so far refused to partake in any government
\nnegotiations which involve the Sweden Democrats. In other words, the Sweden
\nDemocrats are aiming to gain legitimacy, and reshuffle the \u201cblue\u201d block around
\nconservative values, economic deregulation, and drastically reduced
\nimmigration. <\/p>\nConservative budget cuts support for a centralized gender equality approach<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\ncontext stipulate some 28 billion SEK in tax cuts and tax deductions, which
\ndirectly impacts the functioning of various Swedish state agencies. The one
\nmost affected is the Gender Equality Agency (J\u00e4mst\u00e4lldhetsmyndigheten<\/em>). Indeed, the 2019\/2020 budget for the
\nAgency is set to decrease with 40 million SEK in 2019, followed by a total cut
\nof funding for 2020. <\/p>\n
\nit closes, to make sure its core operations and newly launched initiatives are
\ntransferred over to other surviving state agencies. The Gender Equality Agency was
\nonly established in January 2018. The L\u00f6fven government argued that the Agency would
\nmeet the need for \u201ca solid and permanent structure at national level\u201d, with the
\ntask \u201cto implement the national gender equality policy effectively\u201d <\/p>\n
\nimplementation of development towards gender equality; support in and
\ncoordination of implementation efforts; and expert assistance in government
\nefforts in international gender equality cooperation. The founding of the
\nAgency was regarded as an implicit acknowledgement that the Swedish gender
\nequality endeavors, while a model for other countries, had room for improvement
\nand required a coordinated and harmonized approach. The Agency was nonetheless \u00a0fiercely criticized from the very beginning in
\nconservative quarters for distracting attention from \u201cconcrete
\npolitics\u201d. <\/p>\n
\nwhich concerned the fate of the Gender Equality Agency under the newly voted
\nbudget guidelines, there was a clear ideological polarization. This pitted
\nrepresentatives of the progressive left against the conservatives and
\nright-wing populists. The cleavage was between pleas to continue the work to
\nreduce segregation and further equal rights and gender equality (j\u00e4mlikhet och <\/em>j\u00e4mst\u00e4lldhet<\/em>, and appeals
\nto enforce security and law-and-order (lag
\noch ordning<\/em>). He regarded… the Gender Equality Agency as
\nan indivisible part of the larger effort to ensure a more equal and safe
\nsociety and decrease criminality, which was directly connected to social and
\neconomic inequality.<\/p>\n
\nSammeli (Social Democrat) concentrated on the party\u2019s ambition to advance the welfare
\nstate. He regarded the continued functioning of the Gender Equality Agency as
\nan indivisible part of the larger effort to ensure a more equal and safe
\nsociety and decrease criminality, which was directly connected to social and
\neconomic inequality. In turn, Andreas Karlson (Christian Democrats) criticized
\nthe Gender Equality Agency\u2019s structural approach and prioritized areas of
\naction for allegedly jeopardizing the previously uncoordinated gender equality
\nefforts of various state agencies and organs. By disbanding the Agency, the
\nargument continued, those gender equality efforts which proved effective would
\nbe continued separately in some yet-unknown form. The financial resources released
\nwould be used to strengthen police work with women\u2019s harassment and rape
\nreports. <\/p>\n
\nthat while his party would have wanted more money for several other state
\nagencies of both the law-enforcing and judiciary branches, he was nonetheless
\nsatisfied with the budgetary guidelines of the Conservatives and Christian
\nDemocrats, which allocated significantly more funds to the police agency than
\ninitially intended in the transitional budget. <\/p>\nReactions
\nin Swedish society at large<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nconcern by various activists in Swedish civil society. Even before the new
\nbudget guidelines were passed in the Parliament, the General Secretary of the
\nSwedish Women's Lobby argued that the combination of more tax cuts and tax
\ndeductions, which would preponderantly benefit the rich, as well as closing the
\nGender Equality Agency, would deliver a
\nserious blow to Swedish gender equality efforts.<\/p>\n
\nAssociation (Sveriges Genusforskarf\u00f6rbund<\/em>)
\nled the way in mobilising against this outcome that very Friday, initiating an
\nopen letter to defend the agency. The open letter gathered more than 28,000
\nsignatures by Monday 17 2018, when it was handed in to the Parliamentary
\nCommittee on the Labor Market (Arbetsmarknadsutskottet<\/em>),
\nin which the matter was discussed. <\/p>\n
\nuncertainty, with the government negotiations seemingly in a stalemate, neither
\nthe support for the work of the Gender Equality Agency, nor the critique for
\nthe improvised shortsightedness of the new budget guidelines had a sufficient impact
\non the committee. The fate of Gender Equality Agency seems
\nto be sealed; it is set to close by 2020.<\/p>\n
\nsuspicious-looking parcel was found at the entrance to the Swedish Secretariat
\nfor Gender Research, a unit within the University of Gothenburg promoting
\ngender research, and carrying out assignments on behalf of several national,
\nNordic and European initiatives. The police evacuated neighboring buildings,
\nwhile the bomb squad worked swiftly to neutralize the parcel. The police forces
\nclassified the incident as aggravated
\nassault (grovt olaga hot<\/em>). It is not
\nyet clear what the connection is between the tumultuous discussion about the
\nfate of the Sweden Gender Equality Agency, and the assault on the Swedish
\nSecretariat for Gender Research, but one plausible hypothesis is that they are
\ntwo separate pieces of a wider anti-gender campaign.<\/p>\nA wider
\npicture on worrying developments across Europe <\/strong><\/h2>\n
\nAgency, initiated by the conservative parties with the enthusiastic support of
\nright-wing populists, is important for understanding contemporary political
\ndevelopments outside Sweden for several reasons. <\/p>\n
\nattacks on gender studies and gender equality expertise across the world constitute
\nthe spearhead of a
\nbroader attack on critical knowledge as a defining element of a strong
\ndemocratic society. It strengthens the hypothesis that the ongoing
\nattacks on gender studies and gender equality expertise across the world constitute
\nthe spearhead of a
\nbroader attack on critical knowledge as a defining element of a strong
\ndemocratic society. <\/p>\n
\nparties can play a destabilizing role even in mature and stable western
\ndemocracies, such as Sweden. <\/p>\n
\npopulist parties are increasingly exploring their ideological overlaps, clearly
\nincluding their common opposition to critical knowledge as a means to
\nstrengthen women\u2019s agency and role in contemporary societies. <\/p>\n
\nlong served as a model for gender equality, has become yet
\nanother theater for anti-gender campaigning witnessed across the world, in
\nsuch countries as Hungary, or Brazil. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"