and has had unique visitors.

My Criticism

Many things vary in time and space and this holds true also for the situation of women in society. It is important to note that my criticism is primarily aimed at the type of feministic POLITICAL ACTIONS which occur in Sweden today. This type of feminism is surely to some extent present in other countries, but it seems to me that Sweden is by far the worst case. As a humanist I think it is obvious that men and women should have the same rights, obligations and possibilities. Both sexes are human after all, although some feminists like to refer to men as animals.

People sometimes ask me why I am so hostile and launch this kind of attack against feminism. Are there not other things far worse which one could criticize? Like Nazism or something? My answer is that feminism is becoming part of everything in our Swedish society. It is affecting me in my personal life in a way I do not like and thus I choose to actively criticize it. Nazism is indeed much more terrible, but it is not part of our society. When it comes to criticizing feminism, we are quite few people who do so ACTIVELY, although many agree with us.

Defining Feminism

The problems start already here. The meaning of ”feminism” used to be something like “the struggle for equal rights for men and women”. This struggle has indeed been hard and long, especially for the women, but today the goals (according to this definition) are fulfilled, as I mention above. Still, modern feminism has not started to decline as a political movement, but has rather increased in magnitude. How can this be? The answer is of course that feminism now stands for something completely different. No one knows what exactly and many people do not know what to answer when asked if they are feminists. Most do answer that they are feminists though, because it is so terribly politically incorrect not to be. At the international women’s day in 2009, reporters at public demonstrations said that the type of messages people proclaimed were indeed “great in variation”. I am not surprised.

Is this the feminism we see in Sweden today?

In an attempt to at least be able to define what feminism wants to achieve, a new term called “jämställdhet” has been invented. I actually do not know the English word and my guess is there is none since it is a Swedish invention. I guess you could use the word equality (jämlikhet), although there is the problem that equality in general is not related to sex, but jämställdhet is per definition. Anyway, equality (with respect to sex) appears no easier to define than feminism. An old interpretation seems to be that equality is about removing whatever obstacles might prevent people from becoming what they want due to their sex. This is a nice idea, although one must be careful when translating such ideas into political actions. More importantly, my view is that a definition of equality which better reflects what is actually happening in Sweden today is this:
A senseless struggle to eliminate any measurable statistical difference related to sex.
We have somehow become obsessed with numbers relating to men and women. As I intend to exemplify, I think this type of equality goal CREATES problems rather than solving any. It also has the unfortunate effect of implying that there is some kind of war going on between men and women.

Finally, the feminism in Sweden has resulted in the rise of a new kind of GENDER science. Studies of gender, i.e. social construction aspects of sex were originally quite harmless observations of what was considered male and female behavior in different societies. Today, gender research, especially in Sweden, has evolved to something completely different. Scientifically, it is in many cases a complete disaster and in my view it is in some sense closer to religion than proper research. This is not necessary so terrible by itself, there are many examples of bad research that has nothing to do with gender science. However, gender research has somehow been incorporated into pretty much everything in our society. Indeed, it is now part of our society in exactly the way humanists believe that religion must not be.

Feminism has, in some places and in some respects, clearly gone out of control.

Discrimination in Our Modern Society

We now have a society where there are no rules that declare anything which makes the lives of women more difficult. Sex has nothing to do with the laws in our society and it is obvious to everyone that is should be so. Discrimination based on sex is illegal and unaccepted at all places in our society. It can even lead to significant penalties. These are problems that really can be solved by political action and it has now happened. Even if we WANT to accomplish more, it is not necessarily possible to do so. It might not even be a good idea to try if we have not carefully considered the consequences of the actions we are taking!

To balance the picture: I am well aware that there exists men who carry prejudice against women and that such prejudice can be subconscious. I also believe that female discrimination does occur to some extent. Also, women are clearly much more often victims of sexual violence (at least when prison rapes are not counted), although this is a simple result of men being stronger and having a much higher tendency to perform a rape. It is a basic fact which is generic for any society at any time and hardly a form of discrimination. Unfortunately, I see no simple way of solving these problems by political actions which have not already been taken. Still, political actions are happening and often only cause more problems!

I have no problems with feminism as a way to investigate potential cases of discrimination based on sex and making people aware of any such situation. However, it must be done in the right way! Swedish people seem to believe that just about any situation which does not have 50% female representation is a result of discrimination. It can be salaries, time of parental leave or just number of people. It must be realized that numbers alone are not evidence of discrimination as there are almost always other possible causes that must be accounted for. At the most, such numbers can be a reason to SUSPECT that discrimination occurs. However, there are cases where proper evidence of female discrimination has been demonstrated, such as for the peer review system. I wish to see more such proper investigations, whether they show that discrimination occurs or that it does not occur. If you know any, please contact me!

The Swedish feministic fixation with sameness between sexes (rather than fairness) kind of goes hand in hand with declaring discrimination from female representation of numbers alone. On the other hand, I think it should be noted that if there is a low representation of men in any situation, no one seems to suspect discrimination. I acknowledge that perhaps females indeed suffer more from discrimination. In any case, I am not so sure starting a war about “which sex suffers the most” is a good idea. It should simply be realized that men also are treated badly in different ways. For instance, criminals receive higher penalties for the same crimes if they are men. There are also strong indications that men are discriminated when parents are in conflict regarding childcare. In addition, only men are forced to do military service. It is interesting to note that these are cases of unfair treatment by societal instances rather than individual people.

In summary, I do not mean to cast ignorance on the very issue of female discrimination and people are welcome to come up with new (better) ideas on how to solve this problem. However, in that case I wish that one ALSO looks into discrimination based on other human attributes, such as color of skin, sexual preferences, religion etc. I do not think feminism in the developed world should disappear entirely and my standpoint may have changed somewhat here. Still, there are so many women in developing countries whose suffering is simply unfathomable and occurs IN AGREEMENT WITH local laws and regulations. THESE are women who definitely deserve attention and help through political means. In this global world we cannot ignore them just because they are further away.