Mockingbird’s Jeff Dean found this hot story about Sweden’s princess, who has created a scandal by having her father “give her away” at the ceremony:
The controversy surrounds the church’s view that walking down the aisle together shows that the spouses are equal and they take the act of the father giving his daughter away as sexist….
…The church is hoping that this decision by the princess will not encourage other brides to do the same thing. Today, one in 10 Swedish brides are given away….
… “We’ve got a carefully worked-out position on this matter in the Swedish church [said priest and theologian Annika Borg] “and in the future it is going to be very hard for us to resist requests from brides who want to be given away.”
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Personally I think the image of stern Swedish clerics forcing their young girls to be free, over and against an impending tsunami of Swedish-girl-rebellion in favor of sexism, is just too marvelous for words. Few things have given me keener pleasure this year.
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6 responses to “Sexism in Sweden: Revisionist Nuptials”
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"Listen here, young lady! You'll take your equality, whether you like it or not. And you'll do it with a smile! It's tradition."
Go, Margaret! That made me chuckle…
im in sweden right now actually and the lack of gender roles here is astounding.
Thanks, Jeff. I aims to please 🙂 Articles like this just highlight the fact that "feminism," which was intended to free women from oppressive traditionalism, has created some pretty oppressive traditions of its own.
Blair, when you say "astounding"… do you mean that in a good way, or a bad way?
Definitely in a bad way. Here, everyone is equal, but that has taken a new meaning: everyone is so equal, that no one is different or unique, to the point that men and women are the same. Talking to Swedes, it has become apparent that many children here are growing up unawares of inherent differences between men and women. This is not just a reaction to the old addage of men work, women cook, this is a completely different take on the meaning of gender itself. In schools, for instance, teachers are encouraged to make no distinction between the genders (I heard a story of how teachers are not supposed to encourage boys to play with toy cars or girls to covet their dolls). One woman recounted a story to me a young man who is now experiencing gender confusion because he never learned what makes a man, a man. This is going into a lot of other issues (in Sweden, the government is making a concerted effort to encourage fathers to take a more active role in the lives of their children), but basically, there is a kind of movement to eliminate gender differences, or as some Swedes see it, gender inequality, by removing gender itself.