Work in
Progress.
Among young women in Sweden today there seems to be a new wave of feminism that is especially concerned with sexual oppression. This wave manifests itself in works of fiction as well as in feminist debate and my original intention for this conference was (as outlined in my abstract) to give a rather broad presentation of the works that I have studied in preparation for a possible new research project on current Swedish feminism.
However the time
allotted for presenting the paper is somewhat short, so instead I will
concentrate on the feminist work of debate that has been most discussed in
Sweden. It is called Fittstim, which literally translated would be ”cunt
shoal”, that is, lots of cunts moving together, as in “shoal of fish”. This
deeply derogatory, sexist definition of women as a group was originally used by
a Swedish trade union leader (he later had to resign) about The Social
Democratic Women´s Federation! However, by adopting this mysogynist term the
editors of Fittstim have been able to use it for their own purposes. The
appropriation of the word is illustrated by cover of the book, which on the one
hand shows the sexual oppression implied by the abusive term ”fittstim” – the
reduction of woman to her sex - but on the other hand shows an image of
strength and power. An indication that the ”fittstim” will counterattack: as
the editors proudly claim in the introduction, the ”fittstim” will take over
the world.
The aim of my
analysis is to discuss how the self is written in Fittstim , mainly with
the help of the terms “the personal and the political” and their relationship
to each other. I will also investigate what mechanisms of power are
demonstrated in the text and how they are counteracted. I have a background in
literature but my main methodological inspiration here is feminist theory and
cultural studies. As a political feminist I was active in the women´s movement
of the 1970s and later within university feminism. My view of Fittstim
is of course influenced by these personal experiences.
Fittstim is
a political effort by the two editors, Linda Norrman Skugge and Belinda Olsson,
to influence young women, especially teenagers, by means of a feminist message.
The editors as well as most of the contributors to the book are active in mass
media as journalists or free lance writers. They can be seen as part of a
current wave of mass media feminism where, for example, young women publish
alternative feminist magazines, in paper versions or on the web, and write
feminist chronicles within established newspapers. Fittstim tries to reach its political aim of feminist
consciousness-raising through the personal dimension: it consists of 18
narratives where individual young women, mostly in their 20s, tell a story
about growing up with special emphasis on gender problems they have encountered
as teenage girls.
The central issues
discussed in the narratives are sexual oppression and stereotypical gender
expectations. The space where these problems are materialized is the school:
that is where girls and boys meet and gendered dramas are performed. Girls are
submitted to sexual oppression in a number of ways: they are exposed to sexual
harassment from boys (and sometimes girls) and also occasionally from male
teachers; girls are supposed to be sexually free and active, but if they are,
boys attack them with the rules of the double standard and they are accused of
being whores and sluts. Girls are also deprived of their own sense of
themselves as sexual subjects through the dominance of male sexual behaviour
and needs both among the young people and in sex education – in the latter, the
male sexual organ performs a major role while clitoris is not mentioned. The
male, heterosexual norm has almost total hegemony in these stories and when it
is questioned it is mainly in the sense of male dominance: only one narrative
brings up the question of homosexuality and describes the life of a young
lesbian.
The gender
stereotypes described in Fittstim
are closely related to male sexual dominance: girls should be
good-looking in order to be attractive to boys, they should be submissive and
”nice” for the same reason. Generally their lives should be directed towards
boys and men, they should not pay attention to themselves and to other women.
This picture of the sex/gender system among young people is in its general
outline shockingly familiar to me as a feminist of the 1970s. In fact, the
situation seems to be worse today in certain respects, especially with regard
to sexual oppression of young women. Fittstim is not alone reporting about sexual harassment of girls in
school: a recent investigation shows that 70% of all school-girls in Stockholm
have been called whores etc by their mates and 8% have felt sexually harassed
by teachers. ”Sexual bullying” in schools is a problem that has increased in
recent years and is now acknowledged by the social authorities and declared to
be unacceptable. While in the process of preparing this paper I read an article
in the leading daily newspaper in Sweden by the ministers of education and
equality, Ingegerd Wärnersson and Margareta Winberg which urgently requested
the school authorities to take action against sexual harassment. (Dagens
Nyheter, August 22, 2000).
But while the
sexual oppression of girls and young women has probably increased, there is
reason to be somewhat more sceptical about Fittstim´s image of girls as generally subordinated to
boys and dependent on their approval for a sense of identity. Quite a different
picture is given by the psychologists Harriet Bjerrum Nielsen and Monica
Rudberg in their book Psychological Gender and Modernity (1994). They
discuss women from three different generations and claim that young women of
today are much less dependent on men psychologically and socially than their
mothers were. In fact, one way of explaining boys´ growing sexual harassment of
girls is as a reaction to the girls´ greater and greater independence.(Bjerrum
Nielsen and Rudberg base their investigations on Norwegian women, but that
should apply equally well to Swedish conditions).
Actually, Fittstim itself pictures the gender relationships
between boys and girls in a more complex way than I have outlined so far, since
the protagonists of the narratives mostly demonstrate young women´s strength
rather than their weakness. Most of the women relating their stories present
themselves as different, as women who could never identify with the dominant
feminine gender expectations and who eventually managed to break free of them.
Now they want to present themselves as good examples for other young women. As
the editors put it, they want to help young women ”to set limits, to see their
value and recognise that they have the power over their own lives”. The role
model idea appears to be the major strategy by which the personal is meant to
be transformed into the political in Fittstim. It is an important
strategy, not least for young women, but it is also vital what the role model
stands for and in this respect I feel a little doubtful about the feminist
ideology of Fittstim.
The ideal that is
repeated throughout the personal narratives is that as a woman you should be a
strong, independent individual. You should make your own decisions, do what you
want, not what others want: you should have ”total decision-making power over
your own life”, as one woman puts it. Another woman presents her ideal as being
your ”own island” in an ”archipelago of cool women”. The gender ideal that the
book communicates is a version of the gender identity of modernity and liberal
society. The strong, competent, autonomous individual was originally a modern
masculine gender identity, but at least since the beginning of the 20th century
it has also been part of a modern feminine identity, especially within the
middle classes. Women’s partaking of this gender pattern is part of modern
society and nothing to be objected to: on the contrary, women´s increasing
individualism and independence is of great importance as the oppression of
women often centres on their giving up their own selves for others.
What I feel
critical about is the rather extreme individualism advocated in Fittstim
and the lack of other ways of understanding women´s liberation.
The narratives
contain very little structural analysis of women´s oppression and very few
remarks about the need for solidarity and collective action. These
characteristics can of course be interpreted as a sign of the times: in
comparison with the 1970s the present political climate is much more liberal
and individualistic, in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. In Sweden there is also
a strong tendency towards a “contempt of politics”, that is, a distrust in
political parties and large organisations, which might influence today’s young
women with regard to feminist politics. Maybe only small groups of women
working together, an “archipelago of cool women”, may seem a feasible political
solution to young women today.
In this context
the feminist mentality of Fittstim
might be interpreted as an attempt to adapt to its main target group -
teenage girls. The writers do not want to scare away teenagers with heavy
social analysis and feminist rhetoric and instead attempt to be personal and
concrete through the use of good examples. One further explanation why the
individualistic gender ideal of modernity is so much stressed could be that it
is in fact very hard to achieve for women. This might explain the somewhat
desperate appeal in protestations like “having total decision-making power over
your own life”. Fittstim
suggests that the gender model of modernity is still problematic for
women by being continuously threatened by a male dominated gender structure.
Postmodernism does not enter into the discussion in this text; none of the
writers appears to consider it relevant.
To sum up. The collective political impact of the editors introductory challenge that the “fittstim will conquer the world” through the personal narratives is transformed into stories about the need for self-reliant, independent, individualistic women or groups of women - “archipelagos of cool women”. This appears to be a liberal solution to feminist politics. The urge for a more collective feminism however still speaks through the insightful reports in Fittstim about the sexual oppression of young women in Sweden today. That to me is the greatest contribution of the book.
Works cited
Bjerrum Nielsen, Harriet, Rudberg, Monika, Psychological Gender and Modernity , Scandinavian University Press, Oslo1994
Fittstim, ed. Norrman Skugge, Linda, Olsson, Belinda, Dagens Nyheter Publications, Stockholm1999
Winberg, Margareta, Wärnersson Ingegerd, “Rektorerna måste skärpa sig” (“Headmasters must sharpen up”), Dagens nyheter, Stockholm, August 22, 2000
Ingrid Holmquist, PhD, Associate Professor