FEMINIST LETTER NO 7
To all feminists
I shall begin with some practical information for any newcomers.Check if you have received this letter from me directly or whether it has reached you via someone else. If it has come via someone else and you would like it to come to you personally in future, then write to me at the following address:
Gudrun.schyman@riksdagen.se and let me know. If this is the first time you are in receipt of a letter I can inform you that this is letter nr 7 and my aim is to be in touch approximately once a month.
Besides writing a monthly “feminist letter”, I also act as a kind of “letterbox” on democratic issues. If you feel frustrated over the present state of affairs, I can try to canalise the indignation and formulate a “question” to the minister responsible. If larger issues are involved I can turn this into an “interpellation” and demand an explanation of the relevant minister. A statement from the “highest level” could be of help to you in your endeavours to achieve change, to put pressure on the government over a special issue, or, the question/interpellation may be one initiative of many in the work of influencing public opinion. Issues addressed during April have been the following:
I have asked the minister of health and social affairs, Lars Engqvist, about gender equality aspects of work done within the social services and medical care. Cabinet minister Morgan Johansson has likewise been questioned on the social services and the minister of justice Thomas Bodström on initiatives within the judicial system to help traumatised women. Cabinet minister Mona Sahlin has been asked about rehabilitation and recognition of the plight of vulnerable women.
The questions are fully reported on at www.riksdagen.se. Should you be looking for a specific issue, the best way of finding it is to click in the space where the issues are ordered according to the name of the member involved. Answers given are also accounted for in this order as soon as they have been given and are available to the general public.
During the past month I have been talking about feminism in many schools at both fifth and sixth form levels. Invitations come dropping in from active girl students who have formed equal rights groups or similar gatherings (which sometimes include the odd boy as well). After discussions with their teachers they have succeeded in getting the school to organize a whole day focusing on gender issues. Every time I visit the hall has been filled to the last seat and the thirst for information and for greater understanding has been vibrant. Teachers and heads often praise the pupils’ initiatives, but show a blank face when asked why the initiative hasn’t come from them. Surely it is a task they have been assigned and is therefore their responsibility!
That feminism as a field of study is absent from schools is quite disgraceful! That understanding how gender power structures so strongly influence our choices in life from the cradle to the grave and in commercialised forms literally flood young people’s consciousness, that this is not focused on in schools, but is still seen as belonging to optional activities, does not rhyme with the explicitly expressed responsibility and task assigned to schools to educate young people with regard to democratic principles and respect for the equal value of each individual.
What are your views as parents, teachers and pupils? Write and tell me what the situation is like where you live. I should very much like to tell the minister responsible!
Before you reply, have a lovely Valborg day (the last day in April)and a joyful May the first!
Gudrun
Tillbaka till Tidigare Feministbrev
