I Went to a 'Feminist Morning'

In Sweden, there's a thing called a "feminist morning", which is a meeting for everybody curious about the political party Feminist Initiative (F!).

F! is a feminist party (obviously) that has grown noticeably during the past couple of years – mainly as a backlash to the increased influence of parties that are engaged in nationalist propaganda. With only two days until the Swedish election, I attended a feminist morning hosted by Gudrun Schyman, who's the spokesperson for the party.

Schyman is mightily adored by fans in social media where some people like to refer to her as Gud (which is Swedish for God). F! has currently over 20,000 members, beating many of the big Swedish parties. However, F! haven't suceeded in becoming members of the parliament. Although they did manage to get one member into the EU's parliament this spring.

Between 2003 and 2013, Schyman wrote one hundred feminist letters, which are now forming into a book, titled (in English), 100 Letters That (Didn't?!) Change The World. The foreword is written by Carl Bildt, former leader of the liberal conservative Moderate Party, who used to be Sweden's Prime Minister in the 90s. It's kind of a prime example of friendship across borders. Schyman did a little bit of book-signing at her morning event, and surprisingly it wasn't only feminist ladies who wanted a piece of her.

Anyway. I arrived to a small venue where the feminist morning was held. F!'s colour is pink, so I was a little disappointed to find that the venue didn't carry any pink whatsoever. Instead it gave me similar kind of feelings I usually get from watching American movies about scary preachers.

The invitation that landed in my mail box read, "limited seats – be on time". This, I certainly did. I chose a spot in the back so I could spy on perfect hairstyles of the older ladies in the audience, and the occational flower-patterned cap of a young boy.

Schyman started off by telling us about her "home party concept" that she has been putting plenty of time on in order to share her political values with as many as possible. The "home party concept" basically works in the following way: 1) You gather at least 25 of your friends. 2) You buy a big whiteboard and a couple of markers in different colours. 3) You give her a call – and she'll be there. It doesn't matter if you want her at your office or in your front room. When I come to think of it, the feminist morning actually felt like someting from the home party concept.

This particular morning was something like Schyman's threehundred meeting before the election on Sunday. I guess you can say that Schyman is pretty personal.

People tried to impress Schyman by shouting out answers to the questions she asked. This got me thinking of the first time I went to one of her home parties. I was a high school fresher, a totally stereotypical 2011-kind-of-girl, wearing a black infinity scarf, a long black coat, and black Levi's jeans shorts – all-black-everything. The cherry on top: I had badly dip-dyed hair. I had just started to get into politics and understood the purpose of feminism. Schyman's lecture felt very satisfying at the time, with its simple way of explaining what the structures in a Western class-society look like. It seemed to me that Schyman still have the same firm believes as back then. But somehow I felt a bit different now, wearing colours and all.

"You should be aware of the fact that our ballots may not be available at every voting station, so if they run out of them, you can always make your own by take a blank note and write the party name on it. 'Feministiskt Initiativ'. I know that there are many of i:s in there, but you can't just write GUDRUN because that won't count…" 50 percent of the people in the room bursted into laugter. People were beginning to get hooked now.

Schyman continued by comparing the escalating success of F! to the success of The Green Party in the mid-80s. After the Chernobyl disaster, people suddenly got engaged in environmental issues. She referred to a time when The Center Party, The Christian Democrats, and The Left Party – parties of very different believes and agendas – all teamed up together due to them agreeing on the slogan "Nuclear power - No thanks."

"We were one hell of a team", she said with a satirical tone in her voice and the laughter spread through the room once again.

She talked about the history of The Sweden Democrats (Sweden's largest nationalist party) and the fact that they are not a one-question party – which is typically asumed – but a party with ideological benchmarks and a nationalistic background. She talked about Anders Behring Breivik and the fact that he saw women as sex-traitors and feminism as something extremist and abusive. In a very sharp and confident way, she worded many of the contemporary issues that we currently have on the agenda of Swedish politics. Not so sure on her drawing skills though.

Back in the days, between 1993 to 2003, Schyman was the leader of the Left Party. When she decided to leave and form F! instead, she became the Miley Cyrus of politics as she literally put 100,000 SEK (€10,000) on fire in a protest against unequal pay in Sweden. F! then gained a lot of attention in media but has not yet made it into the parliament after participating in two elections.

The feminist breakthrough might be close, but with the poll changing from day to day, you can never be sure about what the future of Swedish politics will look like. Who knows – maybe third time's a charm?

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