Small newsflash and questions

Well, here' s some kind of newsflash. Sweden has just gotten a new political party. It's called "Feministiskt initiativ" or Feminine inititiative, akronym F! (Doesn't that mean Fuck?)

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for equality between the sexes but this really feels a bit overboard. Even more since some of the members do not want to allow men into the party. What are they afraid of? The competition? Do they not believe in their own ability to keep the men on a short leash? It smells secterism if you ask me.

But this was not the only strange thing about F!. There were actually women in the party who wanted to stay anonymous. What are these women afraid of? We do not live in the backwaters of some under-developed country ruled by religious extremists. This is Sweden for heaven's sake! A country renowned world-wide for it's efforts in equality, one of the things about Sweden that makes me proud of my country.

Normally I would applause a female initiative to push the issue of equality between sexes even further but I just don't believe that this can be done by shutting the door on the male part of the population. That just fuels the reactionary ones.

Even before F! took the decision of becoming a political party, it's history has been full of scandals, defections and confirmations of male prejudice about women.

One of the most trendsetting members went out public and announced that all men were animals. No exceptions. She later refrased that to be:" all men are able to behave like animals, given the chance". Well, I could add that there are women that can behave like that too.

Another had been on sick-leave for the last three years because her heavy workload had made her sick. Still, she managed to work full time for F! and holding seminars but not working with her normal job as a human resource director at a large company. Guess what? This is strictly forbidden. Her excuse was that she wasn't aware of the rules. Pretty strange for a human resource director, because that's exactly what these are supposed to be aware of...

One very common prejudice, among men, is that if you put three women together in a room, two of them will team up against the third. Guess what? That's exactly what happened, but on a bigger scale. Defections caused by this kind of behavior have been countless. And the reactionary part of the male population applauses and chant "We told you so! It'll never work!"


I haven't had time to check up on F!s agenda, but one of the things I know so far, is that they want to tear down the instituition of marriage. Why? Because it's a male invention to enslave women. Well, that might have been the case back in the Middle Ages, but today, in the 21st century, people most often get married because they, at the least, like each others company.

I found a blog where I stumbled across the term feminazis. That term pretty much describes those few facts I've managed to gather about F!. I hate that term but when feminism goes to the extreme of declaring a full scale war on men, what else can you call it? Especially when you compare womens situation in Sweden with a lot of other countries.

Yes, we have our fair share violent men, abusing men and other apes (sorry about that, my hairy relatives) but to draw all men over the same edge is more than unproductive, it's plain stupidity. That will just turn even more men against feminine issues.


For me, equality between the sexes means, among other things, that you get paid for competence, not your gender. Two people with the same competence, doing the same job but with different genders are to have the same amount on their paychecks. Anything else is wrong.

That a young man, who barely finished school and get's a job driving a forklift truck at a storagehouse, can get almost double the salary of a nurse with 25 years of experience is unfair and even scandalous.

I often feel ashamed that there still are men out there raping women, battering women and treating women like dirt. But they are actually a minority, something that's important to remember.

For me, equality between the sexes means dialog, not confrontation.


Now, I have some qouestions to my readers. I need some facts about different countries for a comparising article about Sweden's welfare system and how things work abroad. If you give me very long answers, please e-mail me instead. The article is going to be used in my local unions membership magazine.

First question: What's the average salary á month for a nurse or a teacher after taxes are paid?
Second question: I'd like to know more about taxation systems overall.
Third question: How does your school system work and how is it financed?

There will probably come more questions later on.