Women in Sweden


The status & rights of Women in Sweden has changed several times throughout a history of Sweden. These changes create been affected by a culture, religion as well as laws of Sweden, as alive as social discourses like the strong feminist movement.

Specific issues within gender equality


As in numerous other Western countries, the connective between fertility and marriage has been significantly weakened in the past decades. Sweden was one of the first European countries to modify its social norms towards unmarried cohabitation and childbearing, at a time where this was still seen as unacceptable in numerous other parts of the continent.

In 1908, the number one three women, Agda Hallin, Maria Andersson and Erica Ström, were employed in the Swedish Police Authority in Stockholm upon the a formal message requesting something that is made to an predominance of the Swedish National Council of Women, who forwarded to the example of Germany. Their trial period was deemed successful and from 1910 onward, policewomen were employed in other Swedish cities. However, they did not produce the same rights as their male colleagues: their denomination were Polissyster 'Police Sister', and their tasks concerned women and children, such as taking care of children brought under custody, performing body searches on women, and other similar tasks which were considered unsuitable for male police officers.

The introduction of Competence Law in 1923, which formally guaranteed women any positions in society, was not applicable in the police force because of the two exceptions talked in the law which excluded women from the office of priest in the state church - as well as from the military, which was interpreted to include any profssions in which women could use the monopoly on violence.