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Elsie Ottensen Jensen Elsie Ottensen, “Ottar”, was an important women in the early 2000th century (1886-1973) in Sweden. She fought for sexual education in Sweden. She went to Swedish schools to inform the students about contraceptives even though it was forbidden according Swedish law during that time era. Elsie wanted to inform the youth in the society about sex because she thought it was important that every young adult had the proper knowledge och education about sex and sexuality. To both protect themselves but also know the consequences and responsibility sex could lead to.
Reforms During 1960-1980 Many of the biggest and most important reforms regarding equality were made between 1960 and 1980. Among those reforms were many that had a great importance and effect. One of the most important reforms is the law on separate taxation. The law was passed in 1971 and changed the previous way of taxing couples. Before 1971, couples were taxed as a couple. This meant that couples combined salary was taxed a certain percentage. Today couples are taxed separately, which has had large improvements upon the economy of the individual. Before when they taxed the couples, the women lost almost all of her money, due to the fact that she earned less. With the percentage of the couple and with the man having a higher income than her, in the end the taxation was never equal. The fact that women never really could earn anything made sure that she never could argue with her lawful guardian. It was almost like a tool to keep women submissive to men, and so that they cannot survive alone. During 1960 LO and SAF made a same-wage-agreement, which led to the gradually abolishment of women-wage-agreement. So that there would not be a limit for what the female part could earn, but still it never really reached above a man's wage. Before they had been more locked up with wage limits.
Sex Laws, traditions and value are different in different countries. Sweden has a legislation that accept abortion and protection against pregnancy, and illegal purchase of sexual service. There are also laws against sexual harassment, excesses and discrimination has to do with sexuality and gender. The pills, condoms and other protections against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are available at youth clinics and other clinics. Condoms can be found in many places and the sexual education in Swedish schools has been compulsory since 1960. Sweden today has an open relation to sex and contraceptive. It’s not a shame to ask for help or talk about it. Cause today we are more informed. And we know that people have sex just like we eat food. And there for it’s not much of a shame to talk about sex anymore. Especially not by the younger generation who experience sex and so on, on the internet and social networks every day. It’s a part of our everyday life. Womens sexuality exposed as objects in both media and news. Sweden is very effected by bigger countries like the USA. But there are many different political activities that involves sexual questions and problems in our society about the difference between men and women’s. For example the vague, position in the politic, and aspects that our society creates since we are born.
Contraceptives When condoms became available to the masses, the church and the state began to interfere in the use of this contraceptive method. The church felt that the condoms encouraged to extramarital sex and their sale was banned in most countries. Sweden introduced a condom ban in 1910. Physicians and other socially committed people managed to eventually convince the Swedish parliament that condoms were the best protection against STDs. In 1937 it was decided that condoms could be sold as medical supplies but it took until 1970 before the sale was released completely free in Sweden. Today Sweden contraceptive is widely used by both the younger and older generations.
Homosexuality and hbtq Back in the day’s homosexuality was often frowned upon and judged harshly by Swedish society. The outbreak of aids in the middle 80’s in Sweden resulted not only in further hostility towards the hbtq-society and mostly homosexual men but also woke a debate of equality between the heterosexual and homosexual society. And since then Sweden has grown to get a more equal view on all sexualities. With that said this development has escalated most in the big cities like Stockholm, and not so much in the suburban areas of Sweden. In Sweden we don’t find as example homosexuality as something odd or different but merely another approach to sexuality. With a more globalized society perhaps more of the world’s population will view sex not as something sinful but as something normal, no matter the gender or sexuality. Even though we have made a big progress since the 80’s there is still a lack of education about sex in same-gender relationships in Swedish schools. And also the products for same-gender sex doesn’t exist on the commercial market. “Hen” (not to be confused with the female chicken) is a neutral gender term in Swedish. It is used instead of “han” or “hon” (he or she respectively), which refers to the third gender, when a person doesn’t want to identify with either sex. “Hen” has arisen as a term during the 21th century. The term was first proposed during 1990’s, when journalists wanted a gender neutral word to use in their articles. It was first used in political context 2005. As of early 2014 the term has not yet been adopted into the dictionary.
Divorces In Sweden there are a high statistic of divorces. People often say that Sweden is one of the loneliest countries in the world. The rest of the world might think that we Swedes hate each other but that's not the case. We believe that marriage has become more a kind of insurance than an action of love. Is the high number of divorces a result of how different men and women are being treated in a marriage? Is that the breaking point for us in the end? Marriage is supposed to be something you do when you want to spend the rest of your life with another person but we think the reason has changed. In the 1970's Sweden came up with more laws about marriage which made it more acceptable to get a divorce. This resulted in more divorces than ever before in Sweden. Children with unmarried parents became equally treated with the children with married parents. Before the new laws came the man had the power over the marriage and was the one deciding whether or not they should get a divorce. There was not many couples who did go through with a divorce during this time period because it was a hard and painful process. Through the 20th century the salary of women has been far less than the salary of men. The reason behind this is unknown but it might come from the historical gender roles. Men worked and the women stayed at home and cared for the children and took care of the household. For the most part of the 20th century women were not allowed to take the same jobs as men and when women did in fact work, it was usually because they were poor and had to. Because of this, men have gained an advantage over women on the job market and often have higher salaries. Men are much more common in high positions and historically there were basically no women in high positions such as CEOs. Even today the salaries of male CEOs are higher than the salaries of female CEOs. However, today it looks a lot better, salaries are almost the same and the progress is moving in the right direction. Change won't come overnight, it is a gradual process which takes time. If the progress continues the way it does now, it would take 100 years for the salaries between men and women to balance out. In reality though, it is possible that it will go faster. In the Swedish universities, there are more women than men and it is the women’s education that will matter in the future and gives them a big advantage over men.
