Why The US Should Be More Like Sweden

Being a woman in society isn’t always fun and easy. In America, women are still fighting for basic rights such as authority over their own bodies, paid maternal leave, equal pay for equal work, and just plain old R-E-S-P-E-C-T (to name a few). Furthermore, starting a new job at a new company as a woman is usually a little difficult. Women typically aren’t completely sure what to expect from their coworkers and management. Are they going to respect her? Is she getting paid equally to her male counterpart? Does she have to worry about sexual harassment and questionable coworkers? These are all things I worried about when landing my first full-time job out of college. However, my first full-time job happened to be in Sweden, one of the most liberal countries in the world and consistently ranked in the top 5 for quality of life. I had an idea of what to expect in America as a woman, but in Sweden I would have to live it to see it.

In Sweden, mothers are not expected to be full-time moms. In fact, most mothers in Sweden have full-time jobs. It is completely acceptable and normal, not something that people question. In my office space I was around so many women who are successful in their career and are also moms and wives. It was a pleasant sight, since everywhere I had worked before in America, the office demographic was dominated by men. The fact is in Sweden, there are laws put in place that enable women to simultaneously be businesswomen and mothers.

One of the most simple laws but hard to come by in America is paid maternal and paternal leave. Parents of newborns are granted 16 months of paid leave to be, well, parents! The company will hire an employee on a temporary twelve month maternal leave contract to fill her position and when the woman’s maternal leave is over she will go back to work in the position she left. Typically* what happens for couples** is mothers will take the first twelve months of paid maternal leave to care for the newborn, since the newborn depends on his or her mother for nutrition. After 12 months, the mother will go back to work at the same job, not having to worry about job security like new mothers have to here in America. Then, once the mother’s twelve months are up, the father takes his paid paternal leave for the next four months. Paid paternal leave is advantageous for not only the father but also for the mother and baby as well. Here in America, paid paternal leave is hard to come by and it usually comes with an unjust stigma. Babies need time with both of their parents and fathers need time to connect with their babies in order to to foster healthy relationships. Furthermore, this significantly helps the mothers get back to work without having to worry about who will take care of their baby; this allows them to both maintain a career and be a mother.

Women are not expected to be the primary caretakers of their children like women are here in America. Here, if a child is sick or needs to be home from school, the mother is expected to drop everything and take care of the child. In Sweden, I experienced the opposite. I worked at a small company where I was the only female. All but one of my coworkers were husbands and fathers. When their children were home sick, they did not expect their wives to leave work to take care of the kid. They would alternate who stayed home to care for the child to maintain fairness. Sometimes, the father would stay home in the morning and then the mother would stay home in the afternoon, so they could both be at work. There was no stigma about this in the company and it was completely acceptable and normal for a father to be home taking care of his children. This respect and equality is important for women to succeed as both mothers and workers. I hope one day America can become like this.

As I said, I was the only woman in my office. Naturally, I was concerned about this going into it. I was worried how I would be treated compared to the men, if I would be respected and listened to, and if my pay was fair. I was there for four months and I have to say, I did not experience any discrimination on the basis of sex. This was not just in my work environment. I did not experience or encounter any gender discrimination in general. Of course there will always be people in the world who do discriminate, but I did not see anything close to what I have seen in America. There are entire companies who are made up of just women. There are political party leaders who are women. There are women in positions of power. There is no general stigma, no judgement about motherhood, no systematic inequality. Women and men are provided with the same resources to succeed, and it is up to them what they do with it. That is feminism. America should strive to be more like Sweden.

***DISCLAIMER: This article is subjective and based off of what I saw and learned during my personal experience in Sweden.***