Selling Swedish Fathers: On Fatherhood, Gender Equality and Swedishness in Strategic Communication by the Swedish Institute, 1968-2015

ABSTRACT

Fatherhood ideals have been changing over the last decades, and Sweden has often been seen as a fore-runner when it comes to both fatherhood policies and gender equality. In this article, we investigate how discourses about engaged, Swedish fathers and various formulations of gender equality are linked to and used in the discursive production of Sweden as a nation. We use three communication campaigns launched by the Swedish Institute (a governmental organization with the task of marketing Sweden), issued between 1968 and 2015. All campaigns emphasize modernity, rationality and self-development, but the earliest represents women and men while the latter campaigns focus exclusively on fathers, giving Swedish gender equality a conflict-free, already achieved quality. While the campaigns challenge established gendered patterns, they also avoid fundamental questions of power and contribute to rendering invisible a significant gap between gender equality in theory and in practice in Swedish society.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatherhood
• gender equality
• nation branding
• Sweden
• Swedish Institute

We have now entered a new century and profound changes have occurred in society. My vision, my dream of men who take responsibility for their children and for other people’s children is coming true. (Lemberg, 2000, p. 4)

The photo exhibition Dear Child: On Men, Children and Gender Equality in Sweden was launched by the Swedish institute (SI) in 2000 in connection to the Swedish presidency of the EU in 2001, and was exhibited in several Swedish embassies across Europe. In it, photographer Ulla Lemberg portrays Swedish fathers and their children, and the quote above illustrates the exhibition’s faith in progression, modernity and gender equality, an optimism centred on Swedish men and fathers and central to the marketing of Sweden.

New fatherhood ideals have been on the rise in many Western countries during the last decades (Lupton & Barclay, 1997). In international gender research, Sweden and the other Nordic countries have been described as pioneers in developing policies for men’s involvement in childcare (Hobson & Morgan, 2002), most clearly manifested in Sweden through the introduction of paid paternity leave in 1974.¹ Research about cultural representations of Swedish fatherhood emphasizes the symbolic role given to fatherhood in Swedish ideologies of gender equality (e.g. Wahlström Henriksson, 2016; Widegren, 2016). Elsewhere, the implicit normative, nationalist and racialized aspects of discourses around Sweden as one of the most gender-equal, modern and progressive countries in the world have been discussed (de los Reyes, Molina, & Mulinari, 2005; Martinsson, Griffin, & Giritli Nygren, 2016). At times, these discussions have been combined, as in research about the construction of white, Swedish men as the most gender-equal of the world (Björk, 2017; Gottzén & Jonsson, 2012). However, these discussions have seldom been based on broader empirical scrutiny, and the research on representations of Swedish fatherhood more generally does not deal with so called “nation branding” material, aimed at marketing and positioning Sweden as a nation (e.g. Jezierska & Towns, 2018).

In this article, we explore such a material and approach it as attempting to pin down discursive meanings around Sweden, often by differentiating Sweden from other categories and concepts. We analyse three communication campaigns launched by the SI: the book Swedish Women—Swedish Men from 1968, authored by Anna-Greta Leijon, and two photographic exhibitions: Dear Child (mentioned above) and Swedish Dads by photographer Johan Bävman, which to date has been exhibited in 65 countries. The aim of the article is to investigate portrayals of gender equality, fatherhood and Swedishness in the material. We discuss how discourses about fathers and gender equality are used in the discursive production of Sweden and swedishness in the material, thereby connecting nation branding literature with methods and theories from gender studies. How have the portrayals developed since 1968 and how have they helped to render significant gender structures in Swedish society visible or invisible? How can optimism, such as above, and realism be understood, and which viewer positions are produced in the material?

Background

In research on contemporary representations of fatherhood, present, active or “new” fatherhood, linked to changes following the women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s, meet older ideas about the father as provider or authority (Hamad, 2013; Podnieks, 2016). Research about representations of Swedish fatherhood includes studies of domestic campaigns for increased use of paternity leave² (Klinth & Johansson, 2010; Widegren, 2016) as well as literary representations, like Wahlström Henriksson’s (2016) research about Swedish “daddy handbooks”. In these works, meanings of “new fathers” and the question about what fathering should be, discussions that have been ongoing for the last century (Lupton & Barclay, 1997, p. 14f; Podnieks, 2016, p. 11f), are debated from a Swedish perspective, as is the relationship between fatherhood, masculinity and feminism as these have been formulated in the Swedish context. “New” fathers are connected to ideals of nurturing and emotionally engaged men, but the effects on women and gendered power relations are unclear. Swedish researcher Bekkengen discusses “child-orientation” in fathers, which is often problematically conflated with engagement in gender equality and housework (2003). According to Bekkengen, child-orientation ideals give men the option, not the obligation, of engaging in their children while parental responsibility, caring and housework still fall to women and mothers. In this article, we contribute to and deepen these discussions by scrutinizing formulations of fatherhood in our materials.

In the Swedish context, fatherhood is intimately connected to discussions of gender equality, and of Sweden as a gender-equal country. However, as has often been discussed, this idea contains several normative assumptions and risks obscuring problems (de los Reyes et al., 2005; Martinsson et al., 2016). For instance, in the emphasis on active fatherhood the heterosexual family has been an implicit assumption (Dahl, 2005; Järvklo, 2008). Hübinette and Lundström (2014) argue that the Nordic countries have cultivated an image of themselves as exceptional democracies—an exceptionalism that has helped render racist and sexist social structures invisible rather than identifying and combating them. They also suggest that constructions of gender-equal Sweden are tied to what they call hegemonic whiteness, an argument also made by de los Reyes et al. (2005), who argue that the notion of Sweden as fore-runner contributes to a view of other countries as less advanced, modern and gender-equal. Similarly, Swedish men have been shown to be discursively produced as uniquely gender-equal and enlightened, an image produced through the depiction of immigrant, non-white, religious or working-class men as traditional, patriarchal and unmodern (Björk, 2017; Gottzén & Jonsson, 2012; Järvklo, 2008; see Hondagneu-Sotelo & Messner, 1994 for an international example). However, most discussions about men and Swedishness have not been based on broader empirical scrutiny, or on materials that explicitly engage in the simultaneous discursive production of masculine positions and Swedishness. In this article, we use such a material, thereby complicating and deepening this discussion.

Addressing the production of meanings around Sweden from another perspective, nation branding scholars have discussed the creation of the “progressive Sweden” brand (Glover, 2009). Nation branding can be defined as a “compendium of discourses and practices aimed at reconstituting nationhood through marketing and branding paradigms” (Kaneva, 2011, p. 118). Swedish nation branding has been characterized by an emphasis on democracy, transparency, modernity and being at the forefront of new technologies (Christensen, 2013), as well as rationality and pragmatism (Andersson, 2009). Gender has been shown to be important to the branding of nations such as Japan, Canada, Iceland and Sweden (Loftsdóttir, 2015; Miller, 2011; Rankin, 2012). Jezierska and Towns (2018) argue that while gender equality is prominent in Swedish nation branding, the concept of feminism is almost completely absent, leading to the obscuring of tensions, conflicts and resistance to gender equality. This conveys an image of consensus around gender issues in Sweden and casts Sweden as a superpower of gender equality. In this article, we connect this body of research with methods and theories from gender studies and contribute with empirical knowledge about three materials that have not been studied together before.

Material and method

We study three communications campaigns launched by the Swedish Institute (SI). The SI was founded after WWII, and is a government agency tasked with conducting “strategic communication” with the aim of “promoting interest and confidence in Sweden around the world” (Swedish Institute, 2020). No other state actor has had such an explicit and long-term commitment to shape the narrative of Sweden internationally. Glover (2009, p. 255ff) argues that the SI has gone from being “something of an educational institution” to resembling a marketing agency, a trend which our materials exemplify; Swedish women—Swedish men is informative but hardly as accommodating as the later materials.

During the last half century, several of SI’s communication campaigns have focused on gender equality. We study those which focus extensively on fatherhood as connected to gender equality, and make a point of including an early example despite that it discusses other issues in addition to fatherhood (Leijon, 1968). According to Jezierska and Towns (2018), gender equality became part of Swedish nation branding in 2001, in connection with Lemberg’s exhibition Dear Child. As we show, gender equality was part of the SI’s strategic communication already in 1968. This means that our material spans a half-century and covers the formative years of Swedish family and equal status policy. Gender equality-themed SI productions excluded from this study include, for instance, campaigns highlighting LGBTQ rights, or family and children’s policies more broadly. Other representations of Sweden aimed at the international community, such as reports to the UN, have also been excluded (e.g. Men on Men, 1995; Liljeström, Fürst Mellström, & Liljeström Svensson, 1975).

Our earliest material, the book Swedish Women—Swedish Men (hereafter: SWSM), was published in 1968. The book was the SI’s first larger effort to promote Swedish gender equality abroad and its 160 pages include educative discussions of the labour market, housing policies, tax legislation, and childcare policies, meant for an international audience. Besides the main chapters, authored by Anna-Greta Leijon, the book contains short texts by well-known national and international politicians and intellectuals. These put the recent Swedish development in historical, international and political context. The book also contains 25 photographs with captions, depicting and describing men, women and children, at home, outside and at work.

The second campaign is the photo exhibition Dear Child: On Men, Children and Gender Equality in Sweden, launched in 2000, photographed by Ulla Lemberg. The available source material is limited to a 40 pages exhibition catalogue (Lemberg, 2000), consisting of images of men with their children. Each image is supplemented with a short quote from the pictured man. The catalogue and exhibition also include two short articles by the photographer, where she presents her thoughts on the young generations of Swedish fathers, and four short articles by well-known Swedish politicians and intellectuals. In each article they develop their view on the value of active fatherhood and the benefits of paternity leave.

The third empirical material, the photo exhibition Swedish Dads by photographer Johan Bävman, was exhibited during 2016 and 2017 and portrayed men with their children. First exhibited by Bävman, the exhibition was later adapted and re-launched by the SI (Molander, Kleppe, & Ostberg, 2019). As in Dear Child, the portraits are accompanied by short quotes from the pictured father, describing experiences of paternity leave, everyday life with children and gender relations in the family. The images and quotes were later published as a book (Bävman, 2015), containing 45 images, which we use as source material.

All three materials centre personal voices and reflections while also providing basic facts on welfare systems and policies in Sweden. Originating with their respective authors and artists, all three materials were developed in cooperation with the SI and were thus either created or adapted for an international audience. Especially the photo exhibitions revolve around personal stories about everyday life with children, being a father, work-life balance and so forth. While the two photo exhibitions concentrate on fatherhood and paternity leave, Leijon’s book focuses on families along with other gender equality issues, such as education. Together, the materials provide a multi-faceted image of how portrayals of Sweden and Swedish gender equality have developed during the last half-century.

We have approached the material using tools from discourse analysis (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001). After a first viewing, themes originating from the materials were noted. During subsequent viewings, the themes were specified and revised in dialogue with relevant literature in an iterative and hermeneutic process. All examples have been subject to both separate and joint study, which means that our respective impressions have been compared and discussed, and then developed analytically together. Using Laclau and Mouffe’s (2001) discourse analysis, we see meanings of fatherhood, Swedishness and gender equality as produced through processes of articulation which are never entirely successful; meanings are never pinned down conclusively (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001). In line with this, we have sought to highlight the ambivalences of the materials, letting the materials surprise us, and “talk back” to theories and previous research.

Photographs have well-established claims to “realism”, but we approach them as visual narratives, producing reality in particular ways (Hallberg, 2017; Widegren, 2016). In accordance with Hirdman (2001), who argues that it is important to study the interaction between texts, images and layout since meaning is produced in the material as a whole, we study images, captions and articles together in all three materials. The differences between the first and the two later materials have been addressed by focusing more heavily on photographs and captions in Leijon’s book than on the text body. However, we do not see the different formats as an analytical problem; instead they enrich our understanding of the communication of and construction of discourses around gender equality and fatherhood. Due to practical reasons, the spatial organization of the material in the exhibition rooms cannot be taken into account.

Below, we discuss formulations of gender equality, fatherhood and Swedishness. As will become clear, while possible to separate analytically, these three aspects are intimately linked in the materials.

Formulations of gender equality

Until the early 1960s, policies aimed at strengthening women’s position in the Swedish society had been focused on recognition and re-evaluation of women’s traditional tasks in family and society (Myrdal & Klein, 1957). During the 1960s, this understanding was challenged by a new one, emphasizing redistribution of traditional responsibilities between men and women (Moberg, 1961). A Swedish government report to the UN argued that giving “women an equal place with men in economic life […] can be realised only if the man is also educated and encouraged to take active part in parenthood and is given the same rights and duties as the woman in his parental capacity” (Sandlund, 1968, p. 4). The gender-equal, heterosexual family, characterized by women and men both engaged in gainful employment as well as active parenting, was described as a necessary precondition for a gender-equal society and the vision of these dual earner/dual carer families was summarized by the term jämställdhet (gender equality) (Florin & Nilsson, 2000).

These ideas are prominent in our first material, SWSM (Leijon, 1968). Here, images, captions and text show dual earner/dual carer families and promote redistribution of traditional responsibilities, most prominently through the use of role reversals. For instance, boys are portrayed learning to cook and to wash clothes at school (Leijon, 1968, pp. 69, 81). Meanwhile, women are portrayed in a mining industry control room, in university environments and in an architect’s office (Leijon, 1968, pp. 49, 74, 104). The cover of the book portrays a woman, gavel in hand, chairing a board. She is surrounded by older men in grey suits, all smiling happily. Sweden is constructed as a country where men and women’s traditional roles are rapidly being redistributed and dissolved.

Relatedly, the presentation of gender equality in SWSM emphasizes shared benefits for women and men. Increased gender equality will enable men and women to “have one and the same rôle—to be human beings” Leijon writes (1968, p. 40), that is, both groups will be liberated from their inhibitory roles in the gender-equal society to come. The emphasis on common interests, such as self-actualization, rather than conflicts of interests between the genders has long been an important element of Swedish gender equality ideologies (Klinth, 2002). The idea of self-actualization had been a cornerstone of the Social Democratic welfare project since the 1930s, and through an alliance between a strong state and the individual, greater scope for personal development would be guaranteed (Berggren & Trägårdh, 2006). These ideas along with the, at the time, widespread notion of gender as roles restricting women and men are very present in Leijon’s formulation of gender equality.

While women and men are often portrayed in professional environments in SWSM, several photos also portray fathers and families. Fathers are holding or bottle-feeding babies (Leijon, 1968, pp. 32, 39, 115), or reading stories to their children (Leijon, 1968, pp. 54, 113). Active fatherhood is represented as a vital political goal, but, notably, men’s entrance into the domestic sphere is accompanied by women’s entrance into the professional sphere, both in individual photographs, where both parents are either present in the picture or referred to in the caption, and in the book as a whole, which links active fatherhood to other societal changes.

In our two later materials, Lemberg’s and Bävman’s photographic exhibitions, gender equality is formulated more narrowly, as mainly concerning men, children and fatherhood, not women, which is evident already in the title of Lemberg’s exhibition: Dear Child—on Men, Children and Gender Equality in Sweden. A majority of Lemberg’s photos show men and children in the outdoors, many in sunny, summery, harmonic settings, picking mushrooms in the forest or sitting on a summer meadow. Others portray men and children at the swimming-pool and in the communal laundry. Unlike the photographs in SWSM, a number of images show non-white men and children, such as the photo of Paulos and his children and the image of Arne, neighbour and extra granddad to Victor and Hugo, two boys adopted from Colombia. Also, one of the photographed fathers sits in a wheelchair (Lemberg, 2000, pp. 20–22, 26). The photos thus represent Swedish men, regardless of race or ablebodiedness, as interested in and invested in caring for children.

The photos of Swedish Dads are similar to Dear Child in that gender equality is discursively intimately connected to fatherhood, especially to taking paternal leave. The images portray fathers—selected due to having used at least six months of paternal leave—and their children in all kinds of everyday situations. Judging by names and appearances, the men portrayed in Swedish Dads have a range of origins. The majority, however, have Swedish sounding names and are white. The captions include a variety of opinions and experiences of life as a dad, gender equality, the Swedish parental insurance scheme, etc, but also information about the men’s occupations. Most have professional titles indicative of the well-educated middle class with good incomes. As in Dear Child, women and mothers are absent in the photos, albeit occasionally referred to in the photo captions.

The Swedish Dads photos have a snapshot quality that can be connected to the photos in Leijon’s book (1968). While Lemberg’s photos constitute obviously arranged portraits, Bävman portrays fathers vacuuming the apartment with their child in a sling on their back, shopping for groceries, brushing their children’s teeth, hanging up washing with the baby in a sling against their chests, and so on. The majority of the photographs are set indoors, in “realistically” messy situations and homes, where joy and play are mixed with tired faces and crying children. Thus, unlike Lemberg’s, Bävman’s photos claim to be read as “realistic” (Hirdman, 2001) in their seeming spontaneity. However, a closer examination of the analogous lighting and colouring of the photos shows that they are more arranged than is visible at a first glance. This will be returned to below.

Gender equality: optimism and pessimism

As mentioned in the introduction, Sweden is often constructed as a country where gender equality is already in place, a statement that is discursively used to construct meanings around Swedishness (de los Reyes et al., 2005). We suggest that all our materials in some sense contribute to this idea, not least through the linking of gender equality and active fatherhood. The establishment of such a link turns photographs of men and children, especially “realist” ones, into indications that gender equality is a reality in Sweden.

However, there are tensions in this image. SWSM, being intended for an international audience, very evidently aims to inspire the world and set an example. Especially in images and captions, there is an optimist note, with “realist” photographs showing women and men in non-traditional situations. However, in the text Leijon argues that women remain disadvantaged and discriminated against in Swedish society. Moreover, she states, the agreement about the importance of gender issues in Sweden may have the drawback of making it seem like gender equality is already realized (1968, p. 33) despite that “there are still many shortcomings” (Leijon, 1968, p. 77). The danger of assuming that equality is already achieved is frequently mentioned in contemporary research as well (Jezierska & Towns, 2018).

In the two later materials gender equality primarily concerns fathers and the closeness to their children. Since the photos portray men, often fathers, together with children, often physically and emotionally close, they show (this formulation of) gender equality as already in place. Especially the messy, “realist” snapshot-like photos of Bävman (2015) become “proof” that this kind of fatherhood is, indeed, a reality in Sweden. Interestingly, this differs from the domestic campaigns for paternity leave investigated by Widegren (2016), where the child is often absent or physically distant from the father. The already-achieved quality is stronger in the international campaigns, which are perhaps intended to inspire an international audience rather than influence a domestic one.

The optimist message is evident also in Lemberg’s introduction to her exhibition:

We have now entered a new century and profound changes have occurred in society. My vision, my dream of men who take responsibility for their children and for other people’s children is coming true. I see the young fathers – the sons of the Swedish women’s movement – out in the streets […] For modern men in Sweden it has become as natural as it is for modern women to view children as the most important thing in life – and to view them as the concern of both parents. (Lemberg, 2000, p. 4)

This optimism may be connected to the social, economic and political developments that had taken place since the publication of SWSM in 1968. In 2000, women had a firmly founded presence in the labour market and the expansion of childcare, requested in Leijon’s book, was largely in place. However, the presence of women in traditionally male industries, as presented in SWSM, had not been realized in early 2000s Sweden. On the contrary, the labour market was divided along gendered lines—men in the private sector and women in the public sector. Also, since 1968, parental insurance had become available for men as well as women. However, it had not become a gender-political success, as fathers only used about 12% of parental leave days (Försäkringskassan, 2019).

All three materials link gender equality intimately to fatherhood. Such connections have been problematized by Bekkengen (2003), who argues that “child-oriented masculinity” should not be conflated with a commitment to gender equality or gender justice (2003, p. 189). While investing in children is a celebrated cultural goal in Sweden, as in other parts of the western world (Lupton & Barclay, 1997), it has not led to an increase in time spent on housework among Swedish men, nor can it be seen as undoing gendered power relations in any linear way (Bekkengen, 2003). Among our materials, Lemberg’s photographs most clearly portray child-orientation in men and assume, in a celebratory tone, that this is connected to commitments to and advances in gender equality. The photographs in Swedish Dads connect fatherhood with the repetitive, thankless tasks of housework, indicating that “child-orientation” alone is not enough, but it is in Leijon that the formulation of gender equality is at its widest, indicating that fathers caring for children must be complemented by other, society-wide solutions.

Formulations of fatherhood

The consensus-oriented, positive and optimistic image of gender equality and men’s capacity as parents that is present in Leijon (1968) is discernible also in the two later materials. However, when Leijon discusses benefits for all, our two later materials focus more on the benefits of the father, and his joy and self-actualization. For instance, in Dear Child, the father Claes is quoted, saying that his son Emil “has opened my soul and mind in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible” (Lemberg, 2000, p. 26). This is echoed by Philip Hwang, professor of psychology, whose text also forms part of the exhibition. According to Hwang, paternity leave improves men’s capacities for empathy and for coping with stress—capacities that their employers benefit from (Lemberg, 2000, p. 9). In Swedish Dads, many of the portrayed men similarly argue that they get to know their child and get to be as important to it as their partners by being on paternal leave. Others mention that their relationships with partners and parents improve when taking parental leave. Some emphasize that paternity leave contributes to the development of social and emotional skills, beneficial for them also in the workplace.

McMahon (1999) argues that paternity literature of recent decades usually describes paternity in consumption rather than production terms. Thus, like in our materials, what the father receives from the relationship with the child is more important than what he contributes with. Previous research about representations of Swedish fatherhood also emphasizes this aspect. Klinth and Johansson (2010, p. 92ff) show that domestic campaigns for increased use of paternity leave construct fatherhood as beneficial both personally and professionally, and Wahlström Henriksson (2016, p. 40) shows that active fatherhood is seen as emotionally beneficial and as developing multi-tasking and leadership skills in fathers. However, just as in Wahlström Henriksson’s “daddy handbooks”, Bävman complicates this picture by portraying messiness and everyday chores as parts of fatherhood. Thus, the idea of fatherhood in Bävman (2015) includes benefits as well as “[p]ractical everyday work and emotional presence and engagement” (Wahlström Henriksson, 2016, p. 39).

Notably, children’s voices and views are absent in all three materials. For instance, all captions in Lemberg (2000) and Bävman (2015) are attributed to fathers, not children. This, we suggest, contributes to a father-centric focus. This can be contrasted to early 21st century domestic campaigns, where the child emerges as an agent and is given a political voice, urging the parents to share the parental leave equally in photos with speech balloons (Klinth & Johansson, 2010, p. 101ff). According to Klinth and Johansson, this mirrors a shift to formulating paternal leave as a question of gender justice, a responsibility rather than an opportunity, a shift that does not take place in our materials.

Homosocial fatherhood

In our earliest material (Leijon, 1968), discussions and images of fatherhood as a rule includes two parents (with one exception: an image of a widowed man and his children). For instance, an image of a young father sitting in bed with a contented facial expression, wearing pyjamas and bottle-feeding his baby, is accompanied by this caption:

This young family see nothing unnatural about sharing household chores. The mother – a teacher – can have a good sleep while the father – a medical student – feeds the baby. (Leijon, 1968, p. 115)

Here, the theme of role-reversal is evident, and the father’s narrative is firmly placed in the context of a heterosexual relationship. As elsewhere in the book, gender equality is formulated as centred on two parties, women and men—epitomized in the heterosexual couple. This is not surprising since, as Dahl (2005) argues, relations between women and men, especially the heterosexual couple, are at the centre of Swedish gender equality ideologies. The couple constitutes the arena where gender inequality takes place and where it can be corrected, that is, it is both the problem and the solution to the problem of gender in/equality (Dahl, 2005, p. 50).

While Leijon (1968) places fatherhood firmly in such a heterosexual context, the Dear Child exhibition shows men and children, but no women. Similarly, the captions of Swedish Dads mentions women and mothers, but only occasionally and in passing, while all photographs portray men and children. Men and their relations to children thus become increasingly significant as symbols of Swedish gender equality, while women disappear, as parents, professionals and stakeholders. This contributes to the father-centric focus discussed above, and to a homosocial quality in the photographs, formulating not only fatherhood but also gender equality as possible to achieve without women. The centring of fatherhood stands out in relation to portrayals of gender equality and parenthood from many other national contexts including the other Nordic countries, whose welfare models have been described the Nordic welfare model as women centred and women friendly (Hernes, 1987; Siim, 1993).

The homosocial quality is constructed in several ways. Despite being photographed individually, the similarities between the portraits and, probably, the grouping of them in the exhibition room render the fathers in Lemberg’s and Bävman’s exhibitions a homosocial community. Another form of homosociality is formed between the photographs and the (imagined) audience of the exhibitions (Hirdman, 2001). While Leijon’s (1968) book covers large-scale, institutional solutions of gender inequality and can be read as addressing stakeholders in the international community, Lemberg’s and Bävman’s exhibitions advocate shared parental leave without portraying legislative processes or administrative preconditions behind it. Instead, inspiration is thought to come from intimate portraits of men and children. We suggest that Dear Child and Swedish Dads create a homosocial relationship with their imagined audience, or rather produce their audience as constituting individual men, not legislators (Hirdman, 2001). This relationship is thought to inspire new attitudes towards parental leave and gender equality. This can be compared to the view of fatherhood as something that needs to be taught in a specifically homosocial space, as a set of skills learnt from other men, primarily the father’s own father, in Wahlström Henriksson’s (2016) material, where neither mothers or other relatives are seen as possible parenting role-models.

The construction of fatherhood as a homosocial enterprise has several consequences in the formulation of fatherhood and gender equality. One is the weakening of both heteronormativity and the nuclear family ideal, so visible in our first material. Sedgwick (1985) argues that homosociality and homosexuality exist on a continuum, even though they appear as distinct, even oppositional positions due to homophobic and patriarchal discourses. In Dear Child and Swedish Dads, the absence of women and mothers enables us to imagine Sedgwick’s continuum as intact; the homosocial quality of the photographs makes it possible to read the fathers in the photographs as engaged in many different desires and relationships. Similarly, the scant discussions of partners or mothers open up for imagining the men as engaged in different family forms. This is supported by the presence of closeness and care extending beyond biological ties in Dear Child, e.g. the extra granddad and neighbour Arne, referred to above.

The homosocial quality also has the effect of reducing the importance of gendered power relations; a homosocial world is a world without gendered power relations or injustices, and a world where women do not hold men accountable. Wahlström Henriksson argues, à propos her material, that the absence of women results in “an image of men’s tendency toward gender equality, and women as a hindrance to men’s development into primary parents” (2016, p. 45). We find no support for that in our materials, but suggest that the erasure of women makes them irrelevant while fathers become the solution to gender inequality, and that it produces gender equality as a matter of consensus and as “already achieved” in the Swedish context.

Formulations of Swedishness

Martinsson et al. (2016) write about Swedish exceptionalism in the discursive production of Swedish gender equality, a finding that is echoed within research about Swedish nation branding. Towns (2002, p. 163) argues that “post-war Sweden has often represented itself both as an ‘ideal’ for other states that have not come as ‘far’ in their maturity process and as having the moral responsibility to enable such emulation”. Our materials draw on similar discourses. In SWSM, Leijon states that the book should be read in the light of Sweden being the “most advanced” (1968, p. 30) country in terms of gender equality and that “it was precisely since we had got so far in Sweden that we wanted to go even further” (1968, p. 31). In the 1960s debate, traditional gender roles were portrayed as relics of an outdated and irrational social model (Dahlström, 1962), and by including gender equality in the broader national narrative of modernity, rationality and enlightenment, any resistance could be defined as outdated, backward—and un-Swedish.

Notions of modernity and Sweden as at the forefront is discernible also in the other materials. In Swedish Dads, active or present fatherhood is linked to notions of modernity, as in Tomas’ quote: “I’m happy if I can be part of redefining an outdated image of fatherhood” (Bävman, 2015), and Lemberg argues that to “modern men”, “the sons of the Swedish women’s movement”, children are the most important thing in life (2000, p. 4). Here, she gives the development an air of a generational shift, where mothers, sons and children walk successfully and progressively into a utopian, modern Swedish future.

The notions of modernity and rationality elicit implicit comparisons between Sweden and other countries. Jezierska and Towns (2018, p. 60), who briefly discuss Swedish Dads, argue that the exhibition should be understood as a “utopian narrative based on international comparison”. Such comparisons produce meanings around “Sweden”, and happen both implicitly and explicitly in all three materials, often in narratives regarding immigrant or racialized men. In Dear Child, Paulos, a man of Eritrean decent, is portrayed with his children in front of a communal laundry machine. In the caption, Paulos describes a telephone conversation between his wife and a cousin in his home country. Paulos’ wife, answering the phone, says to the cousin that Paulos is in the communal laundry, at which point the cousin asks if the washing machine is broken. “No, she replied, ‘Paulos is doing the washing’. I wonder if my cousin has got over the shock yet” (Lemberg, 2000, p. 22). In this example, men doing housework is constructed as ordinary in Sweden but “shocking” in relation to other, by definition, un-Swedish parts of the world. A similar argument is made when Lemberg tells of a visit to the Swedish peacekeeping force in Bosnia in the early 1990s: “I travelled to Bosnia after hearing that the Swedish soldiers were more interested in playing with orphaned children than looking for weapons” (Lemberg, 2000, p. 38). The story is illustrated by several photos of uniformed, Swedish soldiers playing with small children. This serves to differentiate between Swedish and “other” soldiers, allegedly primarily interested in weapons.

Swedish Dads also contains comparisons. “It is a true gift to be able to create these kinds of strong emotional ties to your child, thanks to Sweden’s parental leave system” (Bävman, 2015, p. 7), father Ola says, implicitly comparing Sweden and other countries. Dutchman Martin argues that Sweden is a much more child-friendly country than the Netherlands: “I want my life to revolve around my children and I think that’s more of a possibility in Sweden than in Holland” (Bävman, 2015, p. 20). Similar to Dear Child, Swedish Dads contains several portraits not only of immigrant white men such as Martin, but also of non-white men and children. Said, father of two, argues that “As a Swedish Muslim, living in an area with lots of immigrants, it can feel lonely being a stay-at-home dad. The only people I know who are on parental leave in this area are women, not men” (Bävman, 2015). Here, Said is represented as more child-oriented, and thus more gender-equal and “advanced” than other(ed), immigrant, men in his neighbourhood. The short description of his neighbourhood connects to popular discourses about the connections between spatiality and racialization, so that certain urban areas become constructed as being “less Swedish” or somehow located outside of the (white) Swedish nation (Lundström, 2007). Interestingly, Said’s loneliness is due to the need to connect with other fathers on paternity leave; mothers in his area are not an option, which connects to the theme of homosociality.

The discursive production of Swedish men as gender-equal and immigrant or racialized men as patriarchal, traditional or violent has been discussed by several researchers who remark on the racist implications of such discourses. According to de los Reyes et al. (2005), the narrative of the “uniquely successful” struggle for gender equality in Sweden rests on a notion of the Swedish women’s movement as similarly uniquely successful. Such historic imagery creates boundaries and conditions which people are allowed to belong to and take pride in the struggle for gender equality (de los Reyes et al., 2005, p. 14f). The discourse about gender equality becomes a nationalist discourse, defining who belongs to the nation and who has the right to protect, administer and take pride in the inheritance of the women’s movement. Lemberg (2000, p. 4) writes about the “sons of the Swedish women’s movement” prioritizing their children, but in her as well as Bävman’s photographs, attempts are made to show a wide variety of Swedish men engaged in their children, including both white men with Swedish-sounding names and non-white and white immigrant men. In Lemberg’s and Bävman’s stories about modern Sweden, one does not have to be a literal (white) son of the (white) Swedish women’s movement in order to take pride in the opportunities given to Swedish fathers.

Despite this, both materials reproduce racialized notions of the gender-equal man. Said is produced as “more Swedish” than the men in his neighbourhood, and it is his use of paternal leave that sets him apart. The discursive connection between Swedishness and paternity leave and allegiance to the ideal of active fatherhood is stronger than discourses regarding race and religion, which are typically used in negotiations about who counts as a Swede. Said and to some extent Martin are celebrated as active fathers, but their allegiance to the Swedish gender equality ideals needs to be commented upon through differentiation vis-à-vis “other”, less Swedish men. Similarly, Paulos in Dear Child is depicted as adopting an allegedly typical Swedish (non)division of household chores, but he is the only man in Dear Child portrayed while doing any kind of housework. Perhaps, his allegiance to housework sharing has to be addressed or even “proven”, while white Swedish men’s investment in housework is assumed.

Swedish fathers: ordinary and exotic

Gender is highly relevant to how Sweden is marketed in our materials, which is a point that has also been addressed in research about branding of other national contexts. Fellow Nordic country Iceland is marketed as a wild tourist destination, as “remote and exotic as the moon” (Loftsdóttir, 2015, p. 246), populated by virile, Viking-esque men and sexually available Icelandic women. The men in our materials are far from being represented as hyper-masculine, sexually attractive or predatory Vikings; rather, they are portrayed as gentle and caring. Moreover, Sweden is represented as filled with apartments, sinks and toy-filled floors rather than exotic nature ready for exploration, especially in Leijon (1968) and Bävman (2015). Despite this, we suggest that these representations of Swedish fatherhood best be understood as situated in a field of tension between the exotic and the very mundane, which we choose to call demonstrative everydayness.

The everyday is evident in the snapshot quality of the pictures in Leijon and Bävman, especially the chaos, multi-tasking and tiredness of parenting, so faithfully depicted in Bävman’s images. The unobtrusive lightning together with the sometimes caring and tender, sometimes comic aspects of parenting portrayed convey a strong message of authenticity and realism, intended to be intensely relatable to the audience. This, the images seem to say, is what fatherhood is like beyond polished portraits of well-behaved children, but love and care for one’s children persist, no matter what.

The demonstrative is evident in several ways. Leijon’s and Bävman’s photographs are set in traditionally feminine spheres—the home, the kitchen, caring for children—and putting men at the centre of these contexts accentuates the idea of Sweden and Swedish fathers as exceptional. Lemberg describes Sweden as “shocklingly” different from other parts of the world, and we suggest that the demonstrative everydayness serves to accentuate Sweden as different and to some extent exotic, precisely through the emphasis on everydayness. According to Huggan, the exotic is not an inherent quality of certain people, objects, or places. Instead, exoticism describes “a particular mode of aesthetic perception—one which renders people, objects and places strange even as it domesticates them” (Huggan, 2001, p. 13). Importantly, in our case the exoticism does not contribute to marginalization. Instead, the demonstrative everydayness contributes to idealizing the men, and enables Swedish fathers to be constructed as the archetype of the modern man. This resembles Molander et al.’s, (2019, p. 449) description of Bävman’s photographs as “hero shots”, that is, “images wherein someone conquers new discursive territory that thereby hold the potential for radical change”. However, we suggest that everydayness is an important aspect of this, as the Swedish man is portrayed as someone to whom childcare and housework are deeply ordinary: In Sweden, men do not only take care of their children, they do so as a matter of course! In this way, the imagined audience of the exhibition is caught in an imagined movement between identification and admiration, closeness and distance, familiarity and exotism, where the demonstrative everydayness is central.

Conclusion

In this article, we have investigated formulations of gender equality, fatherhood and Swedishness in a material aimed at marketing and producing meanings around “Sweden”.

The campaigns render fathers and gender equality symbolic of the Swedish nation. This result can be connected to the gendering of nations more generally (Nagel, 2005), and to constructions of present fathers as progressive and Swedish (Björk, 2017). However, this article shows that this is the result of consistent, long-term and strategic work on the part of the Swedish state, a result strengthened by the fact that the material extends back to the 1960s. Moreover, fathers, gender equality and Swedishness are intimately linked in ways that render individual men and their choices key to gender equality, portray gender equality as already realized in Sweden and make “un-Swedish” contexts and fathers by definition less progressive and gender-equal than Swedish ones.

Centring intimate practices such as care of children in this construction points to the deeply personal nature of the political; indeed, the intermingling of these categories in contemporary, individualized societies permeated by commercial logics. Feminism has long argued that the personal is political, but here the centring of individualized practices of care turns this relation on its head, and the political is instead rendered personal (Gill & Orgad, 2015, p. 331), in ways that warrant further scholarly attention.

The exclusionary and dichotomous consequences of naming white, Swedish men the most gender-equal of the world have been discussed in previous research but is complicated in this article. Especially the photos with “realist” connotations place their audience in a field of tension between recognition and exotism, closeness and distance through what we have chosen to call demonstrative everydayness. This is more complex than just idealizing some men while othering others. While non-whiteness is still commented upon in our later materials, inclusion in the nation is predicated on—and conditioned by—men’s allegiance to active fatherhood rather than whiteness or heritage. Discursive connections between Swedishness and “being gender-equal” thus persist, but in more complex forms than have previously been acknowledged, forms that point to the performative aspects of nationality, fatherhood and gender equality, and which need further scrutiny.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for this article.

Notes on contributors

Klara Goedecke

Klara Goedecke is a researcher at Stockholm University, Sweden. Her research interests include men, masculinities, homosociality and friendship, as well as cultural representations of men. Her current project “High stakes. Men, masculinities and gambling as cultural phenomena” is financed by Forte, the Swedish research council for health, working life and welfare.

Roger Klinth

Roger Klinth is an Associate Professor and Vice Chancellor of Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University College in Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests include family and gender equality policy in a Nordic context with special focus on fatherhood and paternity leave. Since the late 1990s, he has published research on Swedish parental leave and fatherhood politics in historical and contemporary perspective, opinion moulding for increased paternity leave, strategic communication to an international audience on fatherhood and gender equality, family and parenthood education in Swedish radio and tv, etcetera.

Notes

1. In 1974 the length of leave was six months. Now, in 2020, Swedish parents are entitled to 480 days (16 months) of leave. Ninety days are earmarked for each parent. The remaining 300 days are formally divided between the parents but can easily be transferred between them.

2. Not until the beginning of the 1990s did men’s use of leave reach 10% of the total days available to parents. In 2019 men used around 29% of the total time (Försäkringskassan, 2019). Additionally, the middle-class focus that has characterized the gender equality policy project has persisted. Since 1974, well-educated and well-paid middle-class men have topped the paternity leave statistics (Duvander, Ferrarini, & Johansson, 2015).