Who Cares? The Neoliberal Turn and Changes in the Articulations of Women’s Relation to the Swedish Welfare State

ABSTRACT

This article aims to investigate how articulations of women’s relation to the welfare state and modes of political agency has changed in Sweden between 1977 and 2017; a period characterized by the introduction and implementation of a neoliberal political rationality. By way of discourse analysis, the article highlights the reciprocal relationship between the construction of the welfare state and women. To this end, it analyses the debates following two films that problematize women’s relation to the welfare state, Summer Paradise (1977) and Beyond Dreams (2017). The article argues that: (a) childcare as a structuring factor for women’s work is replaced by a focus on the responsibility of the individual to provide for herself; (b) gender as a structuring principle is replaced by gender as an attribute of the individual, and; (c) the relation between women and the state is individualized. As a result, the state becomes articulated as an individualized collectivity, which aims to serve the individual’s self-preservation as opposed to the state being an arena for solving societal and collective problems. We argue that the neoliberal turn has changed women’s political subjectivity from a focus on collective action to an atomization of agency against systemic gender inequalities.

KEYWORDS:

• Welfare state
• gender
• discourse theory
• film
• media
• neoliberalism

Introduction

In Sweden and the Nordic countries, the state has long been seen to hold an important role in promoting women’s liberation. Especially reforms related to the work/care-nexus, such as childcare and parental leave, have been articulated as necessary for the realization of gender equality and women’s autonomy (see e.g. Kvist & Overud, 2015; Lane & Jordansson, 2020). The introduction of a neoliberal political rationality has fundamentally changed the workings of welfare democracies. Looking at gender equality policies, the neoliberal turn seems to have bolstered a gender equality discourse at the expense of articulating conflict (see e.g. Bacchi & Eveline, 2003; Raevaara, 2008; Rönnblom, 2008, 2009). Further, gender equality has been transformed into profitable features in both policy and cultural expressions (see e.g. McRobbie, 2007; Rönnblom, 2011). While feminist scholars have discussed the impact of neoliberalism on state institutions and gender equality policy rather extensively, and there are studies about how the changes brought about by the neoliberal turn have affected articulations of the subject (Davies & Chisholm, 2018; Gill & Scharff, 2011; Repo, 2016; Woehl, 2008) there is still a lack of studies of how the articulation of subject positions are entangled with the state and how they in turn constitute the possibilities for women to interact with the state.

This article argues that investigating public debates spurred by films provide a venue to identify and analyse changes in articulations of subject positions. In previous research, films and TV-series in the genre of Nordic Noir (crime) have been used to understand conceptualizations of the welfare state, however not so often from a gender perspective (see e.g. Fahlgren, Johansson, & Söderberg, 2013; Robbins, 2017, 2019; Stenport & Alm, 2009). Feminist scholars, on the other hand, have used film to analyse how international relations are represented and narrated in ways that provides insights about how vulnerability, war, authority and violence are gendered (see e.g. Åhäll, 2012; Clapton & Shepherd, 2017; Griffin, 2015; Shepherd, 2012). Common to these two strands of research which study constructions of political features through film, is that they analyse films as texts or artefacts, arguing that popular culture like films contributes to make society intelligible (Griffin, 2015; Rowley & Weldes, 2012). Laura Shepherd (2012) argues that the link between the socio-political reality and cultural texts is that cultural narratives must “remain intelligible to its audience even as it pushes the boundaries of intelligibility” (p. 8).

In contrast to these studies, but in line with reception studies (see Staiger, 2000), this article focuses on the debate about films rather than films themselves. Our study is guided by the idea that debates about popular culture provide information about the boundaries of what can be articulated in a specific political context (Hafsteinsdottir, 2015; Mouffe, 2008), that is, we investigate how media makes films intelligible and thus how they are incorporated in public debate and are related to what is conceptualized as social reality. As pointed out by Chantal Mouffe, debates about critical art may reveal conflicts that are crucial to socio-political reality, but which are hidden in formal institutional politics (Mouffe, 2008, 2013, chap. 5). Such points of contestation represent a privileged entry into disclosing immanent antagonisms beneath the surface of neoliberal consensuses. Taking such debates into consideration is vital, because consensuses and hidden conflicts are intertwined with institutional arrangements and reforms (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 107) and shapes the conditions for political agency.

Departing from this proposition, this article presents a study of media debates following two Swedish films released 40 years apart: Summer Paradise (Paradistorg, Gunnel Lindblom 1977) and Beyond Dreams (Dröm vidare, Rojda Sekerzös, 2017); a timespan during which a neoliberal political rationality (Brown, 2005) has gained a hegemonic hold in the Swedish welfare state.

The aim of the article is to analyse and compare how women’s relation to the welfare state was articulated in media discussions about the films. More precisely, the article seeks to unpack (a) the articulations of antagonistic subject positions, (b) how these subject positions construct women’s relation to the state and (c) how this, in turn, conditions women’s political agency. Ultimately, we seek to highlight how the possibilities to articulate women as political subjects changes as neoliberal discourses gain ground in Sweden.

The selection of the two films were, in addition to the time for their release, based on the criteria that the films should be feature length fiction films targeting an adult audience. Further, the films should display content that related to women and the welfare state, have women in major roles and have given rise to media discussions in which gender and the role of the state were discussed. We also wanted the films’ directors to have expressed an explicit critical aim with the film. The content of the films is important for what discussions they give rise to, however, what is discussed and what subject positions are articulated in the debates depend on what features of the films are picked up on and how they are interpreted. Hence, it is important that the chosen films feature women’s relation to the welfare state, but what articulations the films give rise to in the debate is an open question. What is discussed may not correspond to the intentions of the director, nor to the interpretations of the films that we have done when choosing them. For instance, Summer Paradise did not give rise to intense discussions about class, even though there are several features that could have been picked up on related to class, and Beyond Dreams did not give rise to discussions about young girls’ consumption of sexualized images online, despite such content.

In the following sections, we will first present the films, then the feminist contributions to understanding the neoliberal turn in relation to gender equality policies. Thirdly, we elaborate on the theoretical and methodological approach informing the analysis. Thereafter follows three empirical sections, presenting our analysis of the articulation of the subject positions, constructions of gender and finally, how the state and women’s political agency are conceptualized in the media debates surrounding the two films. In the conclusion, we show how our findings further extend the discussions of how the relation between the women as political subjects and the state has changed following the turn to a neoliberal political rationality.

Introducing the films

We will now turn to a brief presentation of the films, as it is necessary for the reader to know something about them in order to be able to understand the debate they gave rise to.

Summer Paradise was based on a novel by Ulla Isakson, who also wrote the script for the film. The film had the explicit aim to problematize children’s situation in the ongoing transformation of society (interview Gunnel Lindblom, 2018-04-27).¹ The plot is centred around two older women, Katha, a divorced MD, and Emma, a social worker who does not have children of her own. The two women are close, long-time friends with different views on the development of society and different strategies for coping with life. The film takes place during a week at Katha’s summerhouse. Katha, Emma, Katha’s daughters and their families and some friends spend their days playing, eating, and talking. While Katha has her hands full with helping with grandchildren so that her grown daughters can manage their relationships with the men in their lives, Emma accuses Katha of not taking responsibility for the larger societal problems that Emma faces daily as a social worker. During the stay they discuss life, the current social and political situation and, importantly, the role of women in caring for children and society. In their discussions the two long-time friends often find themselves to have opposing views. At the time of its release, the film was perceived as a controversial contribution to the debate on women’s liberation (Larsson, 2011), and the media reception connected the film to the question of public childcare, which was high on the political agenda. The film won the prestigious Swedish “Guldbaggen”-award and was represented at the Cannes film festival in the section “Les yeux fertiles” (Swfdb).

Beyond Dreams was Rojda Sekersöz’s debut as director, and the script was written together with Johanna Emanuelsson. The film aimed to problematize capitalism, ethnicity, and the depiction of suburbs, and was inspired by ideas about intersectionality and racialization (interview Sekerzös, 2018-03-22); two issues that were intensely discussed in Sweden at the time for the film’s release. The film presents a story about Mirja, and her four friends, all of whom are living in a suburb of Stockholm. The young women hang out and make plans to realize their dream to go to Montevideo by robbing a jeweller’s store. Meanwhile, Mirja is pushed by her sick mother to get a job and help pay rent. She manages to get a black-market job cleaning a hotel, and things are going quite well until her mother ends up in the hospital and Mirja has to juggle her job and caring for her sister. When she brings her sister to work, a chain of events ensues that results in her losing her job. The mother dies, and Mirja draws the conclusion that she must give up on the dream of Montevideo and instead stay put and take care of her sister. The film attracted a lot of publicity for its almost all-female cast, and for portraying suburbs, and women’s friendship. It was nominated for two “Guldbaggen”-awards, and Rojda Sekersöz was awarded “Rookie of the year”. The film was also selected as “the Audience’s choice” at Gothenburg film festival in 2017 (Swfdb).

Both films question the ideal of the nuclear family and represent it as dysfunctional. The extended family in Summer Paradise, and the lone mother and the older sister who must take on caring responsibilities in Beyond Dreams depict how care is provided in various ways, but also that it is highly gendered. Class is negotiated in both films. In Summer Paradise class is actualized by the neighbouring farmer couple who provide services to the one’s spending their vacation in the grand summer house. It is also actualized in relation to an invited single mother and her obnoxious son. In Beyond Dreams class is intertwined with ethnicity and actualized in relation to Mirja’s work mates, her mean and unjust employer and in interaction with welfare state officials. Gender, or the role of women and men and the welfare state are at the core of many dialogues in Summer Paradise. In Beyond Dreams, gender, class and ethnicity are intertwined, for example in how Mirja is approached and addressed by her boss. The two films differ in setting—an idyllic archipelago summer house vs. the suburbs of Stockholm. They differ when it comes to the age of the main characters—the two elderly women vs. the group of 20+ women. They also differ in terms of importance of the narrative plot, which is more salient in Beyond Dreams, whereas the dialogue is more pronounced in Summer Paradise.

The neoliberal turn: state, policy, and the subject

The transformation of the welfare state according to a neoliberal political rationality can be argued to include three aspects of change relevant to our study. These changes relate to (a) how the state is made intelligible, (b) how gender equality policies are articulated and (c) how the subject is constructed.

The Swedish welfare state is often labelled social democratic, a model characterized by a strong interventionist state aiming to mitigate the effects of the market through a redistributive tax-system (Esping-Andersen, 1990). However, since the mid-1980s income cleavages has increased, and reforms of the tax-system has decreased the redistributive effects (Lidbeck, 2018; Therborn, 2018). These observations correlate in time with an increased influence of neoliberal ideas and the introduction of New Public Management (Bäck, 2000). As noted by Daly and Lewis (1998/2018), the neoliberal transformation of the welfare state took different paths in different countries. However, there are common traits, such as for instance the marketization of welfare services. In a wider sense, marketization denotes the states’ increased need of economy and “the market” for its legitimacy as well as the introduction of market principles guiding the organization and governance of state agencies, also known as New Public Management (NPM). Wendy Brown (2005) introduces the notion of neoliberalism as a political rationality for the purpose of grasping the various ways that a market-logic entrenches liberal democracies. Brown underlines that a neoliberal conceptualization of the “market” is far from the “old” liberal idea of the market as “natural”. Rather the market is in constant need of creation, it has to be “directed, buttressed, and protected by law and policy as well as by the dissemination of social norms designed to facilitate competition, free trade and rational economic action” (Brown, 2005, p. 41). In short, Brown argues that the neoliberal state responds to the needs of the market, behaves like a market and shapes subjects which are fit for the market.

Turning to gender equality policies, Swedish reforms have been constructed as efficient and successful and as an integral part of the social democratic welfare model (Lane and Jordansson 2020; Nygren, Martinsson, & Mulinari, 2018), featuring a dual breadwinner-dual carer gender regime (Sainsbury, 1999). Several scholars have noted how the Swedish gender equality norm gives rise to a nationalist discourse of Sweden as exceptionally gender equal (see e.g. de Los Reyes, Molina, & Mulinari, 2002; Fahlgren, 2013; Martinsson, Griffin, & Nygren, 2016; Schierup & Ålund, 2011) and “build on problematic notions and norms on gender, sexuality, nation, capitalism, and, workability” (Nygren, Martinsson, & Mulinari, 2018, p. 2).

Neoliberalism is generally connected to austerity, increased economic inequality and the dismantling of the welfare state. However, originally introduced as a response to gender inequality, such as childcare constitute an exception to this general trajectory, displaying increased spending but now motivated by market demands (Ferragina, 2019). Further, according to several scholars, gender equality reform has been successfully integrated in the neoliberal rationality in Sweden (Tollin, 2011), designed according to market principles, and decoupled from a broader feminist project (Ferragina, 2019; Nygren, Martinsson, & Mulinari, 2018). International research depicts this as a paradox, where the neoliberal turn tends to benefit gender equality discourse, while simultaneously constructing these policies in a way that obscures the idea of gender as a structuring principle which produces inequality (Bacchi & Eveline, 2003). Rather, gender equality policy constitutes gender as something belonging to a person, an attribute. This contributes to individualizing the effects of gender as well as the responsibility for dealing with gendered conditions. This development recasts the idea of “identity politics” to be about individuals, rather than groups, and rephrases demands for redistribution as “equal inequality for all” (Brown, 2005, p. 44).

The changes brought about by neoliberalism also affects the articulation of the subject. Several studies have shown how neoliberal reform has led gender equality to be conceptualized in terms that tend to make the individual responsible for inequality and undermine possibilities to object to current norms (Amar, 2013; Gill & Scharff, 2011; Repo, 2016; Woehl, 2008). Chantal Mouffe argues that neoliberalism “far from being limited to the economic domain, also connotes a whole conception of society and of the individual grounded on a philosophy of possessive individualism.” (Mouffe, 2018, pp. 28–29; see also Macpherson, 1962). Thus, neo-liberalism rests on a, “matrix of the production of the individual” (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, p. 175; emphasis added). Possessive individualism stresses self-ownership as the subject’s ultimate normative essence: the subject can alienate its labour and owes no further obligations towards the community (Breakey, 2016; Macpherson, 1962, pp. 262–63). Taking this observation into the realm of gender equality policies, women are then constructed in an individualized and atomized relation to the state and social community as such (e.g. as consumers of welfare), rather than as belonging to a collective from which to call for social change.

Methods and material

This article is based on the premise that debates about critical art may contribute to make “visible what the dominant consensus tends to obscure and obliterate” (Mouffe, 2008, p. 5). Thus, the construction of socio-political consensuses does not represent a deeper objectivity but are rather based on exclusions of other opinions (Mouffe, 2013, p. 2). While the public discussion about the artwork may not always reflect the artists’ intentions or the critical edge of the work, artistic practices can both support the hegemonic consensus or challenge it depending on what public discussions they instigate (Hafsteinsdottir, 2015). The debates that are spurred from an artistic practice are therefore just as important to examine as the artwork itself. In that sense, “art’s great power lies […] in its capacity to make us see things in a different way, to make us perceive new possibilities.” (Mouffe, 2013, p. 216). Hence, we argue that debates about popular culture, such as films, provide the possibility to investigate conflicts concerning women and the welfare state that might not otherwise appear in formal institutional politics. Therefore, we choose to analyse the debates following the release of Beyond Dreams and Summer Paradise. In order to do so, this article identifies and analyses the construction of antagonistic subject positions in the debates, how subjects are positioned in relation to the state and what modes of agency this implies. In other words, we draw on Essex School discourse theory, by seeing discourses as providing, “[subject] positions with which social agents can identify.” (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000, p. 3). That is, we do not approach the category of “women” as having an established meaning outside of discourse, rather discursive structures construct positions for the subject to identify with, and hence there is no “concealed identity” which can be found outside of discourse (Mouffe, 2018, p. 89).

We have applied discourse-theoretical discourse analysis to locate the construction of particular subject positions of women and how they are attributed meaning through chains of signifiers on one hand, and their relations to other subject positions. Thereby, we locate how subject positions are constituted in the debates through, “the construction of antagonisms and the drawing of political frontiers between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’”. (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000, p. 4).

An additional dimension of our approach is that particular forms of political subjectivity and agency, “emerge because of the contingency of those discursive structures through which a subject obtains its identity.” (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000, p. 13). In other words, different platforms for agency are enabled depending on the subject positions that the discursive structure provide for agents to identify with. The public discussions might therefore be said to draw on existing discursive resources, such as a neoliberal political rationality, which positions the subject in various ways in relation to the welfare state.

Focusing on women’s relation to the welfare state, the analysis was conducted through the lens of “responsibility” (of women, men, the state). In other words, “responsibility” is the nodal point in both the analysed material and our own analysis by assuming “a universal structuring function” (Laclau & Mouffe, 2001, xi).

The empirical material consists of articles published in major daily Swedish newspapers in connection to the films’ release.² For Summer Paradise a total of 12 articles are included in our sample, and for Beyond Dreams 21 articles are included in our sample. The articles consist of film reviews and published interviews with the movie directors, script writers and actors.³ In the following, all translations of quotes from the material are made by us. In cases where Swedish expressions that are difficult to translate are used, we have chosen to provide the Swedish wording of those specific expressions in brackets.

The subject positions

We will begin this analysis by delineating the main points of antagonisms around which the media discussions revolve. We do so by pointing to the construction of subject positions.

In a published interview about Summer Paradise, director Gunnel Lindblom describes the characters of Emma and Katha as “two voices within yourself”, and the main conflict as the one between concentrating on the family or engaging in societal issues (Sima, 1977). Lindblom is quoted describing Emma as the “rebel” who “wants to do something and has the courage to do it” (Lindblom quoted in Sima, 1977). We chose to call the subject position Emma embodies the societally engaged woman. In the text, Emma is pitted against the character Katha, a woman who has given in to the “dreadful seduction produced by the bourgeoise way of life—[to] withdraw in the company of yourself or your closest of kin” (Lindblom quoted in Sima, 1977). We have named this subject position the bourgeoise woman.

This antagonism between a broader societal engagement vs. family centeredness that the film’s director wants to highlight, is however not at the heart of the debate. Instead, the societally engaged woman is set up against an idea of women being first and foremost subject to a sexual division of labour in capitalist society, a subject position we call the subjected woman. By recasting the main antagonism, the media discussion revolves around the societally engaged woman (Emma’s character) constructed as having a primary social responsibility to care for children. A line from the film, which in the article is referred to as the film’s “manifesto”, is used to support this attribution:

It is a shame to be a human today, but it is an even greater shame to be a woman. Why? Because the woman [sic!] carries a greater responsibility but refuses to acknowledge this. She denies herself and her capacities, the uniqueness in her ability to give life and to care for life in a humane and dignified way. (Sif Ruud as Emma, quoted in Gustafsson & Runesson, 1977)

Women are thus societally engaged to the extent that they acknowledge and act upon their unique capacity for childcare. Child care is, in turn, presented as a social intervention and as taking on social responsibility.

Reacting to the idea of women having a unique capacity and responsibility to care, the critics position the societally engaged woman against the subjected woman who (is forced to) care for children too, but not because of an inherent essence, but because of a sexual division of labour. The subject position of the bourgeoise woman, works as a silent “other” in relation to both of the other two. The main antagonism in the media reception thus arises in differing conceptions of what determines women’s responsibilities; biology/essence, or the organization of production and reproduction. Despite these differences, both subject positions construct childcare as a collective responsibility: a responsibility for women as a group to take care of, or a common problem which the state is responsible to solve. Thus, both subject positions are organized around the question of responsibility, and more specifically, who holds the final responsibility for child care: women or the welfare state.

Moving on to the reception of the 2017 film Beyond Dreams, we find rather different subject positions. In the reviews, the film is characterized as a coming-of-age story. Several critics, as well as Sekersöz herself, argue that the film is primarily about how social structures, such as capitalism, condition the life of the film characters. Despite the almost all-woman cast, and a fair amount of discussion about this, the discursive struggle in the media reception does not revolve around women’s conditions, but centres on how a subject, irrespective of gender is situated in capitalist society.

The debate features two subject positions, which we call the subjected individual and the free individual. The construction of the subjected individual describes how capitalism and a harsh society makes it difficult for Mirja to come to terms with her place in society. In one of the articles, Sekerzös is quoted arguing that this problem has to do with the “idea that class is not relevant and that you can always work your way up. That it is a choice to be part of the working class” (Wettersten, 2017). Script-writer Johanna Emmanuelsson, who is also quoted, adds a dimension to this by invoking that in a hierarchical society someone will always be at the bottom:

But what happens if you choose the collective instead or choose to stay put? Are those choices possible, or will you become a loser? … And if everyone wants careers and to realize themselves? Well, not everyone will be able to. (Wettersten, 2017)

Thus, the subjected individual is displaced from the predominant liberal narrative of self-determination and self-realization due to her class-determined position in society. Sekerzös’ and Emmanuelsson’s quotes presents this as being the outcome of a liberal false consciousness of autonomy and self-determination, that promises freedom but instead leads to a state of class precarity. In that sense, the possessive individual view of the subject is a mere illusion, because class inequality displaces the individual’s self-ownership.

In a trenchant critique of Sekerzös and Emmanuelsson’s arguments, Caroline Dahlman instead provides the subject position of the “free individual” (Dahlman, 2017). Dahlman is deeply critical of the way that Sekersöz articulates the individual as subject to structural conditions and suggests that the individual is self-sufficient and has the capacity to change her life and her conditions by her own accord. Hence, the “free individual” is constructed as “strong and capable”—she holds capacities for self-ownership within herself. Hence, the individuals’ ability to transcend class determination—of owning her capacities—becomes the main point of contestation in the debates.

Although class is discussed in terms of a structuring principle on several occasions, all articulations of class are made in terms of its implications for the individual’s ability for social mobility. In that sense, both subject positions are articulated in relation to the individual’s self-ownership, while the antagonism revolves around whether (class) structures indeed curb class transgression. Hence, the idea of a collective as the bearer of agency and structural/societal change as a solution is obscured in the discussion by focusing on the individual’s capacity for transgressing class determination. Putting this into the context of the neoliberal turn, we see how even when discussing class, traditionally perceived as a collective political subjectivity, the individual and its prosperity becomes the primary social agent and goal.

To conclude, the discussion about Summer Paradise was mainly concerned with discussing women’s responsibility for childcare and the reasons why this responsibility is placed on women. In other words, the point of contestation revolves around different perceptions of what constitutes women and women’s conditions. Conversely, the main antagonism in the media reception of Beyond Dreams concerned the individual’s responsibility to provide for herself and whether or not (class) structures condition the individual’s ability to do this. In other words, the main point of contestation revolved around different perceptions of the individual, its conditions and degree of self-ownership. This implies different ways in which gender comes to matter and are represented in the debates towards which we will now turn.

Gender: from women to individuals with gendered attributes

Having delineated the main points of discursive contestation, the following presents how gender is constructed in the debates, and why it is considered to be significant. Starting with the media reception of Summer Paradise, the main antagonism revolves around the issue of what constitutes women. The critics are concerned with the essentialism exhibited in the film: “There are ideas about femaleness [ett kvinnlighetstänkande] and the worshiping of motherhood in Ulla Isaksson’s story that I have a problem with”, states Hjertén (Hjerten, 1977), who continues to argue that this makes women “some kind of heaters in a frostbitten patriarchy”. Ingela Brovik (in Gustafsson & Runesson, 1977) finds the film to be an example of the “old female mystique that perpetuates the current situation … ”, and the proposition that women have a special responsibility to care is interpreted by Olsson as reactionary and in line with “the united right-wing [political] powers” (Olsson, 1977).

Instead, the critics propose a more “realistic” depiction of women as determined by economic conditions and the capitalist system, which calls for change: “For our future workday to be different, the conditions of production have to change. And that requires a different economic power structure” (Gunnel Borgstrand in Gustafsson & Runesson, 1977). The subject positions are articulated as antagonistic in terms of how and by what mechanisms women are constituted, but there is a consensus about the assumption that caring activities are in conflict with gainful employment, and that women’s situation differs from men’s when it comes to caring responsibilities. In other words, gender is viewed as a structuring principle with regards to the sexual division of labour.

In the discussions about Beyond Dreams, gender is articulated as an individual attribute, and efforts to ascribe gender structuring properties are silenced. This is done through various articulatory moves. First, the film reviews routinely describe the predominance and presence of women characters with terms such as “girl power” which are considered to be a positive feature of the film (e.g. Andersson, 2017; Jansson, 2017; Johnson, 2017). At the same time, however, gender is actively articulated as irrelevant for the story. Several reviews discuss the fact that the film presents a well-known “classic” (Krutmeijer, 2017), and “universal” (Ekström-Frisk, 2017) story, only that it has “never been told like this—with a power stall of women characters” (Sigander, 2017). Sekersöz herself supports the interpretation that the film narrates a tale which does not pertain to any specific gender: “Beyond Dreams focuses on a group of women friends, however, it could equally well have been about men” (Torstensson, 2017). In other words, the predominance of women is a matter of cultural representation and is not seen to foreground a discussion on women’s conditions at a structural level.

In another comment on the same topic, Serkezös refers to a structuring male norm when it comes to women’s representation on screen: “The fact that I get this question so often is much more interesting than the question of why there are not so many men in the film […] This says something about how we are used to seeing women. That they should always have a relation to a man.” (Wettersten, 2017). Even if Serkezös in this quote invoke gender as a structuring principle for how women can be portrayed on screen, this is rarely picked up by the critics, who, even when agreeing with the class-analysis and appreciating the “girl power” displayed in the film, explicitly denies any elements of gender as structuring principle, as for example in Eriksson: “It is liberating that a film about young immigrant women [in the suburb] … does not problematize gender and does not feature neither boy-friends nor physical abuse” (Eriksson, 2017).

Secondly, gender is articulated as an individual attribute detached from any social determination. Instead, Sekerzös foregrounds class as the primary structuring principle producing inequality. According to Sekersöz, the media obsession with the female cast reveals a general blindness towards class: “In our story, the working-class is the norm. And if you miss that, what else will stand out? Well, that she has tits and that she is brown” (Wettersten, 2017). Hence, she argues that gender and ethnicity holds significance for how women are presented on screen and for how they are interpreted by the viewer as opposed to being a structuring principle for more fundamental inequalities. According to this view, gender and ethnicity are what characterizes individuals at first glance and tend to overshadow their class-belonging. While this quote constructs the workings of class as invisible, but structuring, gender and ethnicity are articulated as visible—everyone can see if someone has tits and is brown—but not structuring. Hence, gender becomes an attribute rather than a structure (Bacchi & Eveline, 2003)

To conclude, we find in 1977 a consensus about the assumption that women are conditioned by their relation to childcare, and that this is a problem in relation to work. In other words, gender is acknowledged as a structuring principle. In contrast, in 2017, we have found two articulatory moves that reduces the importance of gender as structuring principle: (a) articulating gender only to hold significance in terms of women’s presence on screen, and (b) making gender an individual attribute.

The state and women’s political agency

In this section we will focus on how women/individuals are articulated in relation to the state and the division of responsibility for care as well as the modes of political subjectivity these articulations infer. Indeed, in the debates about both films, the state, or “society”, which is an often-used term in 1977, plays an important role. In 1977, the state is the party with whom women share and negotiate the limits of caring responsibilities, and the central question addressed is how this partnership is constituted. Lindblom’s view on the role of women follows from her perception of the welfare state as insufficient: “What I mean is that men have done very little in this field [of speaking on behalf of children]. Childcare in this so-called welfare state is terribly underdeveloped” (Lindblom in Sima, 1977). The inadequate public arrangements for childcare are, according to this reasoning, the result of men’s decision-making, and the reason for why women must step in.

Thus, in the article, Lindblom argues that the situation calls for a wide definition of care: “Emma argues—and I agree—that women are not doing enough, women have to stand by the children and engage more in the struggle against environmental destruction, genetic experiments and male dominance” (Lindblom in Sima, 1977). Hence, caring for children comes with the responsibility for actively engaging in struggles for a better future. This reflects the construction of the societally engaged woman, which presents women as a sort of safety net against an inadequate and failed (male) welfare state. From this follows, according to Lindblom, that women should realize their social caring responsibility due to their unique ability to give and care for life.

The critics present Lindblom’s stock-taking of childcare arrangements as a depressing and pessimistic view on the potential of gender equality policies. According to the critics, such a pessimistic view stems from a depiction of women as determined by a biological essence as opposed to capitalist modes of production: “[f]rom the perspective of Lindblom, it seems that women—a biologically determined concept freed from all social and class-related determinants—carry the responsibility for children’s degeneration ” (Aghed, 1977). Against the societally engaged woman stands the subjected woman, whose spot in the sexual division of labour is determined by the organization of capitalist society. This articulation of the subjected woman places the responsibility for the current situation outside of women: “Society as a whole carries the responsibility for the coming generation” (Gustafsson & Runesson, 1977). More specifically, public childcare is constructed as a solution to the conflict women experience with combining work and care. Even if public childcare is not perfect with its “crowded nurseries” (Gustafsson & Runesson, 1977) and the shortage of places, it is a way of solving the conflict women experience as carers and workers. In other words, society and state institutions are presented as holding the solution to women’s subjection to a sexual division of labour, as opposed to signifying a (male) failure.

Both subject positions in 1977 are accordingly articulated in relation to the state—one uses the failure of the (male) welfare state as an argument for why women should become more engaged in society and in childcare, while the other views the state as the solution. It follows that the articulation of women’s relation to the state also determines how the responsibility for caring should be divided. If the state is the solution, then responsibility for children and the future is pinned on the state, while responsibility rests heavily on women if the state is constructed as failed because of men’s decision-making.

The articulation of the societally engaged woman and the subjected woman both give rise to the need for women’s solidarity and provide a political subjectivity from which political agency is possible. By constructing women in terms of an inherent (biological) essence concerning motherhood and caring, the societally engaged woman is oriented towards children and “the future”. This requires women’s direct involvement as women in making things better. On the other hand, the construction of the subjected woman, situated in a capitalist sexual division of labour, opens for a political subjectivity which rests on the collective voicing of demands for government-initiated reforms. In both cases, a political subjectivity is attached to women as women to either bring about change or pressure the state to deliver change, although different perceptions of responsibility between women and the state are envisioned.

This stands in stark contrast to how the relation between women and the state is discussed in 2017. In the articles following Beyond Dreams, the welfare state is either conceptualized as providing the free individual with help and resources, or as a party who supports the subjected individual as long as she aligns with neoliberal ideas, while the state simultaneously obscures the workings of capitalism. In one of the articles, Evin Ahmad, the actress playing Mirja, is interviewed. She comments on a key scene in the film, which shows Mirja at the employment agency when she is desperately trying to find a job:

Bureaucracy is detrimental for the main character, Mirja. She is in an acute situation … She has to get a job, but when she visits the employment agency, she is referred to a job coach and has to make an appointment [to make an appointment]. That absolute ignorance by society is important to portray onscreen, that you are excluded, and how that makes you desperate and must take matters into your own hands. (Ahmad in Hansen, 2017)

In this quote, it is described as important to reveal that “society” does not provide the help it claims to deliver. To believe that the welfare state will come to one’s rescue, is constructed as an obstacle for the individual to transcend class-related inequality. In other words, the idea of the benevolent welfare state is articulated as a false consciousness that covers over persistent class determinism. As mentioned earlier, class-determinism does not lead to a collective class consciousness, but to the individual taking “matters into [her] own hands.”

Opposing these arguments, Dahlman (2017) asks, “If it is justified to blame [your situation] on being poor, or on structures—how far can this be drawn? Is there even a limit?” (Dahlman, 2017). She especially objects to what she sees as a legitimization of laziness and crime. Dahlman does not deny the unequal dispositions resulting from “[g]ender, skin colour, religion or the amount of money you have in the bank” but claims that it “is […] bullshit that the one who wants to would not have the opportunity in a society loaded with support and help” (Dahlman, 2017). Thus, she portrays the welfare state as enabling the individual, as an existing foundation upon which the subject can build to change her position.

The idea of the benevolent welfare state as a false consciousness opens for two possible avenues to act. Either by engaging in direct (revolutionary) actions to change the state, or to withdraw to the private sphere to support oneself in the ways it is possible. The construction of the free and liberal individual, on the other hand, rests on a notion of the welfare state as an already existing and enabling “instrumental community” (Mouffe, 2018, p. 65) for the realization of the self. This conception of the individual’s relation to the state does not call for collective agency, but for the individual to seek out how she can use the state to realize herself and seek out her own prosperity. This reflects a possessive individual view of the subject, where ‘man’s [sic] normative essence consists of holding property in himself, capable of fully alienating his labour, and of owing no further duties to his community.’ (Breakey, 2016, p. 2).

A comparison over time shows how the relation between the subject and the state has shifted and how women’s/the individual’s political agency is conditioned differently. In the media reception of Summer Paradise, the welfare state is depicted as either a potential or a failed (male) partner in mitigating structural inequalities. However, both conceptualizations are based on the notion that the state of the state—whether failed or powerful—is a collective concern. In the reception of Beyond Dreams the welfare state is seen as a provider of services to help the individual, or as producing the false consciousness of believing that this is what the state does. In this sense, the relation between the subject and the state has become not only degendered but also individualized, and a new form of what we would like to call individualized collectivity is created—were individuals are tied together through their access to the welfare state’s services to solve their individual problems, rather than viewing the state as a means where common problems can be articulated and solved. Whereas the articulation of the subject position in 1977 calls for different forms of collective action, the 2017 constructions of subject positions invoke a withdrawal from collective action, or potentially more drastic actions outside of the current order. These different forms of collective action are arguably tied to the diverging ways sisterhood is taken up as a theme in the debates. In 1977, the reviewers focus on Emma’s idea that women need to come together in order to solve social degradation, i.e. women are in a sisterhood of solidarity towards the wider society. Conversely, in 2017, sisterhood is taken up in terms of “girl power”, which does not refer to “women” as collective social actors in relation to the welfare state. Rather, “girl power” is a trait the individual women characters are argued to feature when negotiating their own class-based position in society. As noted by several scholars, portrayals of women which align with neo-liberal ideals, and represent women as confident, entrepreneurial and beautiful, tend to mute gender conflicts and activate individualized responsibility (see e.g. Gill, 2016; McRobbie, 2007; Scharff, 2013). Hence, the shift from a sisterhood of solidarity to a focus on the individual’s “power” reflects a shift from a subject position of collective action to an individualized collectivity.

Conclusion

This article has analysed how the relation between women and the state was articulated in the debates following Summer Paradise and Beyond Dreams. The films’ releases were separated by forty years, during which time there was an expansion of public day care, cutbacks on welfare following austerity and the proliferation of a neoliberal political rationality and an increasing possessive individualization.

The analysis shows that the articulation of the relation between women and the state has changed in several ways. First, the focus on childcare as a condition for women’s work, is replaced by a discourse focusing on the individual’s responsibility to provide for herself. Second, the 1977 consensus about the construction of women living under specific conditions and gender playing a role for the relation to the state is in 2017 exchanged for a discussion where gender as a structuring principle is toned down. Instead, gender is articulated as an attribute that does not affect the individuals’ relation to the state. Third, in 1977 as well as in 2017 there are constructions of the state as failed in terms of not delivering what it promises on the one hand, and as an important provider of services on the other. However, in the reception of Summer Paradise, the state is conceptualized as an arena for solving societal and collective problems, of which childcare is one, while in the debate about Beyond Dreams the state is considered to provide services to enable the individual to care for herself.

We have argued that these changes give rise to the articulation of an individualized collectivity, where access to state services is what produces the feeling of belonging to society. This implies that the experience of precarious displacement from the dominant neoliberal narrative is detrimental to the idea of the welfare state resting on the legitimacy of an inclusive conception of the demos. As our results indicate, this also gives rise to a polarized articulation of political agency and of what kind of means are legitimate to use to provide for oneself.

Our article has highlighted the reciprocal relationship between the construction of the welfare state and women. In that sense, the articulation of subject positions simultaneously informs and is informed by how we think of and what we expect from the state. Importantly, we have applied the division of responsibility as a particularly helpful way of studying this reciprocal relation. We have shown that the approach of studying changes in conceptualizations of gender and the state through the construction of subject positions in a specific context sheds new light on the possibilities inherent in different articulations of subject positions. This is important in at least two ways: first, because it provides an actual comparison of two points in time. Second, the relation between the subject and the state or the socio-political community is at the heart of democracy and democratic theory and studying this subject-state dyad thus provides important insights.

A methodological observation is that while a comparative analysis of discussions about critical popular culture is problematic since the artworks are always unique and thus give rise to different aspects to be discussed, we have found that this material is rich on examples of how different discursive moves are deployed to, for example, dismiss gender as a structuring principle. We would argue that especially when trying to understand how to make sense of political reforms or governmental agencies, discussions about how the effects of these are represented in critical popular culture, adds a dimension of our understanding of what conflicts are muted and how discourses reproduce the status quo. Thus, our study shows that the neoliberal turn has muted the persistent structuring implications of gender and served to individualize political subjects’ relation to the socio-political community with significant implications for collective agency.

Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank Frantzeska Papadopoulou, Ingrid Stigsdotter, Louise Wallenberg and Maria Wendt for comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond under Grant P17-0079:1.

Notes on contributors

Malte Breiding Hansen

Malte Breiding Hansen is a doctoral student at the Department of Political Science at Lund University. His research interests relate to poststructuralist and normative political theory as well as sexual and gender minority politics. His latest publication is “Between Two Ills: Homonationalism, Gender Ideology and the Case of Denmark” in Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory (2021).

Maria Jansson

Maria Jansson holds a PhD in political science and is professor of gender studies at Örebro University. Her research interests include feminist political theory, policies on motherhood, child care and women’s working conditions and gender and cultural policyAmong her recent publications are “Experiencing Male Dominance in Swedish Film Production” (together with Louise Wallenberg) in Susan Liddy (ed) Women in the International Film Industry: Policy, Practice and Power (Palgrave, 2020), and ‘”The final cut”: Directors, producers and the gender regime of the Swedish film industry” (together with Frantzeska Papadopoulou, Ingrid Stigsdotter and Louise Wallenberg), Gender, Work and Organization (2021).

Notes

1. The interviews with Gunnel Lindblom and Rojda Sekerzös was made as part of a larger series of interviews in the project “Representing women”, of which this article is part. The interviews were conducted by Maria Jansson and Louise Wallenberg.

2. The media coverage surrounding the release of Summer Paradise were collected from the Sigtuna Foundation media archive and from the Swedish Royal Library’s newspaper archive. The media debate following Beyond Dreams was procured from the database Media Archive [Mediearkivet, Retriever]. Because of the huge number of results, we decided to only include material from February and March 2017, the time of the movie’s release.

3. The difference in the number of articles is attributed to the increase in publications between 1977 and 2017 featuring pieces about film releases. In 1977 reviews were longer and more analytic, while the 2017 reviews are shorter and more focused on retelling the storyline of the film.