On Saturday, September 13, the day before the Swedish general election, the leader of the Feminist Initiative (FI) party, Gudrun Schyman, joined U.S. music superstar Pharrell Williams on stage in front of nearly 10,000 people. It was the last big political stunt in what has been called a “super election year.” For the past eight […]
Author: Fredrika Thelandersson
Fredrika Thelandersson is a doctoral student in media studies at Rutgers University. Born and raised in Sweden, she now lives in Brooklyn. More about her work can be found at http://fredrikaaa.com/
Lebanese Rebel Girl
Stories of female teenage rebellion set in narrow-minded suburbia can be gut-wrenching enough, but when the revolt takes place in the midst of raging war and a clash of fundamentalists it’s a whole different story. French-based actor/writer Darina Al-Joundi was born in 1968 to a Shiite Lebanese mother and a secular Syrian father and was […]
Swedish Feminists Debate Rape and Assange
In the wake of doubt and skepticism directed toward the women who pressed charges against Julian Assange, Swedish feminists have started a discussion about consent that may redefine the conversation about rape and sexual assault as we know it. Women and men are now joining in sharing their stories from the gray areas of sexual […]
Le Tigre Documentary Sweeps Feminist off Her Feet
When I was 17, feminist punk electro band Le Tigre came to play in my hometown in Sweden. Coincidentally my school was holding an athletic-theme day where you were supposed to engage in a sport of your choice. My friends and I told our teachers we were going running in the park, but in reality […]
Where Are the Women Comedy Writers on Late-Night TV?
I was expecting horror tales of discrimination and sexist exclusion when I attended a gathering of some of the most talented women late-night TV writers in New York City last week. Instead, what I heard was that there just aren’t enough funny women submitting material and applying for comedy writing positions. That late-night comedy is […]
Swedish Town Mobs Supported Rapist
When the Swedish investigative television show Uppdrag granskning (Mission Review) received a tip about an innocently convicted rapist, it set out to investigate a legal case gone wrong. Instead, it discovered a solid rape case that was nonetheless opposed by a town mob that firmly defended the rapist with arguments about his kindness, popularity and good […]
Surprise! A Guy Comedy Without Balls!
The trailer for She’s Out of My League made it look like a by-men-for-men comedy, filled with as many gender stereotypes as last year’s The Hangover. A “nobody” meets a woman who’s clearly “out of his league” and they start dating, but his friends repeatedly point out how he’s weak, effeminate and unworthy of her. […]
Visit a Woman Physicist At Work Day!
In January when I went to visit CERN on the French-Swiss border just outside Geneva–one of the world’s largest scientific research centers–my expectations weren’t very high. “Hard sciences” such as physics, chemistry and math never really attracted me due to their predominantly male connotations. I only knew vaguely what was going on at CERN (the […]