Swedish women on show

Press, 24 May 1977, Page 14

Swedish women on show

A picture of the life and work of Swedish women expressed in photographs and text will be opened at the Christchurch Town Hall on Monday, May 30. The exhibition has been supplied by the Swedish Embassy in answer to a request from the Soroptomist International of Christchurch for material for its workshop at the United Women’s Convention. It will be opened by the Swedish Ambassador in New Zealand (Mr Sten Aminoff) and will be on display in the foyer. The Soroptomists decided that the display, which they have arranged, should be open to as many people as possible, not limited to those attending their Women and Responsibility workshop. The exhibit is divided into inner and outer sections. The outer section demonstrates the conditions faced by the majority of women within the Swedish family, working life, education, and politics. The text is well documented, with background and up-to-date data on development in women’s rights in the labour force,

;the types of education and jobs in which they predominate, pay and opportunity, retraining, child care, work hours and moves to get a six-hour working day in Sweden. Together with the personal profiles, it aims to show that the equality w’hich women have theoretically is often undermined by such things as economic conditions, tradition, and prejudice. The “Top Ten on the 1970 Hit Parade of Women's Jobs” are listed as hospital nurse, practical nurse, seamstress, cashier (in store or restaurant), secretary-typist, chambermaid, telephone operator, kitchen maid. More than 90 per cent, it says, in these occupations are women. Among the people whose lives are examined are Doris and Rune, shift workers at the Volvo car plant. They have two children, aged two, and 13. Doris works parttime every other week; driving cars to the delivery parking area. Rune is a foreman and works full-time. Their working day goes like this: 4.15 a.m. Doris gets up; 4.50 a.m. she starts work; 1.45 p.m. Rune takes the youngest child to the child-

Icare centre at Volvo; 1.50 p.m. Rune starts his shift; 2.30 p.m. Doris gets off and picks up the child; 9.10 p.m. she goes to bed; 10 p.m. Rune gets home. Says Doris: “We do get together Saturdays and Sundays at any rate.” The purpose of the inner section is to show departures from the traditional pattern of sexual roles, which is beginning to take place in Sweden. “On One’s Own” describes five persons who, in their attempts at liberation, find themselves caught between the many possibilities and limitations encountered in modern society. Inge is aged 26, single, and an interior decorator; Bosse and Ulla are a young couple with one child, ’ he stays at home looking after their daughter while doing research and she supports them; Kerstin is a happily divorced mother of three, in her forties, who works as a cartographer; and Margareta, aged 27, is divorced and lives with her daughter in an extended family commune. The exhibit’s Christchurch showing will be its first in New Zealand or Australia.