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Sweden ‘obsessed with gender’ complains chat show host

The Norwegian host of Sweden’s leading chat show has complained that the country is “almost obsessed with gender”, after coming under fire for his treatment of women interviewees.

Published: 30 March 2018 11:57 CEST
Sweden 'obsessed with gender' complains chat show host
Fredrik Skavlan is a popular interview in Sweden and Norway. Photo: Monkberry AS
Fredrik Skavlan, whose Friday night chat show on Swedish and Norwegian television pulls in as many as 3m viewers, was sharply criticised earlier this year for asking swimmer Sarah Sjöström in January whether she had a cleaner, with one critic calling the interview “a sexist train wreck”. 
 
The 51-year-old host hit back at the criticism for the first time on Friday in an interview on entertainment journalist Alex Schulman’s podcast. 
 
“My feeling here is that people in Sweden, I’m sorry to say, are almost obsessed with gender in a way that I am not,” he told Schulman. “What’s important to me is to interview people based on who they are, not based on which gender they have.” 
 
Skavlan pointed out that Sjöström has herself stressed that she had not found the question sexist or bullying. 
 
“She herself is being deprived of the power of self-definition because she feels she has not been violated,” he complained. “Then it becomes a bit like ‘Oh, you poor thing, you do not understand how violated you are’. I'm surprised by that. It's a way to ignore her values.” 
 
Asked about the longstanding criticism that he is bad at interviewing women, Skavlan defended himself. 
 
“What do they mean by 'women',” he asked. “Are you talking about Emma Thompson, Malala or Sarah Sjöström. They're just individuals. Should you interview them in some special way? In my book, you shouldn't.”  
 
The Skavlan chatshow is broadcast in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and is frequently shot in London. When English-speaking guests are interviewed, which is often the entire studio discussion switches to English, with Swedish and Norwegian celebrities engaging in English repartee. 
 
When Fredrik Skavlan interviews Swedish-speaking celebrities, he speaks in his native Norwegian, and they reply in Swedish, underlining the close similarity of the two languages. 
 
By pooling audiences in three Scandinavian countries, Skavlan has managed to secure interviews with some of the biggest international politicians, including former US President Bill Clinton, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair,  pop stars such as Bruno Mars, Kanye West and Taylor Swift, and writers such as Malcolm Gladwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Paul Auster. 
 
Although Skavlan said he struggled to see why his Sjöström interview had generated such outrage, he admitted that there had been a “blokey atmosphere” in the studio, with the swimmer coming on alongside two male guests. 
 

GENDER

Berlin activists show manspreaders who wears the trousers

Manspreading is annoying for everyone on public transport. Now Berlin-based activists are trying to raise awareness and stamp it out.

Published: 26 February 2021 09:53 CET
Berlin activists show manspreaders who wears the trousers
Feminist activists Elena Buscaino and Mina Bonakdar on the Berlin subway. Photo: DPA

A man lounges across two seats on a crowded Berlin train, oblivious to his surroundings – until the two women opposite him suddenly spread their legs, revealing a message on their trousers: “Stop spreading”.

Feminist activists Elena Buscaino and Mina Bonakdar are on a mission to stamp out manspreading – the habit that some men have of encroaching on adjacent seats without consideration for their female neighbours.

“It is perfectly possible to sit comfortably on public transport without taking up two seats by spreading your legs,” said Bonakdar, 25.

The two female activists’ provocative stunt is part of a wider initiative called the Riot Pant Project featuring slogans printed on the inside legs of second-hand trousers.

READ ALSO: How much do women in Germany earn compared to men?

Bonakdar and Buscaino, both design students, came up with the idea as a way of helping women and LGBTQ people reclaim public spaces often dominated by men.

As well as “Stop spreading”, the project’s slogans include “Give us space” and “Toxic masculinity” – which, in a nod to the behaviour of those they are aimed at, are only revealed once the wearer shows their crotch.

“It is only through imitation that the interlocutor understands the effect of his or her behaviour,” said Buscaino, 26. 

Ancient phenomenon

But she also admits that very few men immediately change their posture when confronted with the slogans, as observed by AFP on the Berlin underground.

“They are often just astonished that women are behaving like that in front of them,” she said — but she hopes the project will at least give them food for thought.

For Bonakdar, simply wearing the trousers in itself allows women to “feel stronger and gain confidence”.

Although it may seem trivial to some, the problem of manspreading has existed almost since the dawn of public transport.

“Sit with your limbs straight, and do not with your legs describe an angle of 45, thereby occupying the room of two persons,” the Times of London advised as early as 1836 in an article on bus etiquette, as cited by Clive D.W. Feather in “The History of the Bakerloo Line”.

The term “manspreading” was coined in 2013 when New York subway users began posting photos of nonchalant male passengers and their contorted neighbours on social media.

According to a 2016 study by Hunter College in New York City, 26 percent of male subway users in the city are guilty of the practice, compared with less than 5 percent of women.

The US metropolis was one of the first in the world to try to start curbing the behaviour.

In 2014, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched a campaign featuring signs with the message: “Dude… Stop the Spread, Please”.

Gender roles

Similar campaigns have also since been launched in South Korea, Japan, Istanbul, and Madrid, where manspreading has even been punishable with fines since 2017.

The campaigns have sparked a backlash on the internet, with men citing biological differences as a way of justifying the need to spread their legs even if no scientific study has yet proven their argument.

Instead, the phenomenon has more to do with “gender roles” in society, Bettina Hannover, a psychologist and professor at the Free University of Berlin, told AFP.

“Men sit more possessively and indicate dominance with their seating position, while women are expected to take up less space and above all to behave demurely,” she said.

By David COURBET

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