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.