Once a month, I often meet up with a couple expat girlfriends for “ladies’ night” where we pick a restaurant and have dinner together. It truly feels like an extended family; a sisterhood of sorts in which we laugh, cry, support, and just enjoy each other’s company. Last week, we were at Sonjas grek - a Greek restaurant located in Södermalm, Stockholm.
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Green Swedish Woman? Photo: Barbro Björnemalm (CC: BY-NC-SA)
Every second Swede is worried, or even very worried, about climate change. That’s the answer that 1010 persons gave when a big insurance company asked them recently, anyway.
What’s interesting with this survey is that when it comes to doing something about this concern, it’s mainly the women who seem to be willing to act.
63 percent of the women in the survey said that they have reduced their consumption of electricity, water and heat at home. Only 49 percent of the men did the same things. Women were also more willing to buy organic and local products and sort out their household waste.
Research has also shown that men generally use more energy than women (here is a report about that with an English summary), and that women are more affected by climate change than men. So maybe that’s why women do more about it?
The newspaper Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) has spoken about this with the sociologist Anna-Lisa Lindén, who has done research on consumption and climate change. She says that the differences are slowly evening itself out, but still points out the men as the biggest environmental crooks. One big reason for that is the way we still distribute work at home.
– In many households it’s the women who have the biggest responsability for planning purchases of food, children’s clothes, textiles and so on.
According to Anna-Lisa Lindén says that Swedes in general have a pretty high awareness about the environment. The problem is just that people – and in this case especially men – don’t use their knowledge.
– But there are exceptions. When a young family has its first child, the awareness increases, she says.
So, let’s all have babies! Or..?
More environmental news (in Swedish, but can be translated here):
Big oil spill outside Sweden’s West coast Göteborgs-Posten
Thousands of women (25,106 to be exact!) hit the streets of Stockholm today in the annual Tjejmilen race which is the largest women’s sporting event in Sweden. The ladies (from 20+ countries) started off in Gärdet, and ran the 10K course which took them through Djurgården.
Along the course as the women ran were musicians (specifically female bands), snack tables (including cheesecake I heard), and thousands of dads with strollers, babies, and children cheering “Mom!” on.
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I recently met these young cadets on Djurgården. They were wearing hats that read ‘Sjövärnskåren’ and sailor uniforms with large floppy collars. They are part of a voluntary defense organization which is independent of the Armed Forces and its members are trained in various forms of marine activities – from sailing and manning tugboats to sailing and other marine navigational skills.
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In celebration of International Women’s Day today, hundreds of women (700+) with babies, strollers, dogs, and a few men in tow gathered in Norrmalmstorg, then headed down Hamngatan, past Kungsträdgården towards Sergels torg – the center of Stockholm in what is called Barnvagnsmarschen (Babystroller March) – organized by Unite For Women.
The march also took place in 18 other cities across the country.