The viral social media trend “Soft-girl” encourages young women to be more feminine and work less. Is there anything else beyond paid work? Something more “soft”? It’s a question that more and more women are asking themselves, dreaming of a life as stay-at-home girlfriends supported by their boyfriends. The trend has spread at record speed and created an international debate. Even in Sweden, discussions about the trend can be found on the culture pages. DN’s Greta Schüldt writes, among other things: “I still like it when men explain things to me” and questions whether it is so dangerous that young women want to do more than work for a salary. The former party leader for Feministisk Initiativ, Gudrun Schyman, was critical of the trend when she visited SVT and said: “It’s like in the 50s… I think it’s deplorable”. The “Soft-girl” trend hotly debated Denice Westerberg, deputy national spokesperson for Ungsvenskarna, one of the Swedish Democrats’ youth federation, and Jonna Sima, lead writer at Aftonbladet, are on opposite sides of the issue and visited Efter fem to discuss the talked-about trend. – I think it’s about the woman’s right and how she can live her life. In a society where you have all the conditions and freedom to do what you want, you can choose to be a housewife or if you want to have a career, says Denice Westerberg and continues: – In Sweden, it almost feels more accepted if you openly say that I have chosen to be at home with my children while my wife works. But if you go out as a woman, that I have chosen not to have a career and stay at home and take care of my children, then you get a lot of criticism. Jonna Sima points out that she does not think that many men have opted out of their careers completely, but that there are many men who have chosen to take paternity leave. – The Sweden Democrats want to remove these earmarked paternity months, and it’s a shame because it’s good for gender equality. This trend is of course a setback and a women’s trap, says Jonna Sima. More dangerous and poorer life for the woman Jonna Sima believes that a life as a “Soft-girl” can lead to a more dangerous and poorer life. Women who depend on men put themselves in a vulnerable position. Should something in the relationship go wrong, there is the possibility that the woman will be left alone and without money. On the other hand, Jonna Sima thinks that the trend highlights something important and points to a societal problem that needs attention. – We have an environment that people think is quite crazy, to put it bluntly. There are climate threats, there is the decline of democracy but also an economic crisis. We have problems with mental illness, especially among young women. Then I think this is an expression of a way out of a squirrel wheel that you think is unsustainable. – The solution should not be to find a rich man in order to have it ‘soft’, but I mean that we have to talk about societal changes that enable greater freedom, says Jonna Sima. Denice Westberg believes that the responsibility should lie with the families themselves to decide how they want to live their lives and that politics has no place in the matter of family constellations. – This is not about us locking women up or locking them to the stove as left-wing feminists want to make it sound like. It’s okay to be female, it’s okay to be male and there should be a free choice, that’s what this is about, says Denice Westberg. Jonna Sima is of a different opinion: – Then we will never reach any equality between the sexes if we do not politically step in and actually make sure that it becomes more equal.
t4-general