Sweden

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Population: 9,074,055
Capital: Stockholm
Language: Swedish
Religion: Lutheran 87%
Life Expectancy: 81.2 
GDP per Capita: $43 654 per capita

• In 1999 Sweden became the first country to have a majority of female government ministers
• No other country has a higher proportion of women as parliamentarians (43 percent) and cabinet ministers (50 percent),
• Sweden leads the developed world in the percentage of professional and technical workers who are women. The proportion of women in the labor force is the highest worldwide.
• Sweden is considered a leader in gender equality. Advancement in this arena is a significant national self-stereotype, a symbol of what distinguishes Swedes from others.
• In 1999, Sweden became the first nation to criminalize the buyer, not the seller, of sexual services


Interesting fact: In 1995, Sweden began reserving one month of parental leave for fathers. After the birth of a child, a couple receives fifteen months of paid leave to divide between them, with one month set aside for each parent; a father who chooses not to participate forfeits the couple's parental benefit payment for that month. Check out this website for more info!

Interesting fact: According to many articles, magazines and people Sweden is ranked one of the top places for women to live!


So when I was researching women of Sweden I kept seeing the name Irene Anderson, so I decided to check her out a bit. Turns out she is a Swedish body builder. She is known to many as the strongest woman in Sweden. Here is the link to her website if you’re interested. And below is one of her videos; 

Just for the record “The first U.S. Women's National Physique Championship, promoted by Henry McGhee and held in Canton, Ohio in 1978, is generally regarded as the first true female bodybuilding contest - that is, the first contest where the entrants were judged solely on muscularity (Todd, 1999)” –read more here

I find this concept of female bodybuilding extremely fascinating. Sometimes the extremes that some of these women (and also men) go to seem crazy to me. It’s also interesting to think about it in terms of gender definitions. Most people would not deny that these women do have very masculine bodies…for a lot of us this seems strange and not right, but then the question becomes “who is determining what is right and wrong for females and males?” “Who says women can’t have muscles like men, and who says that muscles like that are solely masculine.” It makes me question the terms and definitions that society and culture indoctrinates into us. Is society right? Is it a nature vs. nurture concept? Hmmmmm….so many questions and thoughts to leave you pending with...and unfortunately i have no set answers for you, but I encourage you to think about it for yourself! 

Thanks for reading! :)