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April talking meme
I got a bit overwhelmed by stuff this week. Not bad stuff, but a lot of it. So I will try to keep up with my questions and be a bit slow in commenting. I’ll be back in full swing on Monday
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verdande_mi What is your favourite and least favourite part of living in Sweden?
I’m not sure these are my absolute favourite/least favourite, but they are highs and lows on my list.
I like our taxes. They give us free medical care. I feel rather appalled when my friends in other countries has to worry over not being able to get the medical care they need.Our taxes also gives us free education. They gives parents the right to stay at home with their baby for the first 18 months. (You get 480 days with about 77% of your salary which is 16 months, but you still have the right to stay at home for 18.) Of course taxes pays a whole lot of other things, but those are the ones I’m most proud of.
I don’t like Sweden’s double standard when it comes to sexual abuse. Sweden, in general, likes to think we are a country with low tolerance against it, but our laws, and the way our courts function, when it comes to rape, are not something to be proud of. Of course everyone are against rape- but in reality it has to be the “right kind” of rape for it to count. Which means that a woman has to be attacked by an extremely violent stranger out of doors. And she has to have fought back and yelled and not been drunk and not worn short skirts and there should be witnesses too. Oh, and the attacker shouldn’t be Swedish, either. Then, perhaps, the court will say it was rape. If the rapist is an ordinary Swedish man, then courts seems to bend over backward to explain it away. Like when a teenager was gang-raped by several men who also used a flask. The court said they couldn’t rule out that it wasn’t voluntary “because she might be into kinky sex”. Yeah, sixteen year olds usually have such advanced taste in sex. Or the lowered sentenced for the men who gang-raped a woman because they did it one after another and not everyone at the same time. Or when it took several years to catch an extremely brutal serial-rapist who managed, by sheer luck, not to kill any of his victim. And part of why it took so long was because he was such a nice ordinary Swedish man who no one could believe could do such a thing.
Well, I could go on and on about this, but really, the Swedish judicial system needs a serious overhaul on that subject and a crash course in women’s sexuality too.
verdande_mi What is your favourite and least favourite part of living in Sweden?I’m not sure these are my absolute favourite/least favourite, but they are highs and lows on my list.
I like our taxes. They give us free medical care. I feel rather appalled when my friends in other countries has to worry over not being able to get the medical care they need.Our taxes also gives us free education. They gives parents the right to stay at home with their baby for the first 18 months. (You get 480 days with about 77% of your salary which is 16 months, but you still have the right to stay at home for 18.) Of course taxes pays a whole lot of other things, but those are the ones I’m most proud of.
I don’t like Sweden’s double standard when it comes to sexual abuse. Sweden, in general, likes to think we are a country with low tolerance against it, but our laws, and the way our courts function, when it comes to rape, are not something to be proud of. Of course everyone are against rape- but in reality it has to be the “right kind” of rape for it to count. Which means that a woman has to be attacked by an extremely violent stranger out of doors. And she has to have fought back and yelled and not been drunk and not worn short skirts and there should be witnesses too. Oh, and the attacker shouldn’t be Swedish, either. Then, perhaps, the court will say it was rape. If the rapist is an ordinary Swedish man, then courts seems to bend over backward to explain it away. Like when a teenager was gang-raped by several men who also used a flask. The court said they couldn’t rule out that it wasn’t voluntary “because she might be into kinky sex”. Yeah, sixteen year olds usually have such advanced taste in sex. Or the lowered sentenced for the men who gang-raped a woman because they did it one after another and not everyone at the same time. Or when it took several years to catch an extremely brutal serial-rapist who managed, by sheer luck, not to kill any of his victim. And part of why it took so long was because he was such a nice ordinary Swedish man who no one could believe could do such a thing.
Well, I could go on and on about this, but really, the Swedish judicial system needs a serious overhaul on that subject and a crash course in women’s sexuality too.
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Gabrielle
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Gabrielle
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Gabrielle
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I can't say I've heard of a single country which has a brilliant way of dealing with sexual abuse, but the does sound rather worse than I would have expected.
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Attitudes towards rape are atrocious and I don't understand why those attitudes haven't changed. A rapist is a rapist is a rapist.
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I've got a question also about the medical care, because it seems that in most countries that have government sponsored health care, it takes forever to get an appointment. Or at least, that's what people complain a lot about, that it takes six months or more to get an appointment about a toothache, never mind if you have a terminal illness. That can take even longer. So I'm asking if that's the case in Sweden as well, or if they have it worked out.
As for rape... Yes, attitudes always seem to lean towards "she was asking for it," especially if the perpetrator seems to be a "regular guy." Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples who really make it difficult by making false accusations, though. It's absolutely no excuse, and people do need to ask the question, "What if it was my daughter that was raped?" Rape takes all sorts of forms, too, and can occur in all sorts of contexts, including marriage. The other thing is that it is not about the sex; it's about pushing one's power on another human being. We need to separate the sex out from it.
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I say much of the complaining is just people complaining – Scandinavians do complain over a lot of small and insignificant things! Not to say people don’t have to wait at times, but when you need medical care now, you get it. In Norway (I’m not sure about Sweden, but I would not surprise me if they have it these as well), if there is a waiting list for a non-emergency surgery or procedure and there is no waiting list at another hospital, you will get a call and be asked if you will rather go there.
And yes, I trust the government with the money, but then trust in general is high in the Scandinavian countries, towards your local community, police and government and the like. I trust that the taxes are used in a way that will work towards everybody having an equal footing in our society.
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Yes, I do. We have our Openness principle which gives everyone the right to demand to see official papers, so it is possible to personally check such things.
Of course it isn’t a perfect system- is any, and I may think the budget could be used differently. Our general elections is held every third year for government , but also county councils and municipal council where budget for the school are decided, for example. There can be quite big changes there is people feel the budget is used the wrong way.
The legislature won't discuss anything to compromise on a budget, they are shutting everything down to create a huge crisis, and now schools are either shutting down or doing furlough days to deal with the lack of budget.
I have never heard of this happening and I think it may be illegal to do it, actually.
We don’t have any school tuition unless we are talking about private schools, but they aren’t that many. University is free, but if you want to go to a theatre school, then you would go private.
I've got a question also about the medical care, because it seems that in most countries that have government sponsored health care, it takes forever to get an appointment.
It depends. If it’s something life threatening you get help straight away. I have never had to wait for more than a week to get any kind of appointment and usually I can see my doctor the same day I call. For some kind of specialist help, if it’s not life threatening, you may have to wait a bit longer, but I have never hear of anyone who had to wait for six months.
Of course rape is not about sex but power, but the court still often ask question about how the woman was dressed, for example- despite not being allowed to ask it. And rape between spouses did exist legally until the late 70’s, I believe. Date rape isn’t officialöly recognized still.
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Our government is made up of people who think it's a lifetime career to be there. It was never intended as that; one was supposed to be working in another area and be called to serve, not make all of your money off of the people. In the US, the government is supposed to be at our service, not the other way around. One is supposed to do one's service, then go back to "real life," your real job. All of them claim to know what we, the people, want, yet most have never worked outside of government a day in their lives! That's one reason why we broke from England!
It may be illegal to shut everything down, I'm not sure, but the state of Illinois is doing it, and they will blame the governor, who has asked to meet with them numerous times. I know in Wisconsin several years back, several state senators actually RAN AWAY to another state so they wouldn't have to attend their legislature to vote on a budget which cut expenses while maintaining services. It is definitely illegal to not attend a mandatory session of the legislature. The teachers there went on strike (also illegal, but they called it "getting sick" for 4 days straight, and a doctor stood there onsite and wrote them sick notes, also illegal) during that time. They bussed people from outside the state to protest the governor, who was only trying to balance the budget, then tried to recall him. They failed, on all counts, the budget was balanced, taxes actually went down and services continued better than ever. I know, I lived there. Oh, and to top it all off, the governor got elected to another term! He did do exactly what he said he would, one of the few....
As for rape, even courts with women as the lawyers and judges will ask the same questions. I wonder if they ask what the man was wearing.... Legal or not, once it's out there, the jury can't simply totally eliminate it from their minds, and that's why they do it, even if they are censured for it. There is a whole thing about date rape here in the US, but the issue is, unfortunately muddied by some women making frivolous and false claims (after they break up with someone, they get vindictive). It's an awful thing to do, because it really makes it difficult for the all too many real victims to make their case.
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Me neither!
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I am also very familiar with much complexity around sex work. So when Swedish system treats all sex work as explicitly non-consensual/abusive, despite evidence to the contrary, and then turns around and does *this* for sexual assault cases... it's... I don't know. It just kind helps me see how repressive attitudes actually are and how warped things become when a deeply repressive system in denial of its own prejudice attempts to pass as progressive...
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Very well put. There is a double standard in the works here.
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*HUGS*
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There’s a double standard here too re rape, and some weeks past a chief police officer (if I remember the title correctly, someone high up) told 19 year old graduation girls (Russ) to wear something more underneath the graduation overall to make it more difficult to get through! I mean, really?? That was criticized, and rightly so, but not enough in my opinion. Ridiculous and here to there is things whole double standard re race and nationality. Scary, scary.
Though, a good thing re rape is that there is a directive now (maybe not the correct word) for higher sentencing, and that is all well and done when people are found guilty.
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Unfortunately the US is bad with rape too. We still have a lot to do in eliminating rape culture. :/ Just look at Kesha. She's a celebrity, albeit female, and the courts still called her a liar about her producer's rape. Sad.
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One of the few things that makes me angry are people who claim that rape culture doesn’t exist!
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