The Left Party in Karlskrona sent out an invitation to its annual meeting that included plans for gender-separate pre-meetings. The invitation has sparked sharp criticism from several top politicians in the region. The Left Party's group leader defends the gender separation.
The gender-separate meetings are intended to support female members by providing a space where women can seek support from other women to make their voices heard. The Left Party's group leader argues that all organizations, including theirs, have a patriarchal structure where men take up more space than women. The Left Party's group leader calls comparisons to sharia laws or Nazi Germany in comment sections 'absurd'.
The Left Party's group leader points out that other parties have their own separatist women's associations where women and men are separated in a more tangible way than their half-hour meetings. The gender-separate meetings are not something the local association in Karlskrona invented and are not new. In 2020, it was written on the Left Party's national website that before meetings such as congresses, annual conferences, or annual meetings, gender-separate meetings should be arranged.
How is this equal?
The gender separation gained attention after SD's municipal councilor in Karlskrona, Christopher Larsson, shared the invitation on Facebook. Similar setups are not unique to the Left Party; other political parties have gender-divided structures, such as women's associations. The Left Party's congress in Örebro includes gender-separated meetings as one of the first items on the program to address male dominance techniques.
MP Håkan Svenneling (V) thinks it is a great system and that similar meetings should be held in more parties, most urgently in the Sweden Democrats. The specific actions or discussions that occur during the gender-separate pre-meetings have not been detailed publicly, nor has the number of members who attended or are expected to attend the Left Party's annual meeting in Karlskrona been disclosed. The official stance of the Left Party's national leadership on these gender-separate meetings remains unclear, as does whether there have been any formal complaints or investigations regarding the gender separation policy.
Additionally, what measurable outcomes or improvements have resulted from previous gender-separate meetings in the Left Party has not been documented, leaving the effectiveness of this approach an open question.