ARAB:s forskningsledare Silke Neunsinger har tillsammans med Pernilla Jonsson kommit ut med boken Gendered Money. Financial Organization in Women’s Movements, 1880-1933, som belyser de finansiella strategierna hos tidiga svenska kvinnoorganisationer och jämför med liknande organisationer i England, Kanada och Tyskland. Studien bygger till stor del på material från ARAB.
Boken utgör volym 17 i serien International Studies in Social History och är utgiven av Berghahn Books, varifrån nedanstående engelska text är hämtad.
About the book
As economic citizenship was a pre-condition of full citizenship, the lack of economic autonomy was an important motivation during the early stages of the women’s movement. Independent of their class background, women had less access to not only financial resources but also social and cultural capital, i.e., member’s commitment. Resources are therefore of particular interest from a gender perspective, and this book sheds light on the importance of resources for women’s struggles for political rights.
Highlighting the financial strategies of the first wave of Swedish middle-class and socialist women’s movements and comparing them with similar organizations in Germany, England, and Canada, the authors show the importance of class, gender, age, and the national context, offering a valuable contribution to the discussion of resource mobilization theories in the context of social movements.
About the authors
Pernilla Jonsson is Associate Professor in economic history and is currently working at The Swedish National Audit Office. She has been a researcher at the Department of Economic History at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research deals with the influence of resources, financial strategies, and international networks on organizing and goal achievements in the first-wave women’s movement. She has also published on gender and the social reproduction of Swedish elites, as well as industrialization and marketing in 19th-century Sweden.
Silke Neunsinger is Associate Professor in economic history and Coordinator of Research at the Labour Movement Archives and Library in Stockholm. She has been a researcher in the Department of Economic History, the Centre for Feminist research, and the Department of History at Uppsala University, Sweden. Her research deals with women’s right in the labor market, women in international and transnational social movements, and the global history of consumer cooperatives. She has also worked and published on methodological issues and comparative history.
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction: Funding women’s political struggle – a matter of gender and class?
Collective action and resources – earlier research
Women’s mobilising, class, resources and political opportunities – our theoretical point of departure
Comparing the Swedish case
Economic and politic citizenship in Sweden
Sources
Disposition
Chapter 1. The Fredrika Bremer Association 1884-1925
The start up
Ideas and agendas
New leadership and new directions
Summary
Chapter 2. A ‘Bourgeois’ pioneer’s purse
Income
Membership fees
Bequests and donations
Fundraising sales
Lotteries
State subsidies and supporting organisations
Outlays
Premises
Meetings
Administration, political work and enlightenment
The voice of the organisation
A periodical as a philanthropic project
Manifestations
Assets and liabilities
Loan funds
Bonds, real estates and shares
Summarising conclusion
Chapter 3. Human resources in the Fredrika Bremer Association
Mobilising – the value of members
Giving their time, commitment and skills
Useful contacts in Parliament and Government
Publicity
Feminist and philanthropic networks within Sweden
Feminist networks outside Sweden
Summarising conclusions
Chapter 4. Social democratic women
The road to integrated separatism – women in the Swedish SAP
Earlier research
Forms and phases of the Swedish social democratic movement
1880-1906: the paradox of gender unity and the mobilization of consensus
1906-1930: organising separately
Breaktrough from 1933
Agendas and strategies
Summary
Chapter 5. The price of turning women into socialists
Sources of income
Contributions from the labour movement
Membership fees
Extra income
Spending
Mobilising members and voters
Investments in education
Morgonbris – the voice of social democratic women in Sweden- nearly an affiliated company
Administration
Getting together – meetings
Labour Day, Birthdays and Funerals – Times for manifestations
Allocating money
Financial strategies: a summary
Class, gender and separatism – three factors in the financial strategies of socialist women’s movements
Chapter 6. Human resources in social democratic women’s organizations
The magic of number
Giving their time, commitment and skills
Access to parliaments and government
Publicity
Cross-class sisters? Cooperation among Swedish women’s organisations
International connections
Compensating lack of education and money
The price of organising separately and the income from being integrated
Conclusion: Gendered Money
Income
Independence through membership fees
Donations, bequests and successful coalitions
From needle-works to lotteries
Spending
Feminist activists as economic agents
Compensating the lack of money to keep the organization going
How did resources matter for Swedish Feminist politics?
The costs of gendered citizenship?
The resources mobilization theory and women’s organising
Bibliography