Gudrun Schyman

Gudrun Schyman (born June 9, 1948, Täby, Uppland) is a Swedish politician. She served as leader of the Swedish Left Party from 1993 until January 2003, when she was forced to resign over charges of tax fraud. She remained a member of the Left Party until 2004, when she left to focus entirely on her feminist political work. She is no longer a Member of Parliament.

Schyman began her political career in "Marxist-Leninistiska Kampförbundet" .

Leader of the Left Party

In 1993, following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, Schyman was elected party leader for the Left Party, which had recently scratched "The Communists" from its name. Schyman was the party's first leader to denounce communism.

Schyman's greatest asset was her appeal to the voters, and her party more than doubled its number of MPs during her leadership. She gained popularity for her candidness and her ability to speak openly about her struggle with alcoholism. During her period as party president the party adopted feminism as an ideological basis. In 2003 she was charged with misleading the tax authorities by attempting to make illicit tax deductions. She was temporarily succeeded by Ulla Hoffmann.

In 2002 she made a controversial speech, namely concerning men's oppression against women, in which she said "The discrimination and the violations appears in different shapes depending on where we find ourselves. But it's the same norm, the same structure, the same pattern, that is repeated in the talibans' Afghanistan, as well as here in Sweden". For this speech, Schyman was accused of and criticised for comparing Swedish men with talibanscite news | last = Sjölund | first = Jill | title = Jämo: Ni är ju som talibaner | publisher = Aftonbladet | date = 2006-10-09 | url = http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/kvinna/story/0,2789,903144,00.html | language = Swedish | accessdate = 2007-05-18 ] [http://www.helgo.net/enar/politik/talibantalet.html Text of so-called "Taliban Speech" to Vänsterpartiets kongress 2002] (in Swedish)] . In October 2004, Schyman proposed before the Riksdag that men should pay an additional "man tax"Fact|date=July 2008 to cover the cost of domestic violence. Schyman was reported as saying that, "We have to have a discussion so that men understand that they have a collective financial responsibility."Fact|date=July 2008 These statements met with much outrage and did much damage to her reputation and popularityFact|date=July 2008.

Founder of the Feminist Initiative

Schyman left the Left Party in 2004 and in 2005 she co-founded Feminist Initiative, an organization which at its first congress decided to contest the coming parliamentary elections. In 2006 she was supported by Jane Fonda in the party's campaign, prior to the 2006 election. Feminist Initiative received only approximately 0,7% of the votes, as compared to the 4% needed to get into the Riksdag, or the very optimistic 8-13% that Schyman had estimated in interviews Fact|date=July 2008.

ee also

*Elections in Sweden

References