The thesis unites class and gender with an intersectional approach and connects to rhetoric theory, and thus brings new perspectives into the subject of history in general and the field of labor history in particular. Its subject, Agda Östlund (1870–1942), belongs to a category of politically active working-class women who have often ended up in the shadows in representations of the history of the Swedish labor movement. In its approach, the thesis thus contributes both new empirical knowledge and new theoretical perspectives to the research field. The overall question has been the following: How did Östlund shape her political career rhetorically, from the fight for voting rights to her final work in Parliament? I have treated this question from different perspectives in the five articles that make up the major part of the thesis.
The thesis evaluates a selection of rhetorical situations at different moments in Östlund’s rhetorical career. A key concept is ‘rhetorical situation’, in which the elements of rhetorical problems, audience and restrictions are included. I have traced Östlund’s political career, which ran from joining the party in 1903 and leaving Parliament in 1940 and searched for sites of tension or focal points during her rhetorical career. During this time, the Social Democratic Party transformed from a small to a large party, becoming by the thirties a government party that formed coalitions and made economic settlements. Correspondingly, Östlund’s audience changed as the party grew and gained more influence. Sometimes I study her up close, sometimes from a distance, to see her from different perspectives. The material I have worked with is her journalism, a campaign speech and parliamentary debates. The latter constitutes a large amount of material from her nearly twenty years as a Member of Parliament. Three out of five articles are about parliamentary debates.
In the struggle for suffrage, I focus on Agda Östlund’s appearances and her journalism in the Social Democratic women’s movement’s magazine Morgonbris and the speech she gave at a suffrage meeting at the Auditorium in Stockholm in the spring of 1917. It is the only manuscript that has been preserved from her many appearances during her long political career. The problem during the suffrage struggle can be described as a field of tension regarding the relationship between class and gender. Social Democratic women felt that they were treated badly by the men in their own party. They were met with disinterest when they wanted financial support for their activities and when they ran for municipal council assemblies for the first time, at a time when only three of the party’s one hundred and fifty-three members were women. They also had a problematic relationship with the bourgeois suffragettes. Landsföreningen för Kvinnans Politiska Rösträtt, LKPR, (The National Association for Women’s Political Suffrage) pushed a line that meant that working-class women would risk being excluded by a constitutional reform that did not change the general suffrage provisions. An international Social Democratic women’s conference took a position against any collaboration with the bourgeois women’s movement. In Sweden, the Social Democratic women agreed on a compromise: in the first instance, they would pursue the suffrage demand from within their own organizations, while also allowing those who wanted to participate in predominantly bourgeois suffrage associations to do so. While others abandoned LKPR, Östlund chose to continue collaborating with them.
For Östlund and her female party colleagues, it was about striking ideological, organizational and strategic balances in the fight for voting rights. She acted as an agitator in a field of tension between the male labor movement and the bourgeois suffrage movement. Here there was a class conflict among suffragists, and a gender conflict among social democrats. Here there were ideological cracks and contradictions that she, as an agitator in different contexts, had to deal with in different ways to get her message across. The message had to be angled in different ways, and so too the description of the problem. The discrepancies in her rhetorical strategies reflected the polarization and contradictions in the patriarchal class society. As a leading figure in the Social Democratic women’s movement, she invoked a socialist class struggle, rhetoric replete with vivid imagery, irony and sarcasm, to awaken political consciousness among working-class women. Meanwhile, as a subordinate speaker in the public political arena, she used a low-key rhetorical strategy. Östlund experimented with a double persona in her political rhetoric, adopting two different roles or masks: the Amazon and the mother. During one and the same speech in front of a mixed audience, she alternated between the role of mother and Amazon.
Even in the 1921 election, when women could vote and run for parliament for the first time, the campaign was characterized by a site of tension between class and gender, and this time the question was how the parties’ candidates would reach out to a new audience, namely women. The motif of home was a recurring one in the election speeches, and I believe that it was part of the rhetorical strategy of the speakers to reach out to female voters. In the suffrage movement, the women of the bourgeoisie connected the home with the bourgeois nuclear family which had to be defended against the emerging socialism. When Per Albin Hansson appeared in Stortorget in Stockholm in September 1921 to speak in the election campaign, he used the folkhemmet (‘folkhome’) motif for the first time. It was no coincidence. There was a battle over the home and the idealized home motif became a way for him to appeal to a new group of voters. In Hansson’s metaphor there was a nationalist rhetoric that conveyed the image of the Social Democrats as a people’s party instead of a class party. He later called his vision Folkhemmet (“the People’s Home”) in a famous speech in a Parliamentary debate in 1928. He was Prime Minister of Sweden from 1932 to 1946. Agda Östlund also appeared at the same election meeting.
Something that distinguished her speech from Per Albin Hansson’s was that she did not speak of an idealized abstract home, but instead described a starkly concrete, realistic working-class home that characterized by overcrowding in a time of housing shortages. She spoke directly to the working-class women who lived in these homes, and to convince them she also needed to be concrete. Many working-class women lived in difficult circumstances. But in parallel with this starkly concrete image of the inadequate urban working-class home, she also conveyed the image of the home as utopia and as a metaphor for a social ideal. She spoke of a longing for a home which lies as a memory – the dream of establishing an original form of community in the form of a home in modern society. From a rhetorical point of view, these two contrasting uses of the home functioned as a way of illustrating Social Democratic ideology by using the home as both a concrete aspect of everyday existence and as a social ideal.
Östlund’s first speech in Parliament in March 1922 can be described as a fragile and delicate rhetorical situation because she spoke for the very content of her own proposal on tuberculosis care and against it, – following the line of the committee, of which she herself was a part. This was the first time a female member took the floor in Parliament. It was important for her to find a speaking position to reach out with her message. At the time of her speech, Sweden was governed for the second time by a Social Democratic government. The Social Democrats were still marked by internal conflicts after the party explosion in 1917 and lacked both organizational and political stability. In her speech, she highlighted the class injustice when it came to the care of tuberculosis patients, arguing that the state should take responsibility for arranging suitable work for patients discharged from sanitoriums so that they would not risk getting sick again. The working class suffered to a greater extent from tuberculosis and found it more difficult to complete rehabilitation.
After Östlund appealed for a quick solution to the issue, she concluded with the words: “Mister Speaker! I therefore have no claim!” In her speech, she used the mother’s role as a persona, connected tuberculosis care to the home and the everyday environment, and highlighted class injustice. Through the mother’s role, the class perspective became a question of humanity. It was important for her to adapt to the Parliament procedure to find a speaking position, but at the same time do it in a new way through the issue – the class perspective on tuberculosis care – and how she did it, through the role of mother.
In the debate over the proposal for gender-identified ballot papers in the 1922 referendum on alcohol prohibition, the rhetorical problem was marked by male opposition to women’s suffrage. The debate could be described as the meeting between two topos, or figures of thought, namely male supremacy and equality, in a historically formative period when the meaning of democracy was under negotiation. In the debate, the idea of male supremacy was expressed in the small (and for the men, often not even noticeable) formulations that made women invisible: when, for example, a Social Democratic member said, “as gentlemen know”, when a conservative member said “gentlemen” and when a liberal member spoke of a citizen having “his right”. Several presumed authority by virtue of their position as experienced politicians, and made claims that were unsubstantiated and in fact prejudiced against women, claims based on the understanding that women could not think for themselves and that they had been misled.
Outside the Parliament, a political network of women demonstrated, and Agda Östlund highlighted them in her speech. They are protesting because they believe civil rights are in danger, she said. She questioned one of her male party colleagues, Arthur Engberg, who believed that the issue should be about consideration of the rights of different groups. She asked what would have happened if women instead of men had been the primary consumers of alcohol and men had to take all the consequences of the women’s abuse. Her conclusion was that men would then have introduced an alcohol ban a long time ago. She suggested that they thought about that matter before deciding that the prohibition issue would primarily lie with those who consume alcohol.
The 1938 abortion law became one of Agda Östlund’s last battles. The rhetorical problem was characterized by the fact that the Social Democrats had been a government party since the beginning of the thirties and had begun cooperation with the Agricultural Party through the crisis agreement. As for the abortion issue, it had become part of the population issue that characterized the entire political debate. Just a couple of years earlier, fifteen hundred organizations with a total of a quarter of a million members had united around a call demanding more extensive abortion rights. During the mobilization, public opinion turned. The discourse or problem formulation changed. The problem surrounding the population question gained more and more attention after Alva and Gunnar Myrdal published their book Kris i befolkningsfrågan, ‘Crisis in the Population Question’ (1934), in which they used the discussion to launch redistribution policies and left-wing politics.
But they failed to gain support for properly expanded abortion rights. By the time the issue was taken further in the Population Commission, it had become instead a rather watered-down bill. In the debate on abortion law, there was a consensus that the population issue was important. This was something that everyone had to relate to. The culmination of the abortion debate was a compromise within the framework of the population issue. Several emphasized the importance of cooperation and compromise to find a solution. The main point of view in the debate was rational arguments on population policy which meant that society could not afford an overly extended abortion right.
A rhetorical strategy among male members was to contrast the good woman who was synonymous with reproduction and who made sacrifices and took responsibility for the survival of society with the bad woman who showed disinterest in the home and family and did violence to her own maternal instinct. Another rhetorical strategy among male members was to make invisible the role of men themselves when it came to unwanted pregnancies. Another rhetorical strategy was to talk around the class issue, for example by describing all women as too comfortable in modern society. In fact, class was a central issue in the debate because the legislation struck the working-class woman hardest, forcing her to try to have an abortion on her own or engage the help of a quack, with possibly fatal consequences. Women from the middle class could get by with money and connections.
It was only Agda Östlund who gave an image of the woman that went beyond reproduction. When she abstained against a section in the bill which stated that underage women, who had often been self-supporting for many years, would not be allowed to express themselves in decisions about abortion, the image of the woman emerged as an independent individual who had the right to self-determination. When she spoke about the abortion issue, she also spoke about her political career. On several occasions she had tried to get the issue on the agenda. In 1921, after a high-profile court case, the Social Democratic Women’s Association, where Östlund was a member of the board, wrote to the Minister of Justice and demanded a change in the law. In 1928, a delegation from Sweden attended the Socialist Women’s International in Brussels and made a statement in favor of abortion rights. In the following year, she submitted a proposal for a change to the abortion law. The proposal was rejected.
A small step forward can be as important as a big one, said Agda Östlund, referring to the fact that the law gave the right to abortion for women with faltering health and many children. While she stood up for how she believed politics should be conducted, she also expressed disappointment that progress had not gone at the pace she had hoped. As a symbol of reformism, she herself became the subject of debate here. In the abortion debate, she was revealed in the role of the primal mother or tribal mother and as a symbol of women’s long struggle. She tried to build trust in the audience by emphasizing precisely her long experience as a politician when she argued for the necessity of compromises. A female communist said that Agda Östlund, as a representative of working-class women, should have had more say in the abortion issue. She also described Östlund as the most beautiful female figure in the Swedish labor movement. But when it came to the abortion law, Östlund had failed, she added.
The rhetorical devices that Agda Östlund used during her political career were about different personas, or forms of appearance or roles. It was about the Amazon, the mother and the primal mother. She also used the home motif. The low-key and logical argumentation was recurring. She often made use of literary and historical references. The trick of reversing perspective was also something she used several times, for instance in the debate about distinguishing between male and female votes in the referendum on alcohol prohibition. This shift in perspective became also a way of relating to the thought figure of male supremacy. By shifting perspectives and asking what would have happened if women instead of men had been chief consumers of alcohol, she made visible a norm in the debate. The low-key and logical style can be seen as a common thread throughout her career. It can also be linked to her tactical sense. She chooses to cooperate with the bourgeois suffrage movement because she believes it can benefit the cause. She supports the abortion law because it is, after all, a small step forward. In her texts in Morgonbris, she gives expression to a practical way of looking at politics that marked her when she was involved in building the Social Democratic women’s movement. It is about organization, education and persistent, hardworking, patient, dutiful work in politics and social movements.
In my thesis, I have shown the relationship between class and gender in various rhetorical situations during Agda Östlund’s political career. Previous research lacks this intersectional perspective on class and gender which I believe is crucial to understanding this period. While previous research mainly focused on organizations – for example the position of women within Social Democracy, women as collective actors in local politics and male strategies to exclude women from political parties after the right to vote – I have traced Agda Östlund and her interaction with other actors and in this way, I have been able to describe the relationship between class and gender in new ways.
Previous research has shown how popular movements shaped the forms of politics and also their use of language, which was toned down. By adopting a rhetorical perspective that focuses on the socio-political context of speech and thus differs from previous research on rhetoric in the labor movement and the women’s movement, I have been able to contribute new knowledge and qualify, develop and nuance this image. One such example is voting rights research. It is true that unlike British and American suffragettes, Swedish suffragettes did not break windows or burn buildings, but they certainly did organize themselves, write agendas and demand the floor. The results in my thesis show, however, that Agda Östlund’s rhetorical strategies varied depending on the situation she was in. As a leading figure in the Social Democratic women’s movement, she used a socialist class struggle rhetoric to awaken political consciousness among working-class women, while as a subordinate female speaker in the public political arena, on the contrary, she used a low-key rhetorical strategy. The situation determined which rhetorical devices she chose from her palette.
The biographical approach differs from previous biographies about women in the labor movement, for example Gunnela Björk’s about Kata Dalström, Malin Arvidsson’s about Nelly Thüring and Gunnel Karlsson’s about Ulla Lindström. My thesis does not depict Agda Östlund from the cradle to the grave but consists of several rhetorical situations where I study her interaction with other actors based on the relationship between class and gender. I study the interaction between Agda Östlund and her surroundings to understand both her and her surroundings.
My biographical approach also differs from, for example, Kirsti Niskanen’s biography, where the social democrat Karin Kock becomes an exponent for studying the gender construction of the scientific community and especially the science of economics. Agda Östlund is not just a tool or a prism, but is interesting in herself, but of course in relation to her surroundings.