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The telephone rang. I was sitting at Expressen’s desk and heard the voice of a rebellious and distrustful Leif GW Persson at the other end. I wanted to ask about the menu, so it wouldn’t be fish and white wine or any other “whore food.” In that case, he did not intend to come.
It is now 25 years ago. In the summer of 1995, the newspaper had hired a famous summer surrogate, award-winning American journalist Susan Faludi, and one of its projects was interviewing Swedish men. She had made a breakthrough internationally in 1991 with “Backlash – the war on women” and the invention to invite her came up on the editorial board on a snowy February day when there wasn’t much more fun going on.
We could have waited in a more abundant flow of articles than what happened that summer, but Susan Faludi was busy with preparations for the book that was to come in 1999, and which in Swedish is called “Ställd – treason against man”.
He was interested in comparing the Swedes with the Americans. How did men manage in this unusually egalitarian country, where Ingvar Carlsson using “Support Socks” as an activist traction aid had ensured that half of his government ministers were women? What did the men of Sweden think and feel? The angry and offended white men you encountered in your interviews in the United States, were they here too, or were the Swedish men vaccinated in some way?
When “Ställd” was released in the United States, by the way, the same year as the movie “Fight club”, it also became a blast. He had interviewed men in various positions; laid off engineers, shipyards, pastors, writers, actors, pornographic actors, gang leaders, Vietnam veterans, soccer fans. And the image that no one had really perceived before became visible. Men felt left out, frustrated, at a disadvantage.
Susan Faludi.
Photo: Noella Johansson / TT
With the book “Set” predicted Susan Faludi, President Donald Trump. Not that she defined it, but that these offended men would probably act, it was in line with what she said.
Men who for generations have had their entire life content tied to a disappearing work life is a potential danger. They can blame women, immigrants, the weather, technology, anything. Designating them as victims of globalization does not help them. And no one else either. These victims are not euthanized or killed. They live and want to give again.
The vengeful Americans got an army commander in Donald Trump, who wanted to revive old dying industries, close borders to commerce and people, deny technology and science, feed the dreams of old. And as Susan Faludi writes in an exclusive text for Dagens Nyheter’s book on Saturday (11/14): “Trump himself was a totem pole for an alleged cult of masculinity.”
If Faludi had waited a few years to interview the Swedes, he probably would have seen something else. About those who feel abandoned in the field, furious because what was once told is no longer told. Which is the fault of women, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and the establishment.
I’ve been thinking what is my wicked interest and that of the Swedes about in the American elections. Is it a death scene we are witnessing? Democracy at the grassroots. We watch with wide eyes as the great nation rots and crumbles before our eyes.
Meanwhile, China is buzzing by in silence economically, undisturbed by any democracy. Not minding yelling, offended white men. Or about offended Islamists, terrorists with suicide belts under their jackets.
Like Susan Faludi, I would like to believe in a patient democracy. If I only could.
Read more chronicles and other texts by Maria Schottenius
