Emancipation och evolution. Ellen Key och den villkorade kärleken

Abstract

Ellen Key was one of the most influential writers on gender issues in Sweden at the turn of the century 1800/1900. She was internationally well known, and kept in touch with many distinguished European writers within this field. She introduced the concept "social mother". Ellen Key wrote about feminist issues and women's movements, but she wrote in a way that was controversial to many contemporary feminists. She criticised the institution of marriage, had a sympathetic attitude to extramarital relations and pleaded for better social and legal conditions for unmarried mothers and their children. This, and many other feminist ideas, caused criticism from the conservative parties. But she also attacked the feminist movement for trying to obtain equal opportunities by transforming women's gender roles to be more like those of men. She thought that if women were to study, work, exercise power and live like men did, their femininity would be impaired in the not so far future. She also meant that this imperfection could be handed down from one generation to another. Ellen Key mixed sex and gender in a sometimes very confusing way, which was rather typical of the period. Herthinking wasas heavily influenced by eugenics and social Darwinism as it was by feminist thinking. This article aim to show in what ways, according to Key, feminism threatened femininity and in the long run human race itself. It is shown that heteronormativity and contemporary antifeminist clichés play an important role in this feared process. Another focus in the article is to analyse the paradoxes, inconsistencies and contradictions in "Missbrukad kvinnokraft" ("Misused Women's Power") 1896. It is suggested that by analysing the textual and logical ambivalences in Ellen Keys thinking we may learn more not only about the mechanisms of heteronormativity but also about the breaches against it.