Aro book reading club

[Rather be Reading]

On 2/12/2023 at 1:28 PM, Loveless Lizard said:

Another Brandon Sanderson fan?!! 😁

I'm also a huge fan of his books! I adore the Stormlight Archive and I really appreciate how unobtrusive and actually likable the romance is. 

[MulticulturalFarmer]

15 hours ago, Holmbo said:

My country Sweden is among the ones with the most gender equality in the world. From what I know of our history there's nothing especially gender equal about it. If I were to look for a simple cause I'd say the strong influence of socialism in the building of modern Swedish society. Better social security means more freedom and opportunity for people including women. And socialism has been a more gender inclusive than other political ideologies since also many women were workers. The gender equality was also economically driven, in order to have good social benefits the state needs to have a lot of taxes and so it's better if women work than doing untaxable labor at home.

I think Sweden is more "social democratic" as opposed to say, socialism that leads to Marxism though, from what I gather (although it seems like there are democratic socialist and Marxist parties in Sweden)? I know there's a debate in general from political scientists about whether social democracy truly is a form of socialism or not. 

Yeah I can see the role that socialism played in such movements; I also think that tying the feminist movement to socialism (or various derivations thereof) perhaps made it easier for such ideals to be accepted in the society, I guess that's the benefit of coalition building in politics. 

So, would you say this article (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism_in_Sweden) is accurate or is just leaving out a lot of the negative aspects of the status of women in Sweden historically (and is thus biased)? I'm certainly not an expert in this topic at all to be able to say much about it though.

[Holmbo]

@MulticulturalFarmeryyes Sweden has never been socialist but it was a strong influence and affected policy and culture.

The voting during the age of liberty was originally tied to ownerships and since some women were owners they were interpreted to be allowed to vote in some cases. No married women could vote because they were under the guardianship of their husbands. The laws were later reformed to explicitly forbid women from voting.  

The municipal elections was tied to income, with higher influence the bigger the income. In theory a woman could vote if she had enough income and she was off age (25) and not married. So rich widows basically. In perish elections though all women were allowed to vote at this time. 

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by Holmbo

[MulticulturalFarmer]

20 hours ago, Holmbo said:

@MulticulturalFarmeryyes Sweden has never been socialist but it was a strong influence and affected policy and culture.

The voting during the age of liberty was originally tied to ownerships and since some women were owners they were interpreted to be allowed to vote in some cases. No married women could vote because they were under the guardianship of their husbands. The laws were later reformed to explicitly forbid women from voting.  

The municipal elections was tied to income, with higher influence the bigger the income. In theory a woman could vote if she had enough income and she was off age (25) and not married. So rich widows basically. In perish elections though all women were allowed to vote at this time. 

 

Oh okay that makes sense, it seems like in history there's always a technicality in a seemingly progressive law that ultimately deprives people of their rights. And yeah a lot of times the laws seem to also be quite a bit about money too, like being rich can give one an advantage when it comes to not having to deal with the brunt of problematic laws.  Very interesting stuff for sure, thanks for sharing and clarifying.

[Nix]

On 2/15/2023 at 4:09 PM, Holmbo said:

I finished platonic. I thought it was a good read. I'm not gonna join any book club meetings because I already have many online meetings but let me know if you want to have more of a text discussion about it. I could write discussion questions.

I’ve finished platonic too! I kept getting distracted by other books…

Overal, it was a nice read. Interesting to read about the attachment theory and how it shapes your friendships. I did feel a bit of a disconnect because all the examples were situated in the usa. Seems like Dutchies connect a little bit different. For one thing, travel by bike is very normal and towns are very compact. So distance from friends is not as big as a problem.

Still, I would definitely recommend it 👍🏻

[Holmbo]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:08 PM, Nix said:

I’ve finished platonic too! I kept getting distracted by other books…

Overal, it was a nice read. Interesting to read about the attachment theory and how it shapes your friendships. I did feel a bit of a disconnect because all the examples were situated in the usa. Seems like Dutchies connect a little bit different. For one thing, travel by bike is very normal and towns are very compact. So distance from friends is not as big as a problem.

 👍🏻

What if your friend lives in another city or country though?

[Nix]

3 hours ago, Holmbo said:

What if your friend lives in another city or country though?

Well, two of my friends live in Germany, a 5 hour car drive from my city. So we usually plan visits around weekends or vacations. But that is the most distance I’d have to travel to see a friend. Most of them live in or near my city. Or a city that is at most a 30 minute car drive. Some of the schools I teach at are a 40 minute car drive away so my social car trips are a lot shorter and most of them can easily be done on a bike. The Netherlands is a very small country…