Margot Wallstrom Talks about Gender Equality

Margot Wallstrom remembers her youthful days when she was engaged to a Swedish man over 30 years ago. She remembers being grabbed by the hair and being thrown towards the wardrobe. The good thing is that she didn’t suffer major dents on her face, but she says that her hair came off as a result. Back then, she was a just a nobody, and there is nothing she could do about the issue other than break the relationship. Today, she is an influential activist in Sweden where she is involved with the Social Democratic Party. She says that when she broke off the relationship, the man almost killed her before he left her room. She says that she was terrified as she thought that she would lose her life. Today, she has managed to push aside all the disappointments, and she is now the foreign minister of her country. This is a position that has allowed her to rub shoulders with one of the most powerful policymakers on earth. She says that her dad was a sawmill worker and she grew up in rural Sweden. This is an indication that she never attended college. When she became foreign minister for Sweden, she said that she was introducing a feminist foreign policy. For starters, this was perceived as an effort by the once abused lady to put gender issues on international platforms provided by her position.

This has seen her antagonize powerful people in the Scandinavian country. As we speak, Sweden is one of the leading weapon exporters in the world with most of its GDP coming from selling weapons. For instance, she has been very vocal towards Saudi Arabia and its human rights records criticizing it severally. Just the other day, she was warned by NATO against endorsing a nuclear weapons ban by the United Nations. She didn’t listen to her superiors and went ahead with the endorsements. At the same time, she publicly said that she didn’t like Donald Trump. She has on numerous times being accused of being undiplomatic. This is a sentiment that she does not dispute. She says that she is very busy and she has no time for parties to please people. She also says that she is repelled and fascinated by the topic of sexual harassment. She has played an important part in writing prostitution laws in her country. There was a time when she was working for the UN as a sexual violence consultant.