Stockholm sizzles with Pride!
Practically all of Stockholm showed up this Saturday, August 3, 2013, to support and celebrate Sweden’s LGBTQIA community. According to Stockholm Pride, the parade’s organizers, this year’s Pride Parade was the biggest ever, with 60,000 participants and 600,000 spectators. (Stockholm Pride) Considering that Stockholm city has around 850,000 inhabitants downtown, it’s no wonder that it felt like all of Stockholm was there!
My favorite part was the ”Proud Parents of homosexual, bisexual and transgender children” group. It was touching to see so many parents supporting their gay, bi and trans children. When they walked by us in Kungsträdgården, the crowd absolutely erupted into cheers and whistles. They were by far the most popular group in our viewing area. This group is organized through RFSL, and you can read more about them here.
Having just gotten back to Stockholm from vacation in the US, this was a great way to start August. It’s exciting to see so many people come out and celebrate in the name of respect and inclusion. Good work Stockholm in supporting LGBTQIA rights!
Stockholm Pride Parade 2013
Coming Soon – Gender Equality in Advertising Index
This week, Add Gender will be releasing its highly anticipated Gender Equality Index for the Advertising Industry in Resumé magazine. Add Gender has put together an analysis based on survey responses that they received from 29 companies in the advertising industry. I can’t go into too much detail before the release, but stay tuned to find out who is the best at gender equality in the industry!! Exciting stuff!
This is an especially exciting time for gender equality within the Advertising industry because of the recent release of the book Mad Women by Christina Knight, Creative Director at INGO. The book chronicles the experiences and stories of some of the most successful women in the international advertising world. Read more about the book here: http://madwomen.nu/
Last Wednesday evening, Christina talked at an event at the Riksdagen about her book and the lack of diversity in leadership roles in Advertising. Other leaders and veterans from the advertising industry were also present to discuss this challenge. The consensus seemed to be that those within the industry must be the leaders of this change for the better and toward more gender equality, starting with schools like Berghs and all the way into the biggest ad agencies.
Let’s take our creative minds and solve this problem together. Cheers to a more diverse 2014!
Sweden’s Closet Racists
Here is an article that recently was written in the New York Times by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, a Swedish novelist and author. It tells the heartbreaking story of institutional racism experienced by a native Swede, throughout his childhood and adulthood, because he is not white. I dare you to read this piece and come out thinking that racial profiling by the police or any other institution is in any way a good thing for society.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/21/opinion/sunday/swedens-closet-racists.html?pagewanted=1
Gender Equality in the US has ”hit a wall”
Did you ever wonder what’s going on in the US in terms of gender equality? This article provides reasons why gender equality has not progressed further in the US, even though, according to research, both men and women want more gender equality at work and at home. Fascinating stuff, and gives us even more reason to keep pushing for positive change!
Link to article ”Generation LGBTQIA”
I’d like to share a great article from the New York Times about the changing of society’s understanding of the challenges being faced by people who fall outside the norm of heterosexuality and binary genders. A norm means a standard of behavior to which members of a social group are expected to conform, such as being straight. (Definition from dictionary.com) The word ”LGBT,” which in English denotes Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender, is now frequently being exchanged for ”LGBTQIA,” an acronym that denotes the same original four words plus Queer, or Questioning, Intersex, someone whose identity is not exclusively male or female, and Ally, an ally of the group who can be heterosexual but accepts identities that fall outside of the norm, or Asexual, the absence of sexual attraction. This article also discusses what universities in the US are doing to help ease the boundaries of ”male” and ”female,” such as establishing gender-neutral bathrooms. Here’s the article: Generation LGBTQIA, New York Times
Happy Reading!
