Umeå is the world's most feminist city

Published 10 November 2024 at 17.31

Domestic. The left-wing newspaper The Guardian has named Umeå “the world's most feminist city”, where everything from snow removal to bus stops is designed according to women's needs. Something that the city's most prominent statue – the #Metoo monument on Rådhustorget – testifies to.

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© Umeå municipality

The municipal #Metoo monument in Umeå.

The newspaper also offers a historical retrospective.

During the 1970s, Umeå became known as a center for militant left-wing extremism and student strikes, and the university, also called “the red university”, attracted politically engaged students from all over Sweden.

The city established itself as a hub for progressive politics and feminist activism, with prominent feminist radio programs and so-called fanzines shaping the local consciousness.

Timely and right, many thought, while others marveled at how the university came to develop into what they saw as an emerging , tax-funded adult kindergarten.

In 1997, Umeå got its first professor of gender studies, Britt-Marie Thurén, and since then the city has strived to introduce women-promoting measures in everything from urban planning to sports.

According to The Guardian, a central symbol for this is the the red cougar, a #MeToo monument that those in power have erected in the city square in 2019, created by the radical feminist artist Camilla Akraka.

The Guardian is also amazed by the city's bus tours for women, which focus on Umeå's “gendered landscape”, where several tax millions have been spent on adapting public environments to suit women.

Some investments in women, although these investments are in the minority, also aim to solve real problems.

For example, the city has made safe, open pedestrian tunnels where it should be more difficult to assault women and commit sexual crime, a type of crime that has increased sharply in line with immigration from the third world.

Umeå's work for gender equality has also created new high positions for women within the municipality, often with diffuse tasks and very generous salary levels.

Linda Gustafsson is, for example, “equality developer” and Annika Dalén “development strategist” at Umeå municipality. Both tell Västerbottens-Kuriren that they are very proud of the Guardian article “The world's most feminist city: how Umeå in Sweden became an idyll for women”.

– Umeå has worked for a long time, like 40 years, with questions related to gender equality and the location Umeå, says Linda Gustafsson to VK.