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Feminist party loses another founder

The Local Sweden
The Local Sweden - [email protected]
Feminist party loses another founder

Sweden's Feminist Initiative, the high profile feminist group which last week announced its intention to stand at the 2006 election, has lost a third founder member in as many weeks.

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Helena Brandt, who served as the party's treasurer, quit on Wednesday and promptly directed a volley of scathing criticism at her ex-sisters.

"I feel conned. We worked the whole time to make FI a broad movement but in the end it took a completely different direction," she told Svenska Dagbladet.

"It's just a left party with a homosexual, bisexual and transsexual profile," she told Dagens Nyheter.

Brandt said that the party was discriminatory against men and pointed to the decision made at the conference last week to allow men to take a maximum of 25% of the board positions.

"I can't consider being a member of an organisation which on the one hand works against fundamental gender discrimination, but promotes sexual orientation issues at the cost of other, at least as important, discrimination issues," she wrote in a press statement.

She said that FI had become "much worse" than the traditional patriarchal organisations it seeks to replace, with the members having almost no influence over the decisions of the leadership.

On Monday, Susanne Linde left the party, claiming that she was bullied for being a middle class heterosexual. Three weeks ago, Ebba Witt-Brattström, a professor of literature, also quit, citing 'difficulties in working together'. Both were involved in the razzmatazz surrounding April's launch of the group.

Helena Brandt, a former member of the Green Party, said she would continue to work with discrimination issues as a private equality consultant.

Will FI make it to the election? Discuss!

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