Medkämpe i arbetarklassens stora befrielsekamp
Föreställningar om klass, kön och skötsamhet i tidningen Arbetets Kvinnor 1927-1931
Blue collarTrade unionFemale activistSocial classSexGenderMoralityIdentityArbetets KvinnorArbetarklassFackföreningKvinnlig aktivismKönGenusMoralIdentitetArbetets Kvinnor
This is a study of the trade union journal for female blue collar women in Sweden, Arbetets Kvinnor, between 1927 and 1931. The purpose is to examine how a female trade union activist's constructs collective identity by those notions of social class, sex, and moral values that are articulated in the journal. The main theoretical basis is Alberto Melucci's analysis where he argues that a collective identity in social movements is made in an interaction between individuals, where the action possibilities and limits are defined. Another purpose is how the female blue collar worker's resistance and/or adaption to the male hegemonic trade union and the bourgeoisie hegemonic society are presented. The essay shows how the collective identity is made of both historical and contemporary images of the working class women as workers and trade union activists. It also shows that the identity is based on an international class struggle in which the labour women walk hand in hand with the labour men, embracing social democratic ideas. The conception of the woman of the labour class is multifaceted, for example she is pictured as a class comrade and simultaneously as a one whose main purpose is motherhood. Arbetets Kvinnor shows that the trade unionist women bid the bourgeoisie dominance resistance and it also depicts the women making opposition to the male hegemony in the trade union. The moral values that are presented are solidarity, responsibility and the urge of education into making the goal of an equal society possible to reach.