The female role model during the nineteenth-century : Female Archetypes in three Swedish newspapers during 1858–1899

The purpose of this study is to inspect female ideals during the end of nineteenth-century in Sweden to get a greater understanding of the values that was recognized during the time. To accomplice this I will scrutinize three newspapers with different political standings and compare their descriptions of archetypal women. The three newspapers are the conservative Dalpilen, The more liberal Norrköpingskuriren and the feministic Idun. Dalpilen and Norrköpingskuriren will describe the two political sides of Sweden that was present at the time while Idun will represent the female thought of the ideals of their own gender as Idun was a newspaper for women and often written by women. I have utilized among other Conell and his masculinity theory and Yvonne Hirdmans Gender contract theory to get a better understanding for the century I have chosen to study and to get guidance for the material. Both these theories build on a society with strict gender roles which are applied to the nineteenth-century along with explanation in how archetypes are built up and what can affect them. This was something that I needed to keep in mind as a progressed through my study. The questions I have asked is what ideals are there in the newspapers and which qualities did they focus on. Are there a difference between the female ideals they describe? and if so, why are they different? The result of the study show that all three of the newspapers favors the mother as an ideal. Women was supposed to be a perfect mother and all the qualities for the ideal of women was to make them into an impeccable caretaker. This was the ultimate form of female. The difference between the newspapers lies in their flexibility in the qualities of that ideal. For example, the conservative Dalpilen thought that a woman should be a housewife and just focus on raising the children. That makes an ultimate mother. Norrköpingskuriren focused more on the working class and where the option to stay at home and raise chi ldren wasn’t always an option. As such, they preferred if the women stopped working when they got married but didn’t seem to demand that the wife should stay home. Idun on the other hand argued that working doesn’t really influence the female’s ability to raise her children and as such won’t remove their "femininity" as they said