Mot jämställdhet? En analys av den politiska debatten gällande ett förbud mot könsdiskriminerande reklam

The overarching aim of this essay is to understand why gender equality policy proposals sometimes fail to be adopted even in very favorable circumstances. The paper searches to do so by examining the political debate and the process that lead to the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s decision in 2014 to not adopt a law against gender discrimination in commercial in Sweden, despite their longstanding arguments to impose such a ban. The case is considered being a “failed case”, that is, a situation where gender policy adoption failed. Drawing on feminist political theory and frame analysis the study examines the arguments made by proponents and opponents in the debate. The study finds that the Liberal People’s Party possibly might have managed to pursue the Social Democratic Party to switch position by reframing the issue regarding gender discrimination in commercial. The study also observes that freedom of speech can be seen as a competing and higher valued interest to gender equality. Furthermore, the paper demonstrate that Sweden generally have been reluctant to reach gender equality through harder measures, which additionally can be seen as an explanation to the failure of the proposal.