I have always wondered why life paths can be so different. Why there are some people devoted to politics with no material profit, while others go through life with a calculator in their heads and hearts. A profesor at Stockholm University told me three days ago that she is going to vote for the right wing because they propose a tax benefit to people spending on paid housework, actually having a maid, and she is fed up with cleaning and picking up the whole day.
Although in real terms, as Pierre Bourdieu said, it is not the ‘why’ but the ‘how’ (how it is like this and not otherwise) what we should ask. And that the most we can aspire for is to detect the circumstances incentivating us to take this path and not a different one. So, how is that I am here writing this blog instead of going out for a walk around beautiful Stockholm in this sunny day?
Here in this Swedish Feminist Initiative, F!, they are talking a lot about personal issues. Gudrun Schyman, the F! leader, was telling us in Gothemburg last week I learned a lot and saw a lot when I was the leader of the Left Party. 
And that helped me a great deal to understand the situation of women and my own life. Before entering the Parliament, I had been battered, I was a single mother, working as a social worker, a typical woman’s job, I had a part time work to pick up children in time from the child care center. I was part of the pattern. And it took me a lot of time to realize that I was a feminist.
And in a letter called Let_love_become_politics she says for me politics has to do with how I want to live my life with other people.
So, with all these life stories, how can we not talk about personal issues? If I compare Gudrun Schyman with some male colleague at the Swedish Parliament, I can imagine a good guy in any political party, heterosexual white middle-aged man, married to a part-time working woman who does the housework and takes care of children's well-being.
He also plays with children late in the evening if they are still up. He is a kind husband ‘helping’ with dish washing. He studied Law at University and walked up the professional ladder without experiencing how it feels when you are looked at your breasts while you try in vain to explain your ideas. Without being called names for trying to get a sexual encounter or feeling you are a poor mother for working more than 10 hours a day. He is not frightened to go through a dark street, either. And if his party loses power, he will get a position somewhere, as president of something, with a good salary, anyway.
He does not need to think about the personal side of life. Women are just so complicated!
Can you remember that line...‘THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL??
María
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