By Ila Ananya
It looks like Isabella Lövin, Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister, has a message for American President Donald Trump.
You probably remember the photo of Donald Trump that did the rounds when he came into office and signed a bunch of executive orders, including one deciding to implement the anti-abortion global gag rule or the Mexico City Policy. In the infuriating photo, Trump looks like he’s purposefully signing the order, and he’s surrounded by a bunch of smugly smiling white men all looking over his shoulder.
https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/823594304971173888
But yesterday, on 3rd February, Isabella Lovin, who is also Sweden’s climate minister, tweeted a photo of herself signing a climate bill that’s aiming to make Sweden carbon neutral by 2045. The legislation binds future governments to try to phase out greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. It also seems like the Lovin’s photo is oddly familiar: Lovin is looking up from her desk, the hand poised over the document, surrounded by seven women watching her. All of them look like they’re saying that neither Trump, nor anybody else, will really ever be able to mess with them.
https://twitter.com/IsabellaLovin/status/827457588094758912
It might be true that Lovin was signing something that doesn’t directly relate to women’s bodies, but she has reportedly said about the photo, “We are a feminist government, which shows in this photo.” The Local reports that Lovin also said, “Ultimately, it is up to the observer to interpret the photo”. It’s also in contrast to what Trump had quite hilariously said and believes about climate change. He’d said he might pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change, and once quite famously tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
On a small aside, the Government of Sweden website also says: “Sweden has the first feminist government in the world. This means that gender equality is central to the Government’s priorities — in decision-making and resource allocation. A feminist government ensures that a gender equality perspective is brought into policy-making on a broad front, both nationally and internationally.”