TheFredrika Bremer Association (Swedish:Fredrika Bremer Förbundet, abbreviatedFBF) is the oldestwomen's rights organisation inSweden. The association stands for an inclusive,intersectional and progressiveliberal feminism, and advocates for women's rights andLGBT rights.
It is traditionally the foremost organisation of the bourgeois-liberal women's movement in Sweden. It has always been open to both women and men. It is a member of theInternational Alliance of Women, and is a sister association of theDanish Women's Society, theNorwegian Association for Women's Rights and theIcelandic Women's Rights Association.
The FBF works with forming public opinion in favor of gender equality by information and activities, and by handing out money from various funds and scholarships. It collaborates with other organisations with similar goals both nationally and internationally. The FBF had a representative in the governmental council of equality.
It is a member of theInternational Alliance of Women, which hasgeneral consultative status with theUnited NationsECOSOC. It was also a member of theJoint Organization of Nordic Women's Rights Associations.
The organisation was founded in 1884 by a group largely consisting of the board of thewomen's magazineHome Review.[1] It consisted of the feministSophie Adlersparre,[2]Ellen Anckarsvärd,Fredrika Limnell,Ellen Fries,Hans Hildebrand and G. Sjöberg.[3] It was named in honor of the Swedish novelistFredrika Bremer, whose novelHertha was responsible for the legislationemancipating unmarried women from wardship of their male relatives. It also led to the foundation ofGothenburg's Women's Association in Sweden's second city ofGothenburg, which was founded as a local answer to the FBF.
The purpose of the organisation was to support women's rights, to inform women of their rights and to encourage them to use them. At the time of its foundation, for example, the focus was to inform women of their rights to serve in the boards of public institutions, and of the rights of women of a certain income to vote in municipal elections and to use those rights.[3] By 1890, the office of the organisation inStockholm functioned as an employment agency for women of the middle classes, and offered juridical, economic and medical information and advice to women.[3] It was also noted at that time that many women came there to be informed of the movement forwomen suffrage.[3] In 1899, a delegation from the FBF presented a suggestion of woman suffrage to prime ministerErik Gustaf Boström. The delegation was headed byAgda Montelius, accompanied byGertrud Adelborg, who had written the demand. This was the first time the Swedish women's movement themselves had officially presented a demand for suffrage.
In 1890, theSvenska drägtreformföreningen became a part of the FBA, and in 1896, theMarried Woman Property Association was merged in the association. In 1934,Ida von Plomgren, a longterm employee and member fronted a publicity film about the FBF, narrating how far the fight for women's rights had come and sharing some of the organisation's areas of activity. It was scripted byMargareta von Konow. This included a visit to the FBF office at Klarabergsgatan 48, where Plomgren joked that her door sign should read ‘Ask me about everything - because that's what the Swedish people do’.[4][5]
In 1937, the FBF founded theKommittén för ökad kvinnorepresentation (Literary: 'The committee for increased women's representation') to lobby for more women in political office and particularly more women in parliament.[6]
The FBF published thewomen's magazineDagny, which succeeded Adlersparre'sHome Review in 1886. This publication was renamedHertha in 1914 and was the oldest women's magazine in the world when it was discontinued in 1999 (it was revived in 2001).
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