Expanding Political Capital: Why Social Democratic Women Participated in Middle-Class Feminist Educational Organisations in Sweden c.1890–1910

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article seeks to introduce a new historical explanation as to why left-wing working-class women engaged in liberal, middle-class organisations during the first wave of feminism. The article specifically deals with middle-class associations and clubs that had educational purposes. Instead of focusing on the larger explanatory scheme of the power of patriarchal societal structures or bourgeois feminisms as a hegemonic force, the account revolves around the political educational functions of liberal feminist engagement for some politically active social democratic women in Sweden. The case of social democratic women who entered the liberal middle class educational organisation Tolfterna (the Dozen) is the point of departure for a micro-historical analysis of the political capital accumulation practices that class collaboration entailed. Finally, the article explores how working-class women’s choices and actions can be considered a group-specific strategy to expand their political resources to attain what is called feminist liberal political capital.