A time for talking, for crying out loud

BY Stockholm's central rail station I sat on my lap top and wept. (Always wanted to use that line). Hopeless, helpless, sobs racked my defeated body. This was the fourth day in the 50/50 capital of the world and I had never felt more like a freak of nature, more of an outsider, more of a petty nuisance. I let rip with a high pitched caoining accompaniment that would raise the dead - since my abject state was clearly having no effect on the living who were scrambling over and around me.

I was saved - not by a Nordic new man, nor woman - but by a gallant Iranian who threw me expertly into the back of his taxi and took me to the City Hall. Twenty four hours later I was soaring up and away from this country of equals and putting a vivid purple tick on the "been there, done that, got the T shirt" map of the world and brooding cynically on what damn difference did it make if 50 per cent of the Swedish Cabinet was female.

The reason for the shenanigans 24 hours earlier was that I simply wanted to get to the City Hall, about five minutes away, but the space between me and it - to my eyes - was filled with water and flyovers. Not wanting a swim at 8.30 a.m., or to be mowed down by Volvos or Saabs, I needed a taxi. With my atrocious sense of direction I knew I would more likely end up at some Norwegian border post if I tried to be smart and take to the side streets. I had got into the first taxi in the queue, said City Hall, please, only to be met with a reaction more baffled and bemused than any "Manuel from Barcelona" (Fawlty Towers) had ever pulled.

"City Hall? What is City Hall? I do not know it. What is it for?" The driver shrugged as I pointed to the top of the building, clearly visible in the short distance. "No, no. That is the royal palace. You want to go to the palace? No?" So he shrugged some more, dumped me and leapt to take the luggage of a waiting foursome. The expressions of the next five or so (all male) taxi drivers were even more Manuel-istic. Then I collapsed. The Iranian saved me and explained. Of course they would not take me. The journey was so short. It was not worth their while. He did not believe in such practice and anyway he had a doctor's appointment in an hour. He smiled into the mirror at my innocence and ignorance. I praised Allah for emigrants everywhere.

Even though with every passing year, "abroad" becomes more and more hateful, those ever expanding, lookalike airports (except the perfect doll's house London City one) more detestable and flying, the most punishing form of travel ever invented, had been lured to Stockholm to cover a conference for women heads of state and others of our sex who had jumped the spiked barriers to the top in the visible world of politics.

The President, Mrs Robinson was there, as was Ms Vigdis Finnbogadottir, president of Iceland, along with a handful of little known former prime ministers (Poland, Lithuania, Dominica and Netherlands Antilles). Edith Cresson from France, who had held the top job there for over a year or so, was the only one fairly well known to most Westerners.

TO cut a boringly long story short, we might as well have stayed at home. We were excluded from all but two of the sessions where the top and once top women along with a raft of women delegates from other (nearly all) men only spheres such as banking, networked and presumably swapped life experiences. Their theme was "New Challenges to Leadership". We all wished them well, felt that like the men, they were entitled to their summits, receptions and banquets but why, in the name of Granuaile, did they want the press along? We did not get a glimmer of the pressures on women until a guy from CNN, Ralph Begleiter, turned up.

As usual the lure of the camera lens broke the silence of the sisters and within seconds from countdown, Begleiter had them all revved up and fairly begging to tell their stories about how tough they could/would be. How they could push the N button (Cresson) as well as any man. How they could easily sack and shuffle any wilful Cabinet without having testosterone roaring round their arteries. They also pondered questions like would they put their daughters into politics (nul points). To a woman they said the media hurt rather than helped them. They all agreed they were viewed for what they looked like/wore before their policies were examined. They were unanimous in agreeing that women had to be better than the best man to get there.

President Robinson refused to take part, Begleiter said later, even though he had assured her and the rest that he would not ask them any questions on sensitive stuff like (for her) the North, Dick Spring, Harry Whelehan, divorce, the United Nations etcetera, etcetera.

I do not like being negative about women (or men). Women get more than their fair share of denial anyway and successful women usually attract the gamut of adjectives from tough to tarty if they are just plain ambitious or good at their jobs. However, I strongly believe that once there, women should, however slowly, start changing things: Even start talking about changing things.

However, being part of the "downstairs" crowd in Stockholm was not a real waste. The Nordic countries are always held up to us as examples of shining egalitarianism, but every working mother I met - journalists, civil servants, students - was as washed out and stressed out as any in this part of the world. Yes, they said, maternity leave was good and they could negotiate flexitime. However, the men who could also flex their hours mostly refused to avail of it or if they took it, went off and played golf or something; anything rather than go home and cook the dinner, do the shopping or spend quality time with the kids.

I spent hours trying to meet the enigmatic Mona Sahlin, the former Social Democrats deputy prime minister, who was in line to take over when she was accused of corruption and withdrew from active politics. Her only sin was to pay for nappies and a few other child related bills out of her business, budget and forget to pay it back. The amount, I was told, was so ridiculously small that it was laughable. But such a furore was created, it could as well have happened here. Now, Garbo like, she just wants to be alone.

In the March/April edition of Ms magazine, Susan Faludi, wrote of her own experiences when she spent two months working on a Swedish daily last year. It is an excellent, long piece by the author of Backlash; The undeclared war against American women.

She ends her depressing report with a desperate attempt to be optimistic but it does not convince.

She also tells the story of Mary Wollstonecraft, the passionate English feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, who journeyed through Scandinavia in 1795.

Wollstonecraft, an intrepid woman, was in despair over the lack of advancement for women in France following the revolution. She found cause for hope about the position of women at the start but grew more depressed as her trip continued. When she got back to London she was so downcast she threw herself off Putney Bridge - she was saved before going down a third time.

I think I know how she felt.