In 2021, Sofia Helin wrote herself a note and stuck it on the wall of her home office. “Be in your own force,” it read. “Don’t go into anyone else’s power. Be your own.” At the time, the actor – star of the iconic Scandi-noir crime drama The Bridge – was angry. The Swedish #MeToo movement, which Helin helped to launch, was foundering. Sweden’s complex libel laws meant that women were being charged with defamation after naming the men who had allegedly abused them.
When the movement started in 2017, Helin had trusted in the Swedish system. Surely Sweden – a bulwark of liberal feminism, ranked fifth in the world by the World Economic Forum for gender equality – would deliver the justice women so desperately craved. Instead of demanding heads on a pike, Helin and her fellow organisers backed an open letter and campaign calling for reform, staging a public reading of anonymous testimonies from abused and harassed women. “In theory,” says Helin, “it’s very sympathetic not to mention people and bring them out, like we did in the middle ages, to hang them publicly and so on. It’s very modern and kind.” The few women who did name names paid a stiff price: to date, at least 12 women have been prosecuted for defamation related to #MeToo cases, among them actor Cissi Wallin, convicted in 2019 after naming a journalist she claimed had raped her. The man denies the allegation.
