The old bucket and me - Hinke Bergegrens philosophical works

(the title of this entry is a play with words, since the name "Hinke" carries resemblance to the word hink in swedish which means bucket). 

For the past months I have been working on a project on Swedish politician Henrik "Hinke" Bergegren, who is often forgotten in contemporary history writing. Bergegren was born in an upperclass family in Stockholm in the year of 1861 and early in his life came into contact with rising workers movement. Within the movement he soon gained prominence and was a key person in forming the social democratic party, which would shape Sweden upuntil this day. In the scholarship on Bergegren a key concern have been the framing of him as a political terrorist, where he on the party's congress spoke openly about using violence as a mean to achieve the workers goals. In 1908 he was excluded permantly from the social-democratic party, which often have been described as a result of his agitation for violence. However, historian Åsa Linderborg have also launched the thesis it was not Bergegrens politics that was the problem, but rather that his prominent position within the workers movement provided a challenge for Hjalmar Brantling which eventually would become party leader. 

Henrik "Hinke" Bergegren
What this story neglects to tell is however Bergegrens work on the sexual question. From 1887 until his death in 1936 he strongly advocated the use of contraceptives as a way to lessen the working class burdens. He was also an early advocate of eugenics, which eventually would play a large part in shaping Swedish sexual policy for the years to come. In the little research that exists on Bergegrens views on sexuality, there is little other than his 1910 campaign Better love without children than children without love in which he instructed on how to use contraceptives. This was given the zeitgeist a controversial topic which three months later led to agitation for contraceptives being illegal in Sweden for the coming 28 years. 

After stumbling upon Bergegren in archive some years ago I however became quite obsessed with another part of his work: namely why did he propose the use of contraceptives? Other scholars have labelled him a neo-malthusian, a movement which aimed to lessen the burdens of the working class through the use of contraceptives. In this regard the poverty of the working class were seen as the result of their many children, and thus birth-control would significantly lessen these burdens. The view of Bergegren as a neo-malthusian is most certainly correct in some regards, but he also went beyond the neo-malthusian views. A clear example of this, noticed by historian Henrik Lång, is that Bergegren also spoke out on sexual inequalities between male and femals. In my own reading of Bergegrens work, this becomes rather clear but he also criticized the sexual exploation of women as part of burgeoise society. Thereby, the notion of contraceptives for Bergegren were intrastically connected both to gender norms and his criticism of a class-based society. In the end, he should perhaps not be understood as a neo-malthusianist but rather as a fighter for freedom. In his work it is clear that Bergegren clearly carred for the deprived and aimed at creating a society which was more just. He even though he only touches upon utopian views they are still there. 

This is also why this research is so important. Historians have for a long time been focused on the grand narratives of the state, which social history thankfully eventually have replaced. Still in the history of sexuality, most of the research done have focused on how control were exercised over sexuality from the state. But as Foucault mentions - were there is power, there is also resistance. To fully grasp the multitude of the sexual question it is therefore not only important to listen to those in power - but also those deprived of power. 

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