Notable years

History | First women

History

1842 - Compulsory elementary school for women and men is introduced.
1853 - Women are entitled to teach at the elementary school.
1861 - Higher training college for women is founded.
1870 - Women allowed passing a higher school examination (“matriculation examination”) as private candidates and to study medicine.
1873 - Women are admitted to universities and to graduate, except in theology and higher law.
1892 - The first women students’ union is founded in Uppsala, with Lydia Wahlström as chairwoman.
1904 - Graduate Women’s Society is founded, initiated by Anna Ahlström.
1909 - Junior secondary school, open to both sexes and providing a lower school certificate (“realexamen”), is established.
1918 - Women are given the right to become lecturers and headmasters at secondary schools.
1919 - IFUW, International Federation of University Women, is established.
1923 - The law which regulates formal competence and admits women to civil service positions is approved.
1925 - The law regulating formal competence comes into force on 1 July
1927 - National secondary schools available for girls under the same conditions as for boys.
1947 - ABKF changes its name to KAF (Women Graduates’ Society).
1958 - Women can be ordained as ministers.
1970 - Gender equality prescribed in curricula.
1980 - Tests for student finance against the income of the student’s husband or wife are abolished.
1983 - All professions available for women (including the Swedish Armed Forces).
1995 Lag om positiv särbehandling vad gäller tillsättandet av professorer (Act on positive action/discrimination in the appointment of professors).
2001 Lag om likabehandling av studenter vid högskolan (Act concerning university college students) to promote equal rights for students and applicants and withstand all gender, ethnic, sexual or disability discrimination).

First women

1872 - Betty Pettersson is the first woman student at a Swedish university (Uppsala).
1883 - Ellen Fries defenses her thesis in history and becomes Doctor of Philosophy.
1888 - Karolina Widerström becomes the first female med.lic. in Sweden.
1889 - Sonja Kovalevsky becomes the first female university professor (in Mathematics).
1897 - Elsa Eschelson receives a Doctor of Laws degree and is appointed Docent (Associate Professor).
1914 - Selma Lagerlöf becomes the first Swedish member of The Swedish Academy.
1937 - Nanna Svartz becomes the first permanent woman professor in Sweden, in Medicine.
1947 - Karin Kock becomes Sweden’s first female minister.
1976 - Anna Christensen is appointed Professor in Law.
1992 - Boel Flodgren is appointed the first woman vice-chancellor of Sweden and Europe.
1997 - Christina Odenberg is appointed bishop.