Alva myrdal

The issue of comparative performances can be regarded as settled to-day, both scientifically and practically. Though differences in attitudes between men and women still form a favorite topic of drawing-room conversation ... women's abilities are no longer seriously in doubt. These discussions rather seem to be a kind of rearguard action carried on after the main battle has been decided.

I agree with the many who consider freezing all sorts of weapons systems a first step in a realistic disarmament policy.

The inventions and the great discoveries have opened up whole continents to reciprocal communication and interchange, provided we are willing.

Many countries persecute their own citizens and intern them in prisons or concentration camps. Oppression is becoming more and more a part of the systems.

the patriarchal family, with its division of functions between a providing and protective father and a home-making, submissive mother, however satisfactory it may have been in its time, has outlived its day. Bread-winning is no longer a monopoly of men, and home-making should no longer be the monopoly of women.

All mankind is now learning that these nuclear weapons can only serve to destroy, never become beneficial.

It's not worthy o human beings to give up.

There is a cultural factor promoting violence which nowadays undoubtedly is highly effective is the mass media. And particularly everything that enters our minds through pictorial media.

It is frightening that in recent years such an increase has occurred in acts of terrorism, which have even reached peaceful countries such as ours. And as a "remedy", more and more security forces are established to protect the lives of individual men and women.

Though it is fairly easy to describe what constitutes a bad home, there is no simple definition of a good one. Conformity with the traditional pattern certainly is no guarantee of the happiest results.

War and preparations for war have acquired a kind of legitimacy.

I have, despite all disillusionment, never, never allowed myself to feel like giving up. This is my message today; it is not worthy of a human being to give up.

The misconception that a victory can be worth its price, has in the nuclear age become a total illusion.

The longing for peace is rooted in the hearts of all men. But the striving, which at present has become so insistent, cannot lay claim to such an ambition as leading the way to eternal peace, or solving all disputes among nations.

The economic and political roots of the conflicts are too strong. Nor can it pretend to create a lasting state of harmonious understanding between men.

If only the authorities could be made to realize that the forces leading them on in the armament race are just insane.

Our immediate striving must be aimed at preventing what, in the present situation, is the greatest threat to the very survival of mankind, the nuclear threat.

War is murder. And the military preparations now being made for a potential major confrontation are aimed at collective murder. In a nuclear age the victims would be numbered by the millions. This naked truth must be faced.

The smaller nations can in fact exercise greater influence on disarmament negotiations than they have hitherto done.

It is of the greatest importance that people and governments in many more countries than ours should realize that it is more dangerous to have access to nuclear arms than not to possess them.

If they [women] are to be integrated more fully into our society than has been the case so far, changes in individual attitudes of both men and women, adjustments in the labor market, and action by public authorities, will all be necessary.

We can hope that men will understand that the interest of all are the same, that hope lies in cooperation. We can then perhaps keep PEACE.

The world generally speaking is now drifting on a more and more devastating course towards the absurd target of extermination - or rather, to be more exact - of the northern hemisphere's towns, fields, and the people who have developed our civilization.

A great amount has been talked and written about what constitutes a sufficient balance and what really is meant by the concepts of "balance" and "deterrence".

First and foremost arms are tools in the service of rival nations, pointing at the possibility of a future war.

The age in which we live can only be characterized as one of barbarism. Our civilization is in the process not only of being militarized, but also being brutalized.

I have always regarded global development as a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Not to be simplified as a struggle between Jesus and Satan, since I do not consider that the process is restricted to our own sphere of culture.

Because war and preparations for war have acquired legitimacy, and because of the tremendous proliferation of arms through production and export, so that they are now available more or less to all and sundry, right down to handguns and stilettos, the cult of violence has by now so permeated relations between people that we are compelled to witness as well an increase in everyday violence.

More must be done in concrete terms in order to promote the cause of disarmament.

As a group, housewives to-day suffer more from social isolation and loss of purpose than any other social group, except, perhaps, the old.

marriage, home life, and children, ought to be enjoyed by men and women together. Nobody - and least of all the child - is served by the present tendency to put these things all on one side as 'Woman's World.

My personal philosophy of life is one of ethics

Author details

Alva Myrdal: Biography and Life Work

Alva Myrdal was a notable Politician. The story of Alva Myrdal began on 31 January 1902 in Uppsala, Sweden. The legacy of Alva Myrdal continues today, following their passing on 1 February 1986 in Danderyd, Sweden.

Alva Myrdal was a Swedish sociologist , diplomat and politician. She was a prominent leader of the disarmament movement. She, along with Alfonso García Robles , received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982. She married Gunnar Myrdal in 1924; he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974, making them the fourth ever married couple to have won Nobel Prizes, and the first to win independent of each other (versus a shared Nobel Prize by scientist spouses).

Legacy and Personal Influence

Personally, Alva Myrdal was married to Gunnar Myrdal.

Philosophical Views and Reflections

With architect Sven Markelius , Myrdal designed Stockholm's cooperative Collective House in 1937, with an eye towards developing more domestic liberty for women. She was a member of the Committee for Increased Women's Representation , founded in 1937 to increase women's political representation.

Myrdal participated in the creation of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute , becoming the first chairman of the governing board in 1966. In 1967 she was also named consultative Cabinet minister for disarmament, an office she held until 1973. Myrdal also wrote the acclaimed book The Game of Disarmament, originally published in 1976. A vocal supporter of disarmament, Myrdal received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 together with Alfonso García Robles . In 1983 Myrdal effectively ended the heated controversy over the future of Adolf Fredrik's Music School , "The AF-fight" (Swedish: AF-striden).

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