Solveig Adina Olena Rönn-Christiansson (11 November 1902 – 8 June 1982) was a Swedish politician and

trade unionist A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and Employee ben ...

. She served as a member of the

Second Chamber Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single grou ...

of the

Parliament of Sweden The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...

for the

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...

for two separate terms: the first term 1937–1940 and the second term 1945–1958. Between her two terms in Parliament, she served as a member of the Gothenburg City Council in 1943–1946.

Life

Solveig Rönn-Christiansson was born in Gothenburg as one of ten children to

lamplighter A lamplighter is a person employed to light and maintain candle or, later, gas street lights. Very few exist today as most gas street lighting has long been replaced by electric lamps. Function Lights were lit each evening, generally by means ...

Olof Natanael Ståhle Rönn and Alma Charlotta Johansdotter. In 1934 she married metalworker Bertil Joar Christiansson, whom she divorced in 1948. They had a daughter.

Unionist

Rönn-Christiansson started to work as a teenager and worked as a maid, in a confectionery and as a washerwoman at

Sahlgrenska University Hospital The Sahlgrenska University Hospital ( Swedish: ''Sahlgrenska Universitetssjukhuset'') is a hospital network associated with the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden. With 17,000 employees the hospital is the lar ...

. She was politically engaged early on. She joined the

Swedish Municipal Workers' Union The Swedish Municipal Workers' Union ( sv, Svenska Kommunalarbetareförbundet), is the largest trade union in Sweden with 570 000 members as of 2005, it was created 1910. It is commonly referred to as ''Kommunal'' ("''Municipal''"). The union ...

in 1925, sat on the board of the local union from 1926 to 1928 and served as its secretary in 1935. In 1931, she was arrested in connection with the

Ådalen shootings The Ådalen shootings ( sv, skotten i Ådalen) was a series of events in and around the sawmill district of Ådalen, Kramfors Municipality, Ångermanland, Sweden, in May 1931. During a protest on 14 May, five people were killed by bullets fired ...

. She was prosecuted but was in the end released. She herself commented on the fact that she escaped a prison sentence: :"In a way, I did felt it was a shame, because I thought that if I was placed in prison, I would have been given the opportunity to educate myself somewhat".https://goteborg.vansterpartiet.se/2016/12/20/solveig-ronn-vansterpartiets-forsta-kvinna-i-riksdagen/

Policial career

In parallel to her union work, she became engaged in the Communist Party. She served as member of the Gothenburg district of the Communist Party from 1930 to 1932 and as a representative of the Communists on the Gothenburg school board in 1936. In the 1936 election, she was nominated to the

Riksdag The Riksdag (, ; also sv, riksdagen or ''Sveriges riksdag'' ) is the legislature and the supreme decision-making body of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral legislature with 349 members (), elected proportionally and se ...

's ''Andra kammar'' (Second Chamber of Parliament) by the Gothenburg Communists and won. In the election of 1940, she lost her seat after the Communist Party in Sweden lost favor with Swedish voters due to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

's attack on Finland. Instead, she took a seat on the Gothenburg City Council. When the sympathy for Communists grew after the Russians' victory over

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, she was able to win back her Parliament seat in 1945. Rönn-Christiansson was the first woman Communist to be elected to the Swedish Parliament. She was very active during her time there. In Parliament, she focused on social politics and union issues, such as legislation of the right to sedation during delivery and equal pay for equal work between men and women. She also motioned for the ban of

spanking Spanking is a form of corporal punishment involving the act of striking, with either the palm of the hand or an implement, the buttocks of a person to cause physical pain. The term spanking broadly encompasses the use of either the hand or im ...

in the educational system, which she condemned both for being pedagogically counterproductive as well as socially discriminatory, as she claimed the spanking was mainly used on working-class students. She was before her time when she stated that the issue of economy in the home was not an issue for women and housewives but for the nation as a whole. This was an issue in which she had experience from her work as a unionist and as a school board member. In 1945, she was elected to serve on the school textbook commission, in which she served until 1953. Rönn-Christiansson was a popular member of the labor movement in Gothenburg, where was often able to mediate between the Communists and the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote so ...

Later life

After leaving her seat in Parliament in 1958, Solveig Rönn-Christiansson worked as a

janitor A janitor (American English, Scottish English), also known as a custodian, porter, cleanser, cleaner or caretaker, is a person who cleans and maintains buildings. In some cases, they will also carry out maintenance and security duties. A simil ...

at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. She was also active as a

lay judge A lay judge, sometimes called a lay assessor, is a person assisting a judge in a trial. Lay judges are used in some civil law jurisdictions. Lay judges are appointed volunteers and often require some legal instruction. However, they are not perman ...

Sources

* Tvåkammarriksdagen 1867–1970 (Almqvist & Wiksell International 1992), vol. 4, p. 144 * Hemarbete som politik, Britta Lövgren, Almqvist & Wiksell, 1993 * Wiberg, Roger: Den stora agadebatten (2006) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ronn-Christiansson, Solveig 1902 births 1982 deaths Members of the Andra kammaren Swedish communists Women members of the Riksdag 20th-century Swedish women politicians 20th-century Swedish politicians Swedish domestic workers Swedish trade unionists