ABBA’s Ulvaeus says empower girls.
LONGON >> ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus grew up in a time when his education was valued more than his sister’s, and he wants it to be different for girls around the world.
That’s the approach he took with his daughters, drawing inspiration from the women in his life.
“I’ve been surrounded by women, strong women for a long time,” Ulvaeus said, speaking about the need to empower female voices. It was an issue he stressed in an essay he penned in support of Sunday’s International Day of the Girl Child.
The day “should be a cause for celebration, but the sad thing is that this girl child deserves so much more than the old men who rule the world are prepared to give her,” Ulvaeus wrote in the piece, which he shared with The Associated Press.
The piece begins: “Take a look at the old men who rule the world. With few exceptions their powers rest on cultures, religions and ideologies that suppress women.”
In 2011, the United Nations declared Oct. 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child to promote girls’ rights and address the challenges girls face around the world.
In his piece, Ulvaeus writes about how these powerful men are “afraid of the girl child” because “she represents a threat to their power Iike none other.”
“You could see it with Greta Thunberg,” he said of the teenage Swedish climate change activist. “They got so ridiculously mad and irritated and, you know. And it is because the girl child is such a strong symbol for equality, for a better world, but a world where they wouldn’t exist.”
“There’s nothing really that says that men and women should have these roles that we read about,” he added. “Early on, I could see through that. And I could see there’s no good reason,” he said of his viewpoint shift he had when he was about 30. “So I think that’s why and when I became more or less a feminist without even saying it that at the time.”
On his later career he explains, “Most of the projects I’ve done, like ‘Mamma Mia,’ have been, you know basically, female projects with me in it.”
And for his three daughters, there have always been strong female influences.