Frida Stéenhoff

Overview

Frida Stéenhoff (née Helga Frideborg Wadström) born Stockholm, Sweden December 11, 1865 (d. 1945). Swedish radical feminist and pacifist internationalist; artist and playwright; wrote first Swedish pacifist play, “Fighting Youth”, 1907, “The Men of War, the Gentlemen of the World”, 1915. Postwar contributor to pacifist magazine Epoch.

Quotations

“War is the masculine state, driven to the end. It demanded for its sake designing, persuading the hearts of men, and despising the wisdom of the women . . . With the destruction of these states men began to love their fellow human beings like brothers, and the women began to think of the meaningless in massacre of children in a school of mass extinction.” (pseud. Harold Gote, “Sex Slavery, An Appeal”, 1913, in Claes Ahlund, “War and Culture”, Samlaren, 2005, p. 97; photo dramawebben)