“… you seem intelligent and are beautiful with the most delicious body”
That was a message that Mette, a 19-year-old student, received on her Instagram feed late one night in February. Her admirer was Jon Stephensen (DK), a recently elected Member of Parliament whom she had met briefly during the election campaign. Stephensen, 63, who had been the director of the Aveny-T theater for several years, had been recruited to stand for Lars Løkke Rasmussen’s new Moderates party and served as the party’s cultural spokesperson.
A week before, Mette had sent a line to Stephensen praising his performance on a TV debate program. She was taken aback by his compliment but didn’t want to alienate him because of his position. In the following weeks, she underwent an identity crisis that interfered with her communications studies, wondering whether “people will only notice my body and my appearance.”
Not his first rodeo
A month later, TV2 News ran a story in which more than 30 members of Stephensen’s theater staff accused him of manipulative and transgressive behavior (DK). He pressured a young actress to appear nude in a poster, blamed people for others’ mistakes, and according to several witnesses, exploded erratically in fits of rage. Moderates party Løkke Rasmussen maintained that the charges weren’t relevant to Stephensen’s political work.
But the story convinced Mette to tell her parents and then her colleagues in the Young Moderates organization about Stephensen’s message. The leader of the Young Moderates, Ellen Emilie, said in an interview that the behavior violated the party’s code of conduct and was a clear abuse of power and that Stephensen shouldn’t be allowed to remain in the party.
The personal isn’t always political
In May 2022, Stephensen had been fired from his position as theater director for forging a signature (DK), among other things. Stephensen denied the forgery and lodged a libel suit, which he later dropped. At the Moderates’ annual meeting in March, Stephensen said,
“Of course I am moved, and I look inward… But how much can one’s past be a part … can you murder a politician by murdering his past? … [I] have done the best that I could.”
More than 1,500 cultural figures wrote to the Moderates’ leadership expressing a lack of confidence in Stephensen (DK) as a cultural spokesperson. The party wouldn’t remove him from the post but gave him a leave of absence from Parliament until the next session in October. “He should have the chance [to resume],” said caucus chair Henrik Frandsen. Stephensen sent a message to Ritzau (DK) saying that when he sent the compliment to Mette he “didn’t know who she was.”
Equal rights and wrongs
The next day, the next MeToo scandal broke, with a twist. Several men had reported to two news organizations that Lizette Risgaard (DK), the head of FH (the Danish Trade Union Confederation), with 1.3 million members across 65 organizations, had behaved inappropriately toward them. Risgaard, considered one of the most powerful women in Denmark, announced herself on Facebook that she’d been called into an emergency meeting of FH’s business committee:
“[T]he people have experienced undesired touching—for example, I had my hand on their back too long when I hugged them, I grabbed them by the buttocks, and I danced too close to them.”
Risgaard, who has been an outspoken opponent of sexism in the workplace, conceded that her behavior was unprofessional and apologized unconditionally: She hadn’t realized that she was exploiting her powerful position, and she acknowledged that it is always the offended party who is entitled to say when one has crossed the line. The complainants, who remained anonymous, said they hadn’t felt sexually harassed but felt the unequal status made the behavior problematic.
Outing those handsy girlbosses
While Risgaard maintained that she could continue as FH chair, union representatives began demanding that she withdraw while a legal investigation was undertaken. A few days before she was scheduled to hold four speeches on International Workers Day, she joined Stephensen on a leave of absence (DK). On Sunday, she resigned (DK). The SVM government probably wasn’t sorry to see her go, since she has been one of the most vocal critics of its plan to abolish Great Prayer Day holiday.
Some union officials noted that the investigation should cover several people on FH’s leadership who had known (DK) about Risgaard’s behavior and took no action. Masculinity researcher Kenneth Reinicke of Roskilde University thinks the case may set in motion a new #MeToo wave (DK) for men, although women sex researchers doubt it. To her credit, Risgaard showed genuine remorse and promptly took responsibility for her actions. That doesn’t bode well for a comeback as a candidate for Parliament.