These changes have been affected by the culture, religion and laws of Sweden, as well as social discourses like the strong feminist movement.

[3] After the age of 20, an unmarried woman, referred to as maer and mey, reached legal majority and had the right to decide of her place of residence and was regarded as her own person before the law.

There was, however, a gap between law and practice: despite the fact that unmarried women were legal minors and only widows had the right to represent themselves in court, unmarried women were still in practice allowed to give testimony, sue and represent themselves in court matters, to such a degree that a law reform granted them this right in 1686 to legalize what was already common procedure.

When unmarried, a woman from the peasantry would be expected by social custom to serve in the household of another peasant family as a piga (maid), which was regarded as a way to learn household experience and earn money for a dowry before marriage and was not socially seen as a servant position: when married, the wives of farmers, fishermen and miners all traditionally participated alongside their husbands in their professions, handled them alone in their absence and, if their husbands died without an adult son, in their own name as widows.

From the Magnus Erikssons landslag of 1350, the city law granted daughters and sons equal inheritance rights.

[9] Ursula Agricola from Strasbourg and Maria Jonae Palmgren from Grenna, however, were both accepted at Visingsö Gymnasium (school) in the 1640s.

A woman regardless of personal status could purchase a permit, to be active within trade of export and import without guild membership and be a Kontingentborgare.

However, men were banned from selling the property of their wives without their consent, wives were given the right to sell property and handle affairs in the absence of her husband, and both spouses regardless of gender were secured the right to divorce upon adultery, upon which the innocent party was secured custody of the children.

In 1741, a reform abolished the public humiliation punishment of Uppenbar kyrkoplikt for unmarried mothers to prevent infanticide,[14] and in 1778, the Infanticide Act (Sweden) was introduced: in order to spare unmarried mothers from the social stigma which was the common motive for them to kill their infants, mothers were allowed to travel to a place where they were unknown by the community and give birth anonymously, midwives were forbidden to expose their identity, and should they decide to keep their child, their unmarried status was to be hidden by the authorities to spare them social embarrassment.

[16] In the first half of the 19th century, a population growth, in combination with changes in society caused by the economic crisis of the Napoleonic Wars and the industrialization, resulted in a growing number of unmarried women, for which the traditional role to support themselves by marriage was not available.

[17] By the 1840s, there was an ongoing debate as to how to provide women with an opportunity to support themselves as useful productive members of society should they fail to marry, without having to rely on the charity of relatives or resort to crime.

From the foundation of the Välgörande fruntimmerssällskapet in 1819 women organized in civil charitable organizations such as the local Fruntimmers-skyddsförening, which became an acceptable way for a woman to play a public role and achieve social reform, and women became known public role models as social reformers, such as Emilie Petersen, Sophia Wilkens and Maria Cederschiöld (deaconess), which lay the foundation for women's participation in public life.

In 1848, Sophie Sager aroused controversy when reporting a rape attempt and winning the case in court, after which she became the first woman in Sweden to tour and make public speeches in favor of feminism.

[21] In 1855, women arguably organized for the first time to deal with an issue within women's rights, when Josefina Deland founded the Svenska lärarinnors pensionsförening (The Society for Retired Female Teachers) to provide for retired female teachers and governesses,[22] and from 1856, the Tidskrift för hemmet became the first regular feminist spokes organ.

Women organized prominently in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, whose Swedish section Vita bandet ("White ribbon") was founded in 1897.

[24] Another important goal at this point was to make it possible for women to access the same professions as men on higher levels, which was denied them even when they had the necessary education.

[25] In 1909, an important step was made when the phrase "Swedish man" was removed from the application forms to public offices and civil servant occupations, which lifted a number of professional bars and gave women access to many professional opportunities which had until then been denied them even when they had the necessary education.

[26] Between 1921 and 1971, the successor of the suffrage movement, the Svenska Kvinnors Medborgarförbund, worked to ensure that the formal laws of gender equality was enforced in practice and not remain on paper only.

In November 2018, the largest gender difference was recorded for sympathisers of the Sweden Democrats which received support among 22.7% of men and 9.3% of women.

However, they did not have the same rights as their male colleagues: their title were Polissyster ('Police Sister'), and their tasks concerned women and children, such as taking care of children brought under custody, performing body searches on women, and other similar tasks which were considered unsuitable for male police officers.

In 1930, the Polissyster were given extended rights and were allowed to be present at houses searches in women's homes, conduct interrogations of females related to sexual crimes, and do patrol reconnaissance.

[33] In the Military Articles of 1621, which organized the Swedish army, military men on all levels were explicitly allowed to bring their wives with them to war, as the wives were regarded to fill an important role as sutlers in the house hold organisation of the army: prostitutes, however, were banned.

[34] In the Military Article of 1798, the only women allowed to accompany the army was the professional unmarried female sutlers, in Sweden named marketenterska.

[34] Unofficially, however, there were females who served in the army posing as male the entire period, the most famous being Ulrika Eleonora Stålhammar.

[36] After the 1921 election, the first women were elected to Swedish Parliament after the suffrage: Kerstin Hesselgren in the Upper chamber and Nelly Thüring (Social Democrat), Agda Östlund (Social Democrat) Elisabeth Tamm (liberal) and Bertha Wellin (Conservative) in the Lower chamber.

[41] In 1734, suffrage in both national and local elections, in cities as well as countryside, was granted to every property owning taxpaying citizen of legal majority.

The right to vote in municipal elections applied only to people of legal majority, which excluded married women, as they were juridically under the guardianship of their husbands.

In 1888, the temperance activist Emilie Rathou became the first woman in Sweden to demand the right for women's suffrage in a public speech.

[44] In 1899, a delegation from the Fredrika-Bremer-Förbundet presented a suggestion of women's suffrage to prime minister Erik Gustaf Boström.

[48] After the 1921 election, the first women were elected to Swedish Parliament after the suffrage: Kerstin Hesselgren in the Upper Chamber and Nelly Thüring (Social Democrat), Agda Östlund (Social Democrat) Elisabeth Tamm (liberal) and Bertha Wellin (Conservative) in the Lower Chamber.