Alfhild Teresia Agrell was a Swedish writer and playwright. She was born to Erik Johan Martin and Karolina Margareta Adolphson, who worked as confectioners

Confectionery

Confectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...

. From 1868 until 1895 she was married to the Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

er merchant A. Agrell.

She temporarily used the pseudonyms Thyra, Lovisa Petterqvist and Stig Stigson, but she soon begun to use her own name, which was unusual for a woman; other famed female Swedish playwrights of the century, such as the sisters Louise

Louise Granberg

Louise Elisabeth Granberg , was a Swedish playwright, translator and theatre director.She was the daughter of the actor and writer Per Adolf Granberg and the sister of the playwright Jeanette Granberg. From 1849 forward, she translated and wrote plays, sometimes jointly with her sister, under the...

 and Jeanette Granberg

Jeanette Granberg

Jeanette Granberg, as married Stjernström, as a pseudonym Georges Malméen, , was a Swedish writer, a playwright, a feminist and a translator, who wrote plays for mainly the theatre Mindre teatern in Stockholm in the mid-19th century. She was praised as a great dramatic by her contemporaries...

, both used male pseudonyms. The subject that she concentrated on, sexual double standards, was very shocking for her time.

Alfhild Agrell was an important contributor to the cause of gender equality in regards of sexuality; in her work, she handles the questions and consequences of sexual injustice, the sexual double standards such as the fact that a woman is subjected to contempt when she does the same thing as a man in sexual matters, the questions of having "a bad reputation", the questions of the blame put on the woman and not the man when a child is born out of marriage, and the difficulties when a woman of the people and a man of the upper classes falls in love and the consequences of such a relationship.

But she was pessimistic of the hope that men and women would ever reach sexual equality, and she doubted that a woman could find such a thing in marriage, were she by law was much restricted and given to her husbands whims.

Works

• Räddad, (Saved), 1883, play
• Dömd, (Judged),1884, play
• Ensam, (Alone), 1886, play
• Vår, (Spring), 1889, play
• Ingrid, 1900, play
• Småstadsliv, ("Small town life"), 1884
• Från land och stad, ("From the country to the city"), 1884, collection of novels.
• På landsbygden, ("On the countryside"), 1887
• Norrlandsgubbar och Norrlandsgummor, ("Old women and men in Norrland"), 1899–1900
• Vad ingen ser,, ("What no one sees"), 1885
• I Stockholm, ("In Stockholm"), 1893
• Hemma i Jockmock, ("At home in Jokkmokk"), 1896
• Nordanifrån, ("From the North"),1898
• Guds drömmare, ("Dreamer of God"),1904
• Norrlandshumör, ("Temperament in Norrland"),1910