The minute her talk is over, Gudrun Schyman, leader of Sweden's Feminist Initiative party, is mobbed on the roof terrace by a crowd running the gamut of leftwing fashion, from dreadlocks, undercuts and stretched ears to 50s-style clothes and beehive hairdos.
Some buy Schyman's book; others seem mainly to want a photograph with her to put on Facebook. The 66-year-old has just given a 90-minute lecture at the flat of one of her supporters in the city of Malmö. For the past year, she has given the same talk at up to four "home parties" daily, fuelled by little more than coffee and larynx-soothing Malva tea.
It has paid off. Feminist Initiative (FI) now stands a real chance of winning seats in parliament after September's election. According to the polling company United Minds, the party hit the 4% threshold in July, but has since fallen to a 2.9% share of the vote. Since January, membership has soared from 1,500 to 18,000, which means FI's activists outnumber those of all but three of Sweden's parties.
"We are the fastest-growing political party, so there's something happening here," Schyman says when I meet her in Malmö as she officially launches her campaign. "For all the young people it's the first time they realise, 'I can be part of society'. There's an enormous creativity."
FI won 32% of the vote in this part of Malmö in the European elections. More than 70% of its voters nationwide were under 25.
Schyman comes across like a fusion of Germaine Greer and Ken Livingstone, dressed in Parisian chic with a maroon dress and a colourful scarf.
"[Schyman] says things in a new way, and you never think about her age," says Sara Thuresson, the musician hosting the party. "It's really changed everything. It's quite cool now in Sweden to be a feminist."
When Schyman and other feminists launched the party, back in 2005, it was dismissed as unnecessary. "We had to have some courage," Schyman remembers. "A lot of people were frustrated when we said Sweden is not a gender-equal country."
Her evidence was the shortfall in women's average salaries compared with men's – at 86%, they have made little progress since 1994, when it was 84%. "If you extend this line, you will come to the year 2138 before it's equal. Who wants to wait?" she asks. "The same thing will happen as when the Green party entered; all the feminists in all the other political parties will have more space for doing what they want to do."
There are signs this is happening. The Liberals are campaigning under the slogan "feminism without socialism".
Recently, Sweden's ruling Moderates accused Schyman of "not living in the real world", pointing to far-left policies such as disarming the military and ending immigration controls.
"If we put some tanks on Gotland or whatever, we are not going to be secure," she says. "It's a big fake. The more weapons you have, the more insecurity."
If the party gets into parliament, the impact will be felt outside Sweden too, she believes. "When people see that this is possible, a lot of other countries will follow for the simple reason that a lot of other countries have the same problems."
Feminist parties are necessary, she says, because traditional parties, most of which launched before women even got the vote, will only ever see gender equality as a side issue. "Politics has been formed by men, and by men's experience of the world. A lot of the political parties have written in the word, but to be a feminist is not only to say 'I'm a feminist'. You have to do something."
She supports the "funny feminism" of British writers such as Caitlin Moran because "all activism is good. It's a reaction to the fact that a lot of people think feminism is very dull: old, ugly women who haven't had a man for many years [she pulls a sour face], hairy arms [she mimes pulling hair out of her armpits] and hating men, no sexuality. It comes from people who don't want tochange."
Schyman is far from dry. She was one of the most popular celebrities on Sweden's version of Strictly Come Dancing in 2010, and the party has the backing of some of Sweden's top pop stars, with Robyn, The Knife, and Nina Persson from the Cardigans all contributing songs to her campaign record. Benny Andersson from Abba is a big donor. "He's a friend. We are in continuous contact," she says. She fell spectacularly off the wagon in 1996, appearing helplessly drunk in front of hundreds of people at a film premiere. She bounced back almost immediately, earning the admiration of many by the frank way she admitted her alcohol problems, despite a relapse on a holiday to Rhodes two years later.
Schyman's charisma is nothing new in Swedish politics. After taking the leadership of Sweden's Left party in 1993, it achieved an as yet unrepeated 12% of the vote. She decided to leave, she says, because the party committee would not let her campaign in 2002 under the slogan "we see the world with women's eyes". The more immediate cause of her resignation was a tax scandal.
The party hopes for protest votes against the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which Schyman calls "the racist party" and which polled a record 11.6% in August. "It's become more OK to have racist opinions, and it's getting closer and closer to something that feels dangerous," Thuresson argues. "And I think the Feminist Initiative is the most opposite, the most against the Swedish Democrats."
That is one of the reasons why Schyman argues that Britain needs a feminist party, too. "I think a party will rise up because of the problems you have in your society, the gender discrimination and racial discrimination," she says. "But also because of Ukip. You can't just sit there; you have to raise your voice, you have to organise."
