Last Friday was visited Carina Bergfeldt by the party fixer Michael Bindefeld and his husband Nicklas Sigurdsson.
Bindefeld may not need any further introduction, but in Carina’s talk show viewers are treated to a montage that shows Sweden’s most famous party fixer “Bindan’s” life and career in quick clips.
Bubbling Champagne, red carpets are rolled out, limousines, kisses on the cheek, “First class” included Jack Harlow chewing in the background. There is Dr. Alban. Everything is interspersed with cozy family photos of Micke, his husband Nicklas and the couple’s son Simeon.
Simeon came about through surrogacy in the United States. Consistently throughout the interview with Bergfeldt, Bindefeld calls the surrogate “the girl”. Already there the shivers begin.
The girl.
“An established business”, Nicklas Sigurdsson calls it all, who says it is a “discussed topic”.
– It is a controversial topic, says Carina Bergfeldt.
Controversial topic? How anyone can call trafficking in a woman’s body and womb a controversial topic is beyond me.
How you can be content to call it a “controversial topic” when you are also a woman and a mother is even more strange.
Are trafficking, organ trading and the purchase of sex also controversial topics? WHAT IS GOING ON?
Other guests in Carina Bergfeldt this evening are Tina Nordström and the artist Molly Hammer. They sit still and don’t say a word. No one comments on the modern slave trade.
The fact that no one speaks up makes me sick. No one pulls off the mosquito, gets up and leaves. Everyone smiles. Nods. Laughs. No weirdness. Business as usual.
– In a surrogate motherhood, it is then an egg donor, a sperm, or several, haha. And the girl we’re talking about, who’s carrying the baby, it’s not her biological child. But she is the womb, into which you rent yourself, says Micael Bindefeld.
Carina Bergfeldt, Micael Bindefeld and Mat-Tina laugh.
Rent a womb. Like it was a Shurgard warehouse where you set up an old armchair.
Misogyny is so deeply rooted that no one reacts. Not Carina, not Tina, not Molly. Apparently none in production either.
Bindefeld and his husband then talk about the genetic wish list they went after. There’s a lot to write about here, thoughts turn to Germany on…well, you get the idea. (But I don’t think my responsible publisher will be too happy if I write exactly what I’m thinking here.)
Everyone laughs.
Carina opens her mouth. Now she will ask a question. I think that maybe she will ask a critical question?
– Was it important that she had a ball sense?, Carina Bergfeldt asks the couple about their genetic wish list for Simeon’s mother.
Everyone laughs so hard they squint. Molly Hammar makes a joke.
Carina asks another question.
What was important, what did they want?
More talk about the long genetic wish list that Bindefeld and the husband had for the mother.
Then Carina changes the topic just like that. She says that she was at Bindefeld’s son’s 6th birthday party and that it was noticed that one of the fathers was a party fixer.
Bindefeld and her husband talk about a party they arranged for one of their cats’ birthday. Everyone laughs. More talk about parties. More laughter.
Then it’s over.
In Carina Bergfeldt’s comment field on Instagram, the viewers rage. Many people wonder why human trafficking is dealt with in the program without a single critical question.
A selection of the reactions on Instagram right now:
“FIVE adults and an entire production. And NO ONE reacted. Completely incomprehensible.”
“Wonderfully well-capitalized gang who can buy women’s bodies and children”
“This is where it stopped for me. To sit and rant about buying another person’s body. No damn it, I started shaking and had to leave the TV.”
“Disgusting normalization of child trafficking and surrogacy exploitation..”
“Sheer rama Handmaid’s Tale!!!!!! CRAZY!”
“Conversation about child and women trafficking in prime time. Without a critical question! Fy”
Carina has not replied to any comments yet. Bindefeld cleanly cleans up his comments section, but in a reply on Instagram he writes to a follower that it was “very strange” that he called her the girl.
This is a huge failure of Carina Bergfeldt and SVT. The fact that Micke Bindefeld and his husband buy women’s bodies must stand for them. It is not Carina Bergfeldt’s responsibility.
But as a presenter in a public service programme, she has a responsibility to ask a single critical question. She doesn’t. Instead, she sits flaming and laughing about human trafficking in prime time.
I wonder what kind of illiterate lazy worms at SVT have let this through. I wonder what Carina Bergfeldt thought, if she even thought?
Clara Berglund at Sweden’s women’s organizations runs the network “Feministic no to surrogacy”. To ETC she said this weekend that she plans to report the feature to the Review Board for one-sidedness.
I hope more people follow suit and report the feature, and I hope Carina Bergfeldt does the only right thing and gives the viewers an explanation and an apology as to how it could go so wrong.
