ABSTRACT
This chapter argues the need for a more gender-sensitive understanding of public intellectuals. It examines the concept 'public intellectuals' in itself by pointing at its inherent ambiguity, historical situatedness and gendered bias. This discussion will be substantiated empirically by analysing and contextually comparing two of Sweden's most prominent intellectual women of the early twentieth century, Kerstin Hesselgren and Alva Myrdal. In that context, their relations to the historically changing spheres of higher education, social reform and the public will be especially focused upon. In the Swedish context, Kerstin Hesselgren is primarily known as one of the very first women to enter the Swedish Parliament directly after universal suffrage had been introduced in 1921. Although they belonged to two different generations, Alva Myrdal and Kerstin Hesselgren have much in common. Like Hesselgren, Alva Myrdal is extremely well known in the Swedish context. Unlike Hesselgren, however, Myrdal's reputation stretches far beyond the national borders.
