Response to Sven Hellroth’s review of Walter A. Jackson’s Alva and Gunnar Myrdal in Sweden and America.

This article responds to Sven Hellroth’s review of Walter A. Jackson’s book *Alva and Gunnar Myrdal in Sweden and America: Unsparing Honesty*, clarifying key contributions the review overlooked. The book, based on previously unknown primary sources and new interpretations of the Myrdals’ correspondence, challenges prior characterizations of their relationship and highlights their commitment to “unsparing honesty” amid personal and mental health struggles. Central to the book is the Myrdals’ development of a dialectical model of patriarchy that integrates race and gender, contrasting with earlier singular gender system theories, and marking a significant contribution to the history of intersectional feminist thought. The Myrdals’ work linked racial and gender inequalities in ways that influenced both Swedish social policy and transnational feminist theory.