Malin Rönnblom

Critical Studies of Nordic Discourses on Gender and Gender Equality

Within the Nordic ‘‘paradise for women’’ (Fougner & Asp-Larsen 1994) there have for decades appeared critical feminist analyses of gender equality, growing in intensity since the 1990s. Today numerous critics point out the discursive and/or ideological (in the Gramscian sense) nature and deployment of Nordic gender equality (cf. NORA 2/2002). This Special Issue of NORA on Critical studies of Nordic discourses on gender and gender equality offers examples of current feminist scholarly thinking on how Nordic gender and gender equality are constructed. A ‘‘passion for equality’’ is often pointed out as a special marker of Nordic societies (Graubard 1986; Verba et al. 1987; Inglehart & Norris 2003). Today this passion also encompasses gender equality. It is hard to find anybody, let alone a politician, who would oppose it. However, this consensus about the value of gender equality becomes problematic when gender equality—as a political goal or a general behavioural norm—is put into practice. The gap between rhetorics and practice, political goals and societal reality, is one of the major topics of research among Nordic feminist scholars. One major approach to the gap emphasizes the constructed and productive nature of Nordic gender equality. It is seen as a form of discourse which in itself constitutes certain types of subjectivities. Nordic scholars are thus increasingly conceptualizing gender equality as made, as a constructed category filled with differing meanings depending on context. Such research has potentials to critically examine and question the premises of social and theoretical knowledge concerning gender equality (Holli 2002; 2003:26). The Nordic countries provide a fruitful arena for exploring gender equality from such critical perspectives: gender equality discourses proliferate and are loaded with many, often conflicting, meanings (e.g. Holli 1997; Magnusson 2000; Raevaara 2005; Rönnblom 2002). In the five Nordic countries, gender equality discourses include similar as well as differing elements, an observation that invites interrogation on several issues. These include, for example, context-bound versus universal

Letting Women in? Gender Mainstreaming in Regional Policies

Gender mainstreaming has over the last ten years become the dominant strategy of integrating gender issues in public policy. This article presents regional policy as a broad and increasingly important policy field to study, and analyses gender mainstreaming in this policy field in the Norwegian and the Swedish contexts. How do problem representations surrounding “gender equality” and “gender mainstreaming” produce meanings of gender as well as construct possibilities for change? The article shows that, despite some differences between the two countries, gender mainstreaming in regional policy can to a large extent be read as meaning “women”. Women are in this context given a narrow subject position and are constructed as lacking what it takes to produce sustainable regional growth. The concluding discussion highlights the relations between the implementation of gender mainstreaming and neo‐liberal political trends.

Feminist Discursive Institutionalism—A Poststructural Alternative

This paper joins the ongoing conversation about the desirability, or undesirability, of feminists becoming “new institutionalists”, which is linked to broader concerns about feminists seeking legitimacy as political “scientists”. With “feminist discursive institutionalism” as exemplar, it introduces the argument that paradigms, and hence methodologies, matter politically because they create different realities. To illustrate this proposition it examines the political implications of the different meanings of discourse, and related concepts of power, ideas, and “agency”/subjectivity, in Habermasian-influenced discursive institutionalism and in Foucauldian-inspired poststructuralist analysis. A key issue, it contends, is the extent to which institutions (and other political categories) are conceptualized as discrete entities or as more open-ended “assemblages”. This analysis, we suggest, solicits feminist researchers to reflect on the political implications of their theoretical investments.

Afraid and restricted vs bold and equal: Women’s fear of violence and gender equality discourses in Sweden

This study analyses the responses and reactions among women in Umeå during the period of threat from the Haga Man: a serial rapist operating between 1998 and 2006, and highlights how women in this new situation handled feelings of vulnerability and fear of violence in public space. The article analyses the ways women positioned themselves in their narratives and how this could be understood in terms of how they negotiated spaces for agency within a context where public space has been represented as safe and gender-equal. Women’s fear of violence is discussed in relation to Swedish gender equality discourses and contextual constructions of femininity. The research is based on empirical data collected through in-depth interviews with women in Umeå. The results show the difficulties of claiming the official position of a gender-equal femininity. The informants’ ambivalence, and partly anger, in relation to a femininity they wanted but could not have also created an opportunity for critique of women’s position in society and thus a challenge to a presumed gender equality that stands in the way of addressing issues of gendered power relations.

Tracking Down Politics and Power in Neo-liberal Spciety

The present political paradigm is intricate and permeates many areas of both public and private spheres. Depoliticization has replaced political debate; not only is the public sector being privatized but also the individual’s societal position as well as collective acts of both compliance and resistance. It is a difficult task for researchers both to grasp and study these processes, and within feminist research the responses to what Wendy Brown calls “the expanding hegemony of technical reason” vary (Brown 1995: 33). In this special issue on neo-liberalism and tolerance, we hope to be able to contribute to one such response. Recognizing the differences between liberalism and neo-liberalism, as well as the role of neo-conservatism, is today crucial for a nuanced and critical study of politics and its implications. Within the Nordic countries, many researchers are unaccustomed to relating to these aspects, having formed a view of the Third Way as consisting of a socialist and liberal compromise, excluding the “extreme” variants of not only left-wing revolutionaries but also rightwing conservatives and neo-liberal Thatcherites from the legitimate political discourse. However, with the advent of New Public Management, a very specific form of governmentality was able to expand and penetrate ever further into the Nordic welfare state. Today, Sweden is the most privatized country in the world (see, e.g., www.privatizationbarometer.com), and all governmental authorities are audited in new ways and with increased frequency. At the same time, this development does not contradict the passing of liberal laws assigning rights to women and marginalized minorities. Social movements in the form of identity politics have been successful in claiming inclusion through legal reforms. Concurrently, extreme right-wing and racist parties are represented in all the Nordic parliaments which, in line with Chantal Mouffe’s discussion on the distinction between politics and the political, could be seen as an effect of the lack of articulation of conflict in the contemporary political establishment. Since political consensus has a long tradition in the Nordic countries, it could be argued that this depoliticization was easily naturalized and turned into an essential part of a national identity. The development of governmentality is, according to Foucault, always subtle, and in the case of the Nordic countries it has perhaps been made even more subtle because of this national self-image where concepts such as democracy, equal rights, and tolerance have been made important parts of a neo-liberal discourse. As pointed out by Hanne Marlene Dahl in this issue’s Taking Turns contribution, “Neo-liberalism Meets the Nordic Welfare State—Gaps and Silences”, although trends of depoliticization and audit culture are changing the conditions for both feminist political analysis and political change in a profound way, a process that has been on-going for at least 20 years, if not more, feminist research in this field is still

Constructions of innovation and gender (equality) in Swedish universities

Purpose – This paper utilizes the concept of innovation as a form of methodological starting-point in order to analyse the gendered meanings of marketization in Swedish universities. The purpose of the paper is to scrutinize how the concept of innovation is produced in Swedish universities, and how these versions of innovation are gendered and related to different understandings of gender equality. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis departs from a critical perspective to studies of gender equality and is anchored in a critical policy analysis approach – the “whats the problem represented to be? Approach” developed by Bacchi. This approach is used in the analysis of interviews with top-level leaders at two Swedish universities and how they perceive innovation. The results are related to a governmentality framework in order to explain the gendered innovation discourse in academia. Findings – One of the main results is that innovation is represented in a broad way when discussed at a more abstract l...

‘I don’t think we’ll ever be finished with this’: Fear and safety in policy and practice:

In planning contexts, safety is often discussed from a women’s perspective. An ideal site for exploring some of the key issues is Umeå, a medium-sized town in northern Sweden. Here, attention to women’s fear of violence greatly increased at the turn of the century, when a single repeat offender known as the ‘Haga Man’ assaulted several women in the city. People’s (especially women’s) fear of violence came to be seriously recognised, discussed and taken into consideration in the city’s planning. The present research is based on an analysis of empirical data collected in 2008, through interviews with people who in various ways work to increase safety in Umeå. The paper addresses how the informants define the problem of fear of violence in public space and the strategies they employ to address it, what could be described as the analytical-practice paradox, as the results show the difficulties of integrating gender-aware planning into planning practice.

Nordic Terror Is Not Exceptional

We devote this first issue of NORA in 2012 to Norway, and to rethinking Nordicness through the atrocities committed in Oslo and on the island of Utøya. Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Norwegian social democracy and leftist youth, NORA received an emphatic letter from a pioneer of feminist science studies, Professor Hillary Rose. She expressed her condolences to her sisters in the North after the attacks in Norway and also encouraged us to use NORA as a platform for analysis and discussion of these awful events in a wider context. We are very grateful for her suggestion because as researchers we have an obligation to engage in political debates and to continue to insist on the need for feminist analysis of the world—in order both to understand and to change it. In this issue of NORA we have invited three scholars to give their analysis of terrorism in the aftermath of the tragic events in Norway this summer. In the first contribution, “Anti-feminism and Misogyny in Breivik’s ‘Manifesto’”, Professor Stephen J. Walton of Volda University College carries out an in-depth analysis of the so-called manifesto that Breivik put together, showing in detail—for the first time— how anti-feminism underpins every level of his arguments. This is an upsetting reading and also very important as Walton shows that a gender analysis brings forward a quite different picture of Breivik’s aims and driving forces from those previously articulated. The second text, “Violence, Racism, and the Political Arena: A Scandinavian Dilemma”, is written by Professor Diana Mulinari of Lund University and Professor Anders Neergaard of Linköping University. They focus on media representations of the terror attacks. Importantly, Mulinari and Neergaard place these events in the context of a resurgence of extreme right-wing and racist movements and political parties in Scandinavia, building on the authors’ research project on women and migrants in a culturally racist party: the Sweden Democrats. Offering an analysis of various forms of racism prevalent in Scandinavia today, they conclude that, whilst it was a unique person who carried out the massacres in Norway, it happened within a context in which racism is an integral part of Scandinavian society. Although these two texts specifically address the terror attack in Norway, we believe it is important not to treat this event in isolation. What happened in Norway this summer could—and in a way should—be regarded as an exceptional event, but these texts and other feminist analyses demonstrate how so-called single terror attacks must be seen in a broader context where homophobia, racism, and sexism are at the centre of analysis. Thus, there is a need both to situate the terror attack in a Nordic setting where ambitions of gender equality and a strong welfare state still to

Editorial : Getting into the Habit

In this issue of NORA we present three original articles on three diverse topics by authors from three different countries. The first article in this issue concerns popular therapeutic culture, suc ...

Care to Compare

The third issue of NORA 2010 provides ample opportunities for feminist and gender researchers to communicate and revise ingrained ideas about gender equality, violence, and care work in welfare states. Who cares?—And for whom? In this issue, we take care to compare. For instance, how are issues on care and health constructed, and what are the gendered implications of these constructions? How do care discourses and policies in different welfare states compare to each other? What happens when care work enters the public domain? How do we define work and workers in the private sphere? Should work-life policy demand full-health capacity of women throughout pregnancy? These are some of the questions highlighted in this issue of NORA. The so-called reproductive sphere has always been of great interest in feminist research—not least because the traditional division between men and women has often also implied a division between the public and the private, between the production and reproduction, placing women on the reproductive side. In contemporary feminist research, issues that were earlier addressed in terms like “women-friendly” or “women’s experiences” are now addressed in new ways, often critically scrutinizing previous approaches. In the first article, “An Old Map of State Feminism and an Insufficient Recognition of Care”, Hanne Marlene Dahl challenges Helga Hernes’ argument on the women-friendly state and shows that this is in need of revision in order to suit the changing context of care and the changes in the state that have taken place as part of the introduction of new public management. Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s work on the need for recognition, Dahl shows that the misrecognition of care and care-giving workers/care professionals is still taking place and argues that neither making care a state responsibility nor professionalization of care work is sufficient to solve the problem of recognition. In the article, Dahl argues for the need to foster additional strategies, such as caring for the carer and degendering care, in order to make recognition of care work possible. In the second article, “‘A Defeat not to Be Ultra-Fit’: Expectations and Experiences Related to Pregnancy and Employment in Contemporary Norway” by Eva Haukeland Fredriksen, Janet Harris, Karen Marie Moland, and Johanne Sundby, the focus on care, or in this case more specifically, health at work for the pregnant body, is shifted from the level of health policy to its effect on embodied women. In fact, a strong discourse of gender sameness, aiming to amend the pathologizing stigma around “natural” processes of the body (“pregnancy is not a disease”), might not have feminist consequences. More precisely, health policy discourse on pregnancy is studied here through a focus on how pregnant women with pelvic girdle pain (a common feature of many pregnancies) handle the expectation and pressure to stay fit and capable of work throughout pregnancy. The findings