First published 2001 by Dartmouth Publishing Company and Ashgate Publishing
Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright Kevt Nousiainen, sa Gunnarsson, Karin Lundstrm and Johanna Niemi-Kiesilinen 2001
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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 2001090249
ISBN 13: 978-0-8153-7651-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-1-315-19365-6 (ebk)
Ulrika Andersson , LLM, Researcher, University of Lund. She is preparing a doctoral thesis on the legal treatment of sexual offences. E-mail;
Lisbet Christoffersen , LLM & PhD, Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Institute of Social Sciences, Roskilde University, Denmark. In 1998, she defended her thesis on Danish ecclesiastical law. She has published on law and religion, on social security law in the EU and on the development of the Rechtsstaat and the Welfare State. Email:
Susanne Fransson , LLD, University of Lund, Lecturer in Labour Law at the School of Economics and Commercial Law in Gothenburg. Her doctoral thesis (2001) is on wage discrimination. E-mail:
sa Gunnarsson , LLD, Senior Lecturer in Tax Law at Ume University. She is leading a research project on the co-ordination of tax law and social law. E-mail:
Kirsten Ketscher , Professor of Social Welfare Law and Social Security Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She is a part-time Professor at the Department of Women's Law at the University of Oslo. E-mail:
Karin Lundstrm , LLD, Lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Lund. Her thesis is entitled "Equality Between Women and Men in EU Law: A Feminist Analysis". E-mail:
Ruth Nielsen , Professor of Law at the Law Department, Copenhagen Business School. Her research interests are labour law, EU law, contract law and legal theory. E-mail:
Johanna Niemi-Kiesilinen , LLD, Acting Professor in Law, University of Helsinki. She has written extensively on bankruptcy law. Currently, she is leading a research project entitled Violence in the Shadow of Equality: Hidden Gender in Legal Discourse. E-mail:
Kevt Nousiainen , Professor of Women's Law and Legal Theory at the University of Helsinki and Professor of Comparative Law and Legal Theory at the University of Turku. Her research is concerned with legal theory and gender studies in law. E-mail:
Anu Pylkknen , LLD, Docent of Legal History, University of Helsinki. Her research interests are the legal status of Finnish women in the early modern period and the history of Finnish matrimonial legislation from a comparative Nordic perspective. E-mail:
Minna Ruuskanen , LLM, Researcher, University of Helsinki. She is preparing a doctoral thesis on self-defence claims in cases where a woman has killed her partner. Formerly, she has worked as a public defender in Northern Finland. E-mail:
Eva-Maria Svensson , LLD, Senior Lecturer, University of Gteborg. She has published articles in legal philosophy, gender theory and public law in addition to a doctoral thesis on legal philosophy and gender theory. E-mail:
Lotta Wendel , LLM, Researcher, University of Lund, Sweden. She has published articles on social law, medical law and current feminist issues. She is currently completing her doctoral thesis on the withdrawal of the licences of nurses and doctors. E-mail:
Advanced gender equality and faith in state-regulated social welfare are two hallmarks of the Nordic countries. In a global ranking which takes into account gender in the distribution of welfare, the Nordic countries tend to top the list. While Nordic equality is a well-known concept, detailed knowledge of the gender system in the Nordic countries is mainly available in the Nordic languages only. Moreover, analytical research about the legal structures underpinning gender equality is scarce. The relationship between law and gender equality stands in need of a critical study. With this book we attempt to fill the gap.
The book is a result of a network of Nordic legal scholars, assembled during the years 1997-1999 by Kevt Nousiainen and Anu Pylkknen at the University of Helsinki. Both established scholars and younger researchers participated in our regular meetings during those three years of networking. This book is a result of this collaboration. The group has been truly intra-Nordic, including researchers from all five Nordic countries, even though authors from only three of the countries take part in this book. The networking increased our consciousness of the many national differences among us, but also of a certain shared "Nordic" quality in our legal and feminist reasoning. This book took shape in the network meetings held in Srmarka in Norway in 1998 and among the lava fields of Iceland in 1999. We warmly thank our Icelandic and Norwegian colleagues, Brynhildur Flvenz, Anne Helium, Sigfridur Stefnsdottir and Elisabeth Vigerust both for their part in the lively discussions and for their provision of the inspirational settings. We would also like to thank our British colleagues, Catherine Barnard, Joanne Conaghan, Clare McGlynn and Sally Sheldon for their encouragement and critical comments of the papers which were originally presented in Iceland.
Thanks are also due for the financial contributions that made this book possible. The network was financed by a generous contribution from one of our most esteemed co-Nordic organisations, the Nordic Academy of Advanced Study (Norfa). We also received financial support for the editing of this book from Svenska Juristtidningen, a Swedish law journal and Letter-stedska Freningens Stiftelse, a Swedish fund.
Several people have helped us to avoid the pitfalls of the English language. While we would like to thank them all, Linda Augustine deserves our special thanks for her tireless vigilance in helping us with the intricacies of editorial work in English and Taina Hakkarainen for her dedicated editorial assistance.
