Mia Liinason - Equality Struggles: Women’s Movements, Neoliberal Markets and State Political Agendas in Scandinavia

In recent times, when European welfare states are undergoing serious economic and social crises and being increasingly exposed to criticism, there has been a noticeable revival of feminist interest in the issues of equality.

Focusing on a signature aspect of Scandinavian welfare states, Equality Struggles explores how gender equality and womens rights are transforming the relationship between Scandinavian states and social actors. Indeed, drawing on in-depth analyses from fieldwork in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, this book examines the largest and most established womens organizations and develops a multi-layered understanding of the entanglements between womens movements, neoliberal markets and state political agendas in Scandinavia as they give rise to feminist fractions and new feminist coalitions.

Contributing to novel understandings of equality struggles within womens organizations, this title will appeal to postgraduate students and scholars interested in fields such as Scandinavian Studies, Gender Studies, Political Science, International Relations and Social Theory.

Mia Liinason is Associate Professor in Gender Studies at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Social Organisation in Contemporary Britain

Zones of Interference between Gender and Diversity

Contexts, Continuities and Change

Womens Movements, Neoliberal Markets and State Political Agendas in Scandinavia

Classical Music Profession

Hegemony, Homosociality, Homophobia and Heteronormativity

Looking Good

Becoming One of the Lads

First published 2018

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

2018 Mia Liinason

The right of Elizabeth Parsons, Pauline Maclaran and Andreas Chatzidakis to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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ISBN: 978-1-138-64498-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-63839-3 (ebk)

This book is the result of critical and careful attention from a variety of people. I am indebted to the womens organizations that allowed me to follow them during their struggles for womens rights. Special thanks go to the members of the organizations who generously shared their time, knowledge and reflections.

During the years of this project I have received critical feedback and support from different feminist scholars: Diana Mulinari, Clare Hemmings, Maja Sager, Sabine Grenz, Maria do Mar Pereira, Biljana Kai, Lena Martinsson, Mats Benner, Erika Alm, Elisabeth Engebretsen, Mara Lugones, Harriet Silius, Giulia Garofalo Geymonat, Naomi Scheman, Nina Lykke, Beatrice Halsaa, and Olga Sasunkevich. They have provided me with intellectual inspiration and critical comments, for which I am deeply grateful. In addition, I have received crucial insights and feedback in a number of academic contexts, and here I want to particularly mention the reading group at the LSEs Gender Institute; the Postcolonial and Postsocialist Dialogues conference at Tema Genus, Linkping University; the Department of Diversity Studies at the University of Gttingen; and the Futures of Feminisms in the Nordic Region network. I would also like to thank the students on the master programme Gendering Practices at the University of Gothenburg for their relevant and energizing discussions on the topic of this book.

The feedback and suggestions by three anonymous reviewers brought significant matters to my attention, without which this book would not have been what it is. I am grateful for the encouraging and professional support of my editor at Routledge, Emily Briggs, and Elena Chiu, editorial assistant at Routledge. I would also like to give my deepest thanks to Gill Gairdner for her careful reading of the manuscript and Ruth Bradley for coordinating the production of the book.

Financial support for this project was provided by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University and Knut och Alice Wallenbergs stiftelse (Knut and Alice Wallenbergs Foundation), under grant no. KAW 2015.0180. I am grateful for the opportunities provided by these institutions to conduct this research and writing.

In the 1930s, the Scandinavian countries experienced falling birth rates, widespread poverty, low-standard housing and high unemployment. Acknowledging this as dysfunctional, unworthy and unhygienic in a modern society, the Norwegian, Danish and Swedish governments embarked upon a project to modernize their societies by establishing inclusive welfare states, later famously depicted as the Scandinavian welfare model. However, due to the use of normalization as an inherent part of its implementation, this has also been described as a deeply ambiguous project (Fahlgren, Johansson and Mulinari 2011). Befolkningskommissionen [the Population Commission] was one of many initiatives taken to shape a more equal society. This particular initiative aimed at improving the living conditions of families with children and increasing the birth rate in Sweden. One important point of departure was the desire to support women in their caring duties, which would be realized by society taking significant responsibility for childcare (Lundqvist and Roman 2010). When the commission published its considerations, the three female members of the commission, the physician Rut Grubb, the politician Ruth Gustafson and the feminist writer and journalist Elin Wgner, added an amendment to the publication, titled The Crisis of Women. In their amendment, they pointed to the divided position of women in relation to the modernizing ambitions. This divided position of women illustrates, they wrote: