NCCTRW

Please remember to cite NCCTRW as the source. For more information, email ncctrw@towson.edu.

The following paper was presented at the Conference "Gendered Worlds: Gains and Challenges"

Women Studies in Sweden

Introduction

Although Sweden is a country with rather few inhabitants, around eight million, it is impossible to grasp the whole contents of Women´s Studies (WMST) during this decade. The main reason is that the area has expanded rapidly, which can be seen by the number of dissertations, articles in journals, seminars and conferences. Another sign is that WMST, including equality between women and men, has gained a remarkably high interest in the whole of Sweden. Almost daily there are articles in the mass media about the presence or absence of women in business life, in culture, sports, in parliament, and government. Yet another field is the family sphere and equality between the wife and husband as regards child care and housework, which often is regarded as the responsibility of the wife by many Swedes, supported by supposed rational arguments as to her lower salary.

The mass media debate only covers the top of the iceberg of what is going on in research and in daily life. Sweden is a very open country; ideas and currents especially from the Western world are part of the knowledge and development of WMST in Sweden and some researchers are asking whether there is a Nordic Gender Research or not. The aim of this paper is, however, only to contribute to the answer by giving a short description of WMST in Sweden, where it is performed, what kind of topics have been explored, and its financing. I will do this by giving a historical background to the 90ths as well as statistics on dissertations and examples of WMST during the years 1991-2001. Most of the figures and facts are from the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research and from a register about WMST research projects, called Femdok[1]. Some information is automatically reported whereas other kinds of information are dependent on voluntarily submitted information by the researchers. Although the documentation is not complete, it gives a good picture of the state of the art. The other main source consists of two important books that were edited during spring 2002. Both are written by Swedish gender researchers and both are retrospective. One[2] covers the area of women´s organizing and the other is an anthology[3] covering anthropology, psychology, medicine, biology, history and literature. They are used to deepen the mere fragmentary project descriptions that are given in the Femdok documentation.

It should also be noticed that my perspective most certainly is influenced by my profession as a teacher in business administration. The selection is also due to my intention to capture topics that are typical for Sweden in some respect. Another declaration is that WMST studies and Gender studies are treated synonymously in the overview, something that will be commented upon in the conclusion.

WMST Research and Funding

In Sweden almost all research is performed in universities and university colleges and financed by the state. According to professor Thorsten Nybom this is a unique situation since internationally a major part of the qualified research is performed in institutes beyond universities and university colleges.[4] The universities are often given a lump sum which is distributed among the faculties in accordance with certain rules e.g. the number of full professors. Full professors (only 11 % of all full professors are women[5]) and research assistants are allowed to perform research within their employments but they also have other duties such as guiding doctoral students. The latter are financed (employed) by the universities for four years at the most. Starting in 2001 associate and assistant professors have the right to perform research up to 25 % of their duties. A very important part of WMST is performed by doctoral students, and mostly by women.

Centres or Forums for women studies are also financed by the state. They are granted resources for employees and facilities needed for fulfilling their assignment. In case they have courses on the basic level each student who fulfils her/his course generates a fixed sum. The centres will be further explored below. Some other sources open to WMST researches are donations from which grants can be applied for if the applicant matches the criteria. They are very limited in size, both in total amount and the size of the grants.

The other major way of getting funds is to apply to the state counsels. They have newly been reorganized and consist of:

The Swedish Research Counsel (Vetenskapsrådet), under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. It supports basic research of high international quality in all scientific fields. It has three scientific counsels, one for humanities and the social sciences, one for medicine and one for the natural and engineering sciences[6]. Special funds are reserved for eleven different topics; gender research is one of them.

The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation (Riksbankens jubileumsfond). The foundation was created through an endowment from the Bank of Sweden to mark its three-hundredth anniversary in 1968. The foundation is targeted particularly at research which sheds light on social, cultural, political, economic and technical changes as far as the individual is concerned. In 1993 the Swedish Parliament approved the contribution of a further donation, Humanities and Social Sciences Donation. The aims of this donation include support for multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches, the establishment of networks or more permanent forms of cooperation, promotion of postgraduate education and the promotion of mobility among researchers internationally. Especially "the fundamentals of the humanities and social sciences" and "social changes in time and space" are specified for applications[7]. Since the foundation supports major research programmes the competition for funding is very high.

Some counsels are designed for certain areas such as the Counsel of Working Life Research, which has very little for WMST, around 5 millions SEK[8] a year. This year the special fund for WMST is intended to cover the area of women´s health, which naturally excludes the majority of WMST studies. A small organization called SISTER is designed for studies in education and research,[9] and Nutek (Swedish Business Development Agency) engages researchers in different projects. For some years Nutek has supported research about female entrepreneurs and innovators.

More men than women receive funds for their research projects. This fact was the point of departure for two researchers who investigated whether there is a correspondence between granted applications in accordance to the number of applications from women and men respectively. They did their investigation among applications for positions at the universities. The researchers showed that women had a better outcome. Other researchers, however, claim that the reason for this is that women do not apply until they have more merits than asked for, but men do it the other way around. Another approach was taken by Wennerås & Wold (1997). Considering the fact that sexual discrimination is forbidden by law, they made an investigation into granted applications made by females and males. Their findings showed that applications from women were systematically valued inferior to those signed by men. Women had to have more published articles in order to get their applications granted. These findings were indisputable and led to an exchange of several members of the counsel.

The government and connected authorities may occasionally finance investigations performed by researchers. For the sake of this paper an investigation into the distribution of economic power and resources between men and women is of interest. It started in 1995 and the results were presented in several reports during 1997 and 1998 covering the areas of salaries, careers, power in and through organizations, equality in business life and in families etc. The concluding report presents the most important finding and is called "The power is yours .." (Makten är din .. one of the lines in a well known prayer) (SOU 1998:6).

WMST and Gender Related Institutions/Organizations

On 2 September 1998, the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research was inaugurated by former Ministry for Education and Science. The secretariat is based at Göteborg University on the west coast of Sweden and collaborates with the Women´s History Collections, also located there. The secretariat has several important functions: to gain a general overview of gender research in Sweden, to actively distribute research results both within and beyond the universities, to increase awareness of the significance of the gender perspective, and to analyse the status and development opportunities of the gender perspective in all areas of study. Added to this is actively distributing the research results both within and beyond the universities. Information, co-ordination and facilitating communication between gender researchers in Sweden and around the world are among its main responsibilities.

In all the six universities of Sweden and in two university colleges there are centres[10] for WMST. They might be seen as the formalized answer to the demand for equality between the sexes within the universities during the 70ths. Since their beginnings as independent leagues they have developed in different ways and have different kinds of connections to the universities. Some of them form a department of their own and are members of a faculty, others are more loosely coupled. Some give courses on the basic and higher levels, other perform research across boundaries. Four centres share the responsibility of conducting a Research School aimed at producing Ph.D´s in WMST. The description of the Centre for Women's Studies at Stockholm University gives an idea of their function. It is an interdisciplinary institution founded in 1987. The Centre provides undergraduate education in Gender Studies and postgraduate courses and seminars. There are several gender-oriented research projects. An important task of the Centre is to facilitate and promote gender studies and research at the University as a whole. Many students writing their dissertations from a gender perspective are lining up for a place at the centre. Unless stated otherwise, the activities of the centre are carried out in the Swedish language. It provides a home base for foreign researchers and visiting scholars in Stockholm. In the beginning of the 90´s the Centre of Stockholm University offered a pilot course for officers who should attend to matters according to the law of equality. The Centre has successfully developed courses in gender studies covering two years at the basic level. The Centre has even inspired a delegation from a university in Shanghai to develop courses at the basic level at their university!

Other organizations with connections to WMST are women´s movements. One of the earliest league bears the name of Fredrika Bremer, a famous 19th novelist, who has become known for her critique of the prescribed roles for men and women. The organizing of refuges for battered women should also be mentioned. Eduards (2002) has found that during the 90´s women have organized themselves to a larger extent than ever before. However, they do not organize themselves in already existing structures as the political parties on national or local levels, or the unions, but in groups or networks where they can act in accordance with their preferences. The women´s leagues that were established within the political parties have now been mainstreamed within the parties. It is still to be evaluated if the women politicians or so called women issues (child caring etc.) will gain or lose owing to the change.

Historical Review

Before I turn to facts and figures, I will give a short review of the development of WMST in Sweden since it might be seen as a key to understand the situation of today.

The turn of the century from 1800 to 1900 is described as a period of shift of the definition of man and woman in several areas (Wikander 1999). To some extent these shifts might be explained by a departure from agriculture into industrial production. Women’s work in the factories was seen as profitable for the employer, among other reasons because of their lower wages. Industrial production demanded fixed working hours at the working place etc., and agreements between the employer and the employees. Some of the regulations were said to protect women, however they prevented women from well paid jobs such as working overtime or taking on night shifts. To enrol in the suffrage movement was a way of attempting to change these inferior conditions. Women gained national suffrage 1921 and in 1922 the first five women were elected to Parliament (SCB 2000).

The 30s in Sweden followed the same line of emancipation as is described by Friedan (1968). Sweden produced movies with female heroes flying sailplanes or making their careers in business life. In movies and magazines women were described as independent. In reality, however, many women worked as housemaids with long working hours and low pay. In the early 40´s the saga of the housemaids ended since women´s labour was needed in the industries while the men were drafted. The industries also offered better wages and working condition. This shift in labour gave rise to the use of household machinery. New housings with small kitchens were designed since the modern life style was to work on the labour market and to buy industrially pre made food. However, after the war the women had to leave their work at the factories to the returning men. The 50th´s is considered as the decade of the housewife. To have a housewife and a newborn baby when the other children in the marriage had reached school age showed the high living standard of the family. This ideal was not questioned until in the beginning of the 60´s when an essay called The Woman´s Conditional Lliberation (Kvinnans villkorliga frigivning) by Eva Moberg (1962), shed light upon marriage as women´s way of earning their living. Another book called The Shrinked Ideal of a Women (Det förkrympta kvinnoidealet) by Barbro Backberger (1966) scrutinized the more or less outspoken role model for women in novels, popular press and psychological journals. At the same time the shortage of labour in the Swedish industries called for women in the labour force which contributed to a changed view regarding being, or having, a housewife.

The 70´s then became a great contrast to the 60´s. Day care centres for children were being built in the communities although the demand was greater than the supply. Some progressive families and others moved into collectives where men and women shared housework and daily life. Women started networks and groups among which "Group 8" became well known since the participants of the group arranged a lot of events for the sake of women and gained great attention in the media. This together with the shortage of labour in the industries accelerated the rising demand of day care centres for children (Acker 1992, Dahlberg & Åsén 1986, Westerberg 1992). The day care centres are financed by taxes 90 % and 10 % by parents which in turn gave rise to a debate whether day care centres were for the better or the worse to the tax payers (e.g. Holmgren & Nordström 1979). But, as Siv Gustavsson (1982) points out, the idea that childcare is free of charge when performed in private homes is a chimera.

The 80´s started with a law about equality between women and men in working life, claiming the same possibilities for both sexes and prohibition on sex discrimination in recruiting new employees. Later on the government promised to make a major effort on meeting the demand for day care centres; stating that every child should be offered a place at a day care centre in 1991. At the end of the 80´s most communities experimented with new forms of managing and financing the centres. The state monopoly was abandoned.

In the late 80´s a public investigation into power and power distribution in Sweden was presented. A special study was made on the power balance between men and women by Hirdman (1990). People tend to value phenomenon as either male or female wherein the male is regarded as the "norm" against which anything that is not already included in the norm is regarded as odd and diverging. This ongoing process constitutes the gender system, or to put it otherwise, is doing gender.

This short review shows that at the beginning of the 90´s the need for WMST had grown since many questions were looking for answers and many areas were to be explored.

Research During 1991-2001

This section starts with some facts and figures followed by some examples of the contents in different areas. Documentation from the Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research has been the major source. It must be kept in mind, however, that the collection is not complete since it is dependent on the cooperation with the researchers who have to submit data about their on-going research. Data about the dissertations are correct but when categorised by topics or key words there might be overlaps or shortcomings. The section is concluded by a short review of articles from the major journal for WMST, Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift.

As can be seen from the table the number of dissertations almost tripled from 1995 to the end of the period. There are several explanations, one of which is that the children of the 60´s and the 70´s have come into the universities (Sangregorio 1993). Also, of course, the growth of knowledge. The expanding interest in questions about equality in the society as a whole most certainly contributes. One important factor is the establishment of WMST centres in the universities.

A rough and not complete categorization shows that the largest group with 56 dissertations deal with feminism and feminist theory. The next group in size is health, with 39 dissertations. Day care centres are in focus in 16 dissertations. Computer and technology got seven. Out of curiosity, it might be mentioned that there were three dissertations about masculinity, none in or with queer theory, and four studies about women in Africa.

Projects, Initiatied, Ongoing, and/or Concluded During 1991-2001

The Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research from which the data below have been collected has categorized all the announced projects in different categories. They have been slightly modified since some categories have been put together and ordered alphabetically.

Art, Music, and Theatre

One of the projects has the title, "Subject or Object - An investigation about “The Position of Swedish Women Sculptures in the History of Art" which gives a guideline to one of the questions areas. Another project aims to examine the importance that movies have had on the development of Swedish society. Along the same line of the investigation of the influence of models in magazines like Vouge, Vanity Fair etc., and how they create images of women. The same can be said about Theatres and plays i.e. to see how women and men are represented on the stage. Added to this is the fact that one very well known Swedish author, August Strindberg, wrote several plays with women in leading parts, not to mention that he is considered a misogynist.

A project called "The discourse of Gender in the Aesthetics of Dance and Theatre" will concentrate on eye-movements, body language and masquerade as means of making visible how different power- and sex mechanisms have influenced the development.

Education

Sweden started public schools for all children in 1848. At this time the shortage of teachers was great so at the beginning women were welcome to become teachers at all levels. Around the turn of the century this profession was hit by a backlash and women were only considered to be appropriate for the smallest children. This turn has been, and still is, a topic for WMST researchers. Another topic concerning school is about its production and reproduction of sex roles. Many projects aim to change the situation, to challenge girls to take on topics that are male coded in Sweden such as mathematics and physics. One project is to make mathematics gender sensitive e.g. to write mathematical "problems" with examples that do not exclude girls or offend them. Since mathematic is considered to be male rather few women are teachers in mathematic and one project aims at attracting more women by starting a network among women teachers. In general, however, girls score better in school than do boys in the lower levels. An explanation might be given by the project, "Power Resistance and Sex" which is aiming to find out how boys and girls are treated and how they act in order to influence their situation. With the exception of male teachers in mathematics, the majority of all teachers in low and ordinary school are women. Preschools in Sweden (mostly included in the day care centres) also belong under this headline and there are projects to find out the sex role expectations of the professional teachers[11] by studying how they talk to boys and girls respectively.

Family Life, Sexuality, Sex Roles and Equality

The headline is somewhat blurred since it contains projects about e.g. transition of family ideals from Turkey to Sweden, how the roles of the spouses have changed during the latest decades. Woman battering as a marital act and the difficulty to leave the one who hits you are examples of two other projects. Typical Swedish topics are the sexual debate on the 60th´s when contraceptives became available under the parole "The freedom to enjoy" or sharing money, consumption and power in marriages. Many of the projects deal with Swedish official equality policy and what has happened in work and family life.

History and Archaeology

One of the major areas and also one of the broadest one since almost any study will be categorized under the headline above, as long as it concerns a limited period of time up to the middle of the 80´s. Although the description below is too short to give a fair picture, the development of WMST in history follows the same pattern as in gender studies as a whole, i.e., it started with making women visible, "to add women", to show them as actors and to show that their activities were important.

A major line has been to look for changes in the society and to judge whether they were for the benefit of women. The issue of power has also been an important issue and slowly (power) relations between women and men have come into focus. To investigate power as an interaction helps in separating power founded in formal authority versus power and influence based on personal qualifications (Karlsson Sjögren 2002).

Several projects are concerned with women´s struggle for the right to take on employments, with their possibilities and strategies of supporting themselves before industrialism, as teachers both in ordinary school and in private homes, shopkeepers, by serving food etc.

Gender in archaeology? This question touches upon how researchers interpret ancient time by the perceptions of their own time. According to Werbart (2002) an androcentric interpretation in which women are marginalized is what has been transferred to the students so far. Like in history WMST started off and still is concerned with making women visible. The hope for a critical gender perspective is not yet fulfilled but some examples of a new interpretation focus on survival and how children grow to adults. A dissertation with the title "The Amazon and the Hunter, Constructions of Sex/Gender in the North of Sweden" might change the androcentric interpretation.

Law

The emphasis here is about equality in the court; her words or his – and how equality is treated in Swedish law in comparison with EG-law; how motherhood and fatherhood is viewed in the law, as well as what is considered evidence in crimes of sexual violence. Also, how law mirrors and reinforces conditions in the labour market or to be more precise, does the law regard the woman as a mother or as a worker?

Linguistics

Four projects are about strategies, how people seek support, who supports whom etc. in meetings. Video recording is used to capture the utterances, interruptions and body language. Other projects are about boys´ language in the hacker culture and their perceptions of women and about women´s conditions in the computer world.

Literature

WMST studies in literature raised the topic of literature as a male matter. Only male authors were mentioned in literature summaries. Also in literature departments WMST studies started by making women visible and by analysing their writings from a female point of view. Known Swedish women writers (but not always mentioned in the summaries) and their writings have been the topics for study. Many projects are made for the achievement of producing a Swedish Women’s Literary History. One reason for the absence of women is that women were not allowed to study at the universities until the end of the 1900 th century. There were nevertheless strategies of obtaining knowledge in literature before that; intellectual women held literary salons to which they invited authors to read for an audience.

Another line in the studies is about women´s dairies, an accepted form for women´s writing according to the norm in society during the 19th century. To investigate the images of women in women´s writing or to see how girls became women is also done. One of the latter projects was titled "Read or Green," associating at the colour on the covers of the book. The green colour was meant for boys and the red for girls. It was allowed for girls to read "green" books but a boy would never care to read a red one.

Irony (a weapon used by the oppressed) has attracted the interest of some researchers, one is about irony and sex roles in Swedish women’s lyrics. The other looks into the concept irony and how it is used by four Swedish women authors.

Mass Media

What kinds of images of women are presented to the public via mass media? There are projects about television reportage, women in press and television, and how nurses and farmers are described in the media. Another project is about women reporters.

Medicine and Health

The aim is to investigate aspects of gender and gender bias in medical practice, research and education. Hammarström & Johansson (2002) claim that the first feminine wave in the early 70´s partly could be seen as a protest against the ruling regime within medicine and health. A regime that had made natural conditions of the woman´s life cycle, (aging, child caring etc.,) into illnesses. A project called "The Dark Continent: The Woman, Medicine and Fin-de-siécle” deals with this. During the 19th century an intensive questioning of women’s bodies started. There was much focus on differences as regards anatomy, psysiognomy, illnesses and behaviour. When the suffrage movement started medical science was mobilised to confirm women´s biological subordination and unfitness in the public arena with empirical data. According to Hammarström & Johansson, the first protest against this effort were groups consisting of professionals and amateurs who sought to help women regain knowledge in breast-feeding etc. But, biology still has an impact on the interpretation of "woman" and "man". Hamberg (2002) has scrutinized investigations claiming differences between the sexes as regards connections between the brain halves of women. She found that the earlier investigations were interpreted far above their actual findings.

Also the development of specialization, which overlooks the wholeness of treatment has been scrutinised. Project such as "The Health of Women and Their Life Conditions" which studies the connection between women’s life situation and their absence due to illness and bad health. "Factors in Paid and Unpaid Work" challenges the idea of specialization as the ideal. This project looks into the importance of sex integration in working life, and exposure of sexual harassment, violence and sexual abuses. The development of computer technology in medicine has given rise to a project on what happens to tacit knowledge when technical devices replace the senses.

Gender and caring have gained interest during the latest decades. One project deals with midwives´ strategies. The story of the midwives follows the description outlined above, what was considered as a natural thing that took place in the homes giving birth was transformed into hospitalising with male doctors. Now, midwifes perform their profession at the hospitals but the struggle is going on, now with focus on higher salaries. They ought to be at least as high as those of the engineers at the hospitals. The Swedish authority for equality in working life, JÄMO, has brought a case about this to trial.

Philosophy and Research about Research

Very few women have made their dissertations at departments of philosophy before 1990. Not until 2001 did the first woman defend her dissertation at Stockholm University[12]. From autumn 1997 to autumn 2000 seven dissertations were defended at all universities in Sweden[13]. Among the nine projects mentioned in the database within this topic only one woman actually works at the department of philosophy. The title of her project is "Common Sense Has no Sex"?

Politics and Society

What happens when women are in decision making positions in the community? What kind of decisions do they make and what do they think about the culture in the community board? The title "From Brotherhood to Sisterhood" is along this line, how women in the Social Democrat Party struggled to be accepted in politics. Another project points to the fact that 70 years of fighting for equality has been accepted in government, which now consists of as many men as women. A male researcher well known for his critical view of feminism has started two projects. One is "The Institutions of the Welfare State From a Gender/Sex Perspective" and the other, "The Fall of the Strong State". The same professor has criticized a dissertation, "Politics and the Woman’s Body". The dissertation is about the creation of the uniform for a woman police officer. The uniform should appear strict but not too masculine, which is formulated in opposites as: should she wear a hat or a cap, should the jacket have breast pockets or just flaps, should she wear trousers or a skirt?

In Sweden, men also have parental leave, but still rather few are using it. Is it a matter of economy, tradition or attitudes by the employees? Swedes born in the 40´s were the first teenagers, the first generation who combined work and children and they are many and still influence important questions in the society. A project aims at ascertaining how this generation perceives the youth of today and also how the youth perceives the ideals of their parents.

As was mentioned earlier the government ordered a research evaluation about distribution of power and resources among women and men (SOU 1998:6). Although the concluding report bears the title "The Power is Your´s" the findings show that a gap between men and women in these aspects still persist.

Psychology and Psychiatry

Researchers within psychology with a gender perspective have often been concerned with differences between men and women. The feminist critic started with making women visible. They were only studied as research objects when the investigation was about women, so to study and to build theories around women´s life situation was a target. Current projects are about girls in their teens, identity and identity construction, constructions of normality, and perceptions that children have about the concept family.

Religion

Some of the projects deal with the influence of the Lutheran church in the construction of gender. What does Luther mean for the status of the woman in work and family, or how do women and men read the bible? Another approach is War and Sex: A Study in Feminist Ethics. The aim of the dissertation is to study the connection between militarism and ethical theories that justify military violence. Traditional ethical and philosophical theories are scrutinized from a feminist perspective. The goal is to question traditional theories that accept military violence and the coupling between sex and violence.

Social Anthropology and Ethnology

Feminist Anthropology started in the 70´s by collecting data about women´s conditions in order to challenge established traditions and build new hypotheses about the oppression of women. Ongoing research showed that oppression of women is not one phenomenon but several. Gender research became accepted among most anthropological institutions (Thurén 2002). During the 90s cultural negotiations have been the focus, ongoing processes when communicating with each other personally, or the impact of mass media, symbols and rites.

A line of research which also is found under the headline Politics is about the changed male role. "Man Becomes Father" is a project about parenthood and masculinity in transition. Another project is about masculinity and modernity in timber work in the North of Sweden.

Some projects are performed in Africa, such as a study about poverty, sexuality and fertility. Another project concerns relations between the sexes and society in Sweden and USA.

Sport and Leisure Time

This topic has only a few researchers, a guess might be that men in sports are much more visible in mass media than women. This will be scrutinized in a project investigating how two daily newspapers have reported about Swedish female athletes.

Technique, Science and Mathematic

Some of the projects are about women and technology, some about how to make visible the fact that women have worked in technology as practitioners and innovators for a long time. Some projects seek to make the field more interesting to women, or to understand how women make use of a technique.

Women's Movement

One project investigates the expanding networking among women. The point of departure is the growth of women’s groups and women’s networking during the latest decades. From a certain perspective you may see that there are at least two meanings partly coupled. The groups and the networking serve as a base for affinity, which makes it possible for both individual growth and for differentiating from the group. In the post modern society patriarchal values still are dominant why many women turn to other women for solidarity parallel with their step into the business world.

The women’s movement in Sweden in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s was about self-empowerment. Eduards (2002) in her review of the research on women´s organizing and feminist theory, revisits some cases of women´s organizing that met with mass media attention. She shows that when women tried to get their voices heard through such traditional channels as the political parties in their communities they were ignored. Also did their male colleagues refuse to take on their responsibility for male norms and construction of masculinity. In one case women from different political parties co-operated for a common cause. They got attention, not for the issue, but for the way it was brought up and because it broke the rules. Eduards´ point of departure is that power – to be empowered –has to do with the possibility to act, to be an actor. "It implies space, freedom of choice, the right of self-determination, a new and bigger arena to act on, it implies crossing borders and a possibility to influence the political agenda" (Eduards 2002:16 my translation). When women worked across the border lines of their political parties they empowered themselves; they did exactly what upholders of the established order will prevent, namely to act with sex as a political category, to organize and do politics in new arenas, close to the power. By doing so they violate traditional perceptions about what "real" women should attend to. They create themselves as actors, and expand their territory.

Work and Economy

The area includes topics of various kinds. Some examples are masculinity within the police force and women´s career patterns within care for elderly people, as well as gender and unions in an African textile industry. Eleven dissertations used a gender perspective on companies and hierarchies and seven were concerned with computers and technology. Day Care Centres both as a phenomenon per se, or with focus on the personnel and their view upon their work are also represented.

Journal for WMST in Sweden, KVT, 1991-2001

In the 80´s a Swedish journal for WMST was founded, called Kvinnovetenskaplig tidskrift (KVT) with four issues per year. The journal both mirrors the gender debate, as well as initiates it, since many Swedish WMST-researchers present their studies in the journal. Each issue deals with a certain theme, please see encl. 1. By reading the titles for the period 1991-2001 it ought to be possible to find some indications of a Nordic gender research but as far as I have found, they mirror the projects presented above. The journal covers a broad area of Swedish gender research.

Conclusion

The overview resembles a broken mirror with lots of fragments showing parts of a wholeness that cannot be captured so my ambition to contribute to the answer of the question whether there is a Nordic Gender research has given a modest outcome. It might partly be due to my selection of examples from initiated, ongoing or concluded projects during 1991 – 2001. From the matrix presented earlier we can see that History and Politics have leading positions. In those disciplines WMST studies started early and have attracted students to carry on the work. The area work and economy has the highest number of projects but a shorter history; the first attempt to trace women as entrepreneurs was done during the 80´s (Sundin & Holmquist 1989) and in 1992 the first dissertation about women’s careers in typical male industry was defended (Wahl 1992). An important part in all this is the establishment of Centres for WMST. They offer opportunities for research and study to doctoral students, and for students on the basic level who aim at an academic degree in WMST studies or to use a gender perspective in their topics. The efforts done by the pioneers in making WMST studies legitimate at the universities and their contribution to the science have been crucial.

As a concluding remark I want to mention that even if many WMST researchers outside the WMST centres may feel that their research is not yet in the mainstream of their own discipline, the knowledge about WMST and gender research has grown, and slowly it will be ignorant not to be aware of the contents of knowledge within this expanding field. A wish for the future is that this knowledge will be a bridge to equal opportunities in everyday life.

References

Backberger, Barbro (1966). Det förkrympta kvinnoidealet. (The shrinked ideal of a woman) Stockholm: Bonniers

Dahlberg, Gunilla & Åsén, Gunnar (1986). Perspektiv på förskolan. (Perspective on Pre-school) Stockholm: Högskolan för Lärarutbildning. Report No. 2

Femdok (2001). Databas för kvinno-, genus- och jämställdhetsforskning i Sverige. (Data base for WMST, Gender and Research about Equality) Kvinnohistoriska samlingarna och Nationella sekretariatet för genusforskning.

Friedan, Betty (1968). Den feminina mystiken. (The feminine mystique) Stockholm: Pan/Norstedt

Gustavsson, Siv (1982) En diskussion om daghemmets samhällsekonomiska kostnader in Ekonomisk Debatt 1981-1982 (A discussion about day care centres and their economic consequences for the society).

Hamberg, Katarina (2992). "Vi är ju olika – det går inte att komma ifrån": (We are different – we cannot deny that..) om biologins tolkningsföreträde i medicinen in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Hammarström, Anne & Johansson, Eva (2002) Genusvetenskapens utveckling inom medicinen (The development of Gender in medicin) in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Kalman, Hildur (2002). Kön, filosofi, feminism, etc. (Sex, philosophy, feminism, etc.) in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Karlsson Sjögren, Åsa (2002). Historia, kvinnohistoria, genushistoria (History, women history, gender history) in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Magnusson, Eva (2002). Psykologi och kön/genus – en förälskelse med förhinder? (Psychology and sex/gender) in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Moberg, Eva (1962). Kvinnans villkorliga frigivning (Woman´s conditional liberation) in Kvinnor och människor (Women and Human Beings). Stockholm: Bonniers

Munck, Kerstin (2002). Genusforskningens utveckling: litteraturvetenskap (The Development of Gender Researchin) in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Sangregorio, Inga Lisa (1993) "Befrielsen är nära…": Om den radiakala kvinnorörelsen under 1970-talet och framåt (The Liberation is close .. about the radical woman movement during 1970th´s and forward) in Den osynliga historien: kvinnornas historia, Stockholm: Forskningsrådsnämnen

SOU 1998:6, Ty makten är din .. (The power is yours ..). A public investigation about distribution of economic power and economic resources between women and men.

Sundin, Elisabeth & Holmquist, Carin (1989). Kvinnor som företagare: osynlighet, mångfald, anpassning. (Women as entrepreneurs: invisibility, plurality and adaptation). Malmö: Liber

Wahl, Anna (1992). Könsstrukturer i organisationer. (Sex structures in Organizations). Stockholm: EFI

Wennerås, Christine & Wold, Agnes (1997). "Nepotism and sexism in peer-reviews", in Nature 387:341-343.

Werbart, Bozena (2002). Det bekönade förflutna – genusforskningens utveckling inom arkeologi (The gendered past – the development of Gender Research in Archeology) in Genusvägar (red.) Britt-Marie Thurén. Malmö: Liber

Westerberg, Lillemor (1992). Föreställningar på arenan. (Concepts at Stage) Stockholm: Stockholms universitet

Wikander, Ulla (1999). Kvinnoarbete i Europa 1789-1950. (Women´s work in Europe 1789 – 1950). Stockholm: Atlas Akademi

[1] www.genus.gu.se and Femdok, 2001

[2] Eduards, 2002

[3] Thurén, 2002

[4] Universitetsläraren 5/2002

[5] Facts and figures Women and men in Sweden, SCB 2000

[6] www.vr.se/english/index.asp, 27th March, 2002

[7] www.rj.se/en-presentation.asp, 27th March 2002

[8] Ten SEK is about 1 US$

[9] Universitetsläraren 1/2002

[10] Information from Swedish Secretariat for Gender Research

[11] The great majority of the pree-school teachers have got their training in universities.

[12] In order to fulfil her dissertation she spent a lot of time at the Centre for Women Studies at Stockholm university

[13] SU-nytt 1/2002

NCCTRW Working Papers Series

Table of Contents

Women Studies in Sweden

Introduction