Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gro Hagemann
To cite this article: Gro Hagemann (2002) Citizenship and social order: gender politics in
twentieth-century Norway and Sweden, Women's History Review, 11:3, 417-429
GRO HAGEMANN
University of Oslo, Norway
while their position outside the market economy is either not recognised or is
undervalued. These dilemmas are a feature of all industrialised democracies.
Nonetheless, the way in which they have been conceived and managed during
the twentieth century has differed a great deal between countries. This article
uses the case of Norway and Sweden to explore some of these differences.
I
In 1884, the following statement was addressed to the Norwegian
Parliament, Stortinget:
do we dare, in such a serious matter, to remind [you] of the multifarious
character of love; as a basis of enduring economic order it is not well
suited indeed. Nor is the proposal at hand sufficient, allowing the
married woman to establish separate property if she likes. Then the
claim easily would look like an offending exception, which the Woman
most often wants to avoid.[1]
Four authors, Bjrnson, Ibsen, Lie and Kielland had signed the statement.
The serious matter they were referring to was a new marriage act admitting
property and income rights for married women. Influenced by John Stuart
Mill, whose book on the subjection of women was translated into Danish by
Georg Brandes in 1869, the poets regarded wives as bondservants of their
husbands.[2] Their position was a radical one; they spoke in favour of
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separate property and income rights as the normal order of marriage. Not
surprisingly, the majority rejected this when the Married Womens Property
Act was passed in 1888. Separate property could only be drawn up by a
separate marriage settlement. Nevertheless, the Act marks an important
milestone in the history of womens citizenship. Although the most radical
ideas were rejected, the fact is that married women now became economic
subjects. They were granted the disposal of their income and the right to
make contracts in economic matters. Five years later, in 1893, the right to
be separately taxed followed the separate property right. For the first time,
then, married women were included in the basic civil right of economic
liberty.
To be sure, the reform did not solve the problems of married womens
economic status. Their civil position was still not equal either to married
men or to unmarried women. Although the husbands right to dispose of the
income and property of the family had been reduced, the practical
consequences of the reform were limited. Most married women did not earn
their own money, and most of them did not have their own property either.
And since the husband was still regarded as the main provider of the family,
this inequality was constantly reproduced in the following decades, through
legislation, negotiated pay settlements, state policies relating to the
distribution of income and other practices of working life. Also, the
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property rights (1865). Liberty to pursue a trade was also given to Swedish
women in the same period. In both countries, however, these rights were
distinctly limited to those who were unmarried. Up to this point there was
no serious opposition against the reforms, and no womens movement was
needed to bring them about. To offer a certain economic liberty to women
who were without a male provider could be seen as an act of self-interest for
men who were responsible for public expenditure, in particular on poor
relief, and who might even have unmarried daughters of their own to
provide for. As the Swedish historian, Gunnar Qvist, has pointed out, the
liberation of women so far was the work of men.[3]
Economic liberation was not really controversial until married women
were brought into the debate. To extend these rights to married women was
looked upon as an attack on the idea of marriage itself, and therefore a
threat to the basic order of society. In Norway, this emerged as a dilemma
during the democratic breakthrough of the late nineteenth century. When
the issue was raised in the 1870s, a radical shift was about to take place in
political and cultural circles. A national-democratic movement challenged the
policies of the prevailing political and cultural elite, including the union with
Sweden. This broad political opposition, including peasants as well as the
urban intelligentsia, was brought into power in the following decade, and a
parliamentary system was established. As a part of this heterogeneous
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peasants and the one who made the proposal for a new law in the first place.
Why should women lose their civil status when marrying? For conservatives
in both countries the reason was obvious. To include married women in civil
rights was not only a matter of rights, but of utility as well. For the same
reason, married womens economic position has remained a modern
dilemma. Few other questions more directly interfere with deep concerns
about community and social order. When even married women start to act
as individuals in a modern sense, who on earth will then care for the
community and the needs of others?
III
When dealing with the twentieth century, it seems reasonable to analyse the
problem of married women within the framework of Thomas Humphrey
Marshalls typology. His classic essay, Citizenship and Social Class, was first
presented as a lecture at the University of Cambridge in 1949. A historian by
training, a sociologist in his professional practice at the London School of
Economics and a labour politician during the founding years of the British
welfare state, Marshall has been influential both within academic and
political discourses.
According to Marshalls classification, there are three elements of
citizenship which have developed during the last three hundred years of
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British history. Each of them has emerged, with some overlap, in different
centuries: civil rights in the eighteenth century, political rights in the
nineteenth century and social rights in the twentieth century. The civil
element contains the rights required for individual freedom, such as freedom
of speech, the right to own property and the right to justice. As Marshall
sees it, the basic civil right in the economic field is the right to work, which
he defines as the right to follow the occupation of ones choice in the place
of ones choice, subject only to legitimate demands for preliminary technical
training.[4] From a gendered perspective, it is obvious that this basic right
has been only partially enjoyed by women, even in the twentieth century.
The element of social citizenship has been the most controversial in
Marshalls theory. It is defined as a broad category that includes the right to
a modicum of economic welfare and security, and also all that is necessary
for citizens to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a
civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the society.[5] When
his classic essay was published in 1950, during the escalation of the Cold
War, it offered a way of combining concepts of rights from the Western
liberal tradition with socialist politics. According to Marshall, equality could
not be created and preserved without invading the freedom of the
competitive market.[6] On the other hand, in recent years his theory has
been criticised for its one-sided focus on class to the neglect of other social
differences like ethnicity and gender.
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movement, implementing equal status for women and giving political power
to a young generation of educated women.
These developments were not an obvious outcome, however, given the
history of the Norwegian Labour Party. Until the 1960s, the Party had taken
a rather conservative standpoint towards feminism and gender questions,
and feminist opposition within the party was not very clear. Unlike Sweden,
there was no long and broad process among party women preceding the
political breakthrough. Christina Florin & Bengt Nilsson have shown the
extensive agency of Swedish women within party and administration during
the 1940s and 1950s.[9] Such a long-standing building of positions seems to
be missing in Norway, and so does a broad alliance of feminist women
across political divisions. Liberal and social democratic women in Sweden
had been cooperating for a long time to influence gender policy.[10] In
Norway, on the other hand, the main feminist opposition came from liberals
outside the Labour Party. According to party documents, hardly any feminist
opposition was expressed within the Party at all.
As a matter of fact, the Norwegian Labour Party did not accept the
principle of equal civil status for women, except in a formal sense, until the
mid-1960s, when there was a feminist turn in the space of a couple of years.
Up to this moment, the Party maintained a low profile on questions dealing
with civil rights; the principle of gender equality had given way to a family
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Also, the polarisation between social democrats and liberals looks to have
been more distinct in Norway than in Sweden.
These differences are clearly demonstrated by the controversial
question of married women working for wages in the 1920s and 1930s.
Demands for a marriage bar for female workers can be seen in most
European countries during the Great Depression; Norway and Sweden were
no exception. The outcome, however, was quite different in the two
countries. Although there were no legal restrictions, the marriage bar was
encouraged by the labour movement in Norway and carried into effect in all
municipalities where labour had the majority. From 1928, married women
were actually fired from positions in schools, health care and local
administration. In Sweden, similar ideas were advanced and supported by
groups within the labour movement, especially by young civil servants, but
they were never carried into effect. Such propositions were beaten off by a
strong alliance of women from several parties, who were also supported by
leaders of the Social Democratic Party. From the late 1920s onwards, a
broad womens movement, including left-wing socialists, social democrats
and liberal feminists, played an important role in this fight. The membership
of womens organisations tripled during the 1930s, and from 1933, large
joint meetings were held around the country to protest against the proposed
restrictions on working women. Social democrats and liberal women were in
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the forefront of these actions. The movement was broader, however. Even
housewives organised in the Housewives Association were active in support
of married womens right to work.
The marriage bar was also opposed even within the Norwegian Labour
Party and finally given up. In fact, the question divided the womens branch
of the party (Kvinnesekretariatet) and stimulated a more outspoken feminist
opposition among unionised women. The main opposition, however, came
from liberals, not from social democrats. The strong link between socialist
and liberal women found in Sweden was non-existent in Norway. Indeed, it
was rejected explicitly by the leaders of the Labour Party. Moreover, the
arguments used differed in the two countries. In Sweden, citizenship and
democratic rights were mentioned as the main reason for the social
democratic leaders to refuse a marriage bar, while arguments of this kind
were totally absent among social democrats in Norway.
In her dissertation on the Swedish debates, Renne Frangeur
concluded that the idea of a two-provider family was settled in Swedish
legislation by the end of the 1930s.[12] She also established that the Social
Democratic government took a progressive stand in favour of women by not
trying to reinforce the existing male breadwinner model. In 1935, the so-
called Womens Work Committee was appointed, with Kerstin Hesselgren as
leader and Alva Myrdal as secretary.[13] The Act coming out of the inquiry
was but one of several progressive laws adopted by the end of the 1930s.
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Frangeur also argues that the democratic breakthrough of the early
1920s made conditions favourable for equal rights feminism in this period,
including within the ranks of the Social Democratic Party. For four years,
from 1921 to 1925, Swedish women attained a dramatic improvement in
their civil and political rights. In 1921, they gained the vote and property
rights for married women and in 1925 access to higher positions in the civil
service. Compared to Norway, this was in no way exceptional; here the
corresponding reforms had all been attained before 1914. Nevertheless, this
seems to have enforced a far friendlier attitude to equal status politics in
Sweden than in Norway.
This may seem a paradox, but it is my assertion that this time lag
between Norway and Sweden has had a considerable effect on the content
and meaning of gender equality in the two countries. The civil and political
rights of Norwegian women were distinctly rooted in the liberal mood of the
late nineteenth century, when the broad national democratic movement and
the Liberal Party (Venstre) celebrated their greatest victories. An early
breakthrough of political liberalism in Norway contributed to the early
victories of Norwegian feminists, but also, I suggest, made liberal feminism
less acceptable to the political elite of the twentieth century, the social
democrats. During the period of feminist reforms in Norway, the social
democrats were still few in number and their representation in Parliament
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was weak. They therefore played a minor role in the process of extending
democratic rights to women.
This also made a difference to the post-war period, 1945-65, before the
definite feminist turn. There are many similarities between Norway and
Sweden in this period; they were both ruled by strong social democratic
parties who gave priority to housewives in their politics and ideology. What
distinguished the situation in the two countries, however, was equally
important. In Sweden, there was a greater acceptance of equal status
politics, which was enforced by outspoken feminists. Christina Florin &
Bengt Nilsson have, in their joint work, revealed the impressive feminist
activity in the 1940s and 1950s within the Social Democratic Party of
Sweden and from individual women within public administration.[14] In
Norway, the equal status policy was enforced mainly by liberal feminists
outside the Labour Party, while the female branch of the partys
organisation seems to have been almost silent on gender questions in
particular, the intersection between family policy and gender equality.
V
From representative bodies of the Norwegian Labour Party, then, hardly any
feminist views were expressed in the 1950s and early 1960s. There were
outspoken feminists within the Party in this period, but they seem to have
been marginal and disorganised. There were only a few academic women in
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the Party, and the opposition which had formerly been put forward by
unionised women was no longer heard. Feminists were not represented in
leading agencies of the Party, and there were no publications or meeting
places where feminist standpoints could be formulated and mediated. Also,
the womens branch was very family-oriented in its attitudes, and the only
acceptable way to deal with gender issues seemed to be within a framework
of social policy. On the other hand, there were several outspoken feminists
outside the labour movement, and they mostly belonged to the Liberal
Party. So, while controversies over family politics and gender equality took
place in Sweden among the social democrats themselves, in Norway it was
mainly a conflict between parties.
The Norwegian Labour Party gave priority to housewives, aiming to
improve their welfare and their social status. In Marshalls terms, this can be
seen as an ambition to include married women as social citizens, to
compensate for what he called the peculiar status of married women. By
offering housewives rights and recognition equivalent to the wage-earning
worker, the Labour Party assumed that married women could attain civil
rights even within the framework of a male breadwinner model.
The social democratic policy towards housewives was, indeed, a matter
of both rights and recognition. In 1953, Labour presented an ambitious
programme for housewives, including holiday relief, rationalisation of
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The housewife policy of the 1940s and 1950s is not solely a Norwegian
invention. The same politics and the same rhetoric were also enforced by
social democrats in Sweden. This golden age of the housewife, as Berge
Furre has called it, is partly based on demographic trends.[17] A record
number of young families were establishing themselves in the post-war
period. The number of married women was higher than ever, and so was the
number of women giving birth. In demographic terms, marriage rates and
fertility rates both rose considerably, while the age of marriage was falling.
Sweden had a similar pattern, but less prominence was given to family
policy. In contrast to the Norwegian Labour Party, gender politics in Sweden
were in two parts: housewife politics and labour market politics. Since
Sweden did not participate in the War, its economy was prosperous and the
demand for labour was urgent from the 1940s. Large efforts were made to
recruit women into industry and services. In this, employers and social
democrats were for the most part in agreement with equal status feminists
in attempting to overcome traditional attitudes and to recruit women into
new sectors.[18] Norway lagged far behind in this modernisation, although
the shortage of labour was increasing here as well. Within an expanding
public sector both schoolteachers and nurses were in short supply. From an
economic point of view, then, there were growing reasons for Norway to also
adopt a Swedish model of a two-part gender politics.
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important than social justice and any claim for individual rights was
characterised as selfish.
From this background, the feminist turn of the Labour Party in the
early 1960s seems to have occurred very suddenly. After having stressed
family concerns, a new direction was introduced at the national meeting of
the Party in 1963. The powerful party secretary, Haakon Lie, made his usual
speech on the coming election, and he now for the very first time gave
womens rights broad attention: if we do not reach the women as a group,
we will lose them and fail to strengthen our party.[19] This marks the first
step to an equal status policy, which was included into the working
programme of the Party in 1965.
Labours feminist turn, as it occurred during the following decade,
1965-75, far surpassed the expectations of the party leaders. There is still
much research to be done to understand what happened during this period.
What can easily be observed, though, is the increasing radicalism of Labour
Party women. The Party had indeed created its own opponents by working
against feminism for so long, and at the same time giving education to a
large number of young women growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. A new
generation was now joining the Party, and at the same time a new feminist
movement appeared outside political parties and the established
associations. The young generation of feminists took a critical stand towards
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among equal status feminists. They even worked against pensions for
widows in a situation where the majority of married women were actually
housewives. On the other hand, the social democrats hesitated for a long
time before they recognised the claim of full civil citizenship for women as
legitimate.
In spite of the undoubted success of equal status politics, however,
there has been no satisfactory solution to the dilemmas at the heart of this
whole issue. In the history of the womens movement in the twentieth
century there has been a double vision: both equal status and protest
against the primacy of the market. At the start of a new century, this double
vision of rights and recognition is still relevant. On a global level, the
household-centred informal economy plays an important role and is the
object of an increasing interest. Not only is this activity undervalued from an
economic point of view, women (and men) within this sector are also
undervalued as citizens. In dealing with civil, political and social citizenship,
the old discussion of rights and recognition is therefore still highly relevant.
It could even be regarded as a main challenge in the age of global markets
we are now entering.
Notes
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[1] Letter from the poets Bjrnson, Ibsen, Lie and Kielland on the subject of
separate property for married women, 1884, quoted from Eva Kolstads
speech in Parliament 1959: Stortingets forhandlinger: Tidende O, p. 486
(Oslo).
[2] John Stuart Mill (1970 reprint edition) The Subjection of Women, in John
Stuart Mill & Harriet Taylor Mill Essays on Sex Equality (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press).
[3] Gunnar Qvist (1960) Kvinnofrgan i Sverige 1809-1846: studier rrande
kvinnans nringsfrihet inom de borgerliga yrkena (Gteborg: Gumperts).
[4] Thomas Humphrey Marshall (1992 reprint edition) Citizenship and Social
Class, p. 10 (London: Pluto Press; first published 1950).
[5] Ibid., p. 8.
[6] Ibid., p. 7.
[7] Ibid., p. 12.
[8] Carole Pateman (1996) Democratisation and Citizenship in the 1990s: the
legacy of T.H. Marshall, Vilhelm Aubert Memorial Lecture 1996 (Oslo:
Institute for Social Research); Pateman (1988) The Sexual Contract
(Cambridge: Polity Press).
[9] Christina Florin & Bengt Nilsson (2000) Ngot som liknar en oblodig
revolution: jmstlldhetens politisering under 1960- och 70-talen (Ume:
Jmstlldhetskommittn, Universitetet).
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