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Despite the rising divorce rate among farm families in Norway, surprisingly little research has examined these breakups. Drawing on interviews with farm women whose marital or cohabiting relationships broke down, we explore the contradictions between individualization and the moral responsibility embedded in the patriarchal discourse of the family farm. We ask whether farm family dissolution represents a break with patriarchal ideology and practice and thus threatens the survival of the family farm. A key finding is the struggle to balance establishing new lives for themselves with meeting their felt obligations to the farm. None of the women exercised their full legal rights if they worried that it might destroy the farm business. By ensuring the survival of the farm and the well-being of their children, the women's handling of divorce conforms to cultural conventions and protects the family farm.

This paper discusses women's organization within forestry in Norway. As a separate women's organization, Women in Forestry (JiS), which aims to increase women's influence, faces several dilemmas and challenges. One of the main dilemmas is that by founding a women's organization, gender is made visible and put into focus, while its ultimate aim is to make gender irrelevant and the organization redundant in the future. Based on interviews with founders and representatives of JiS, and with women active in forestry, written documents and the magazine The Forest Owner, the study analyses the strategies that the organization pursues to deal with this dilemma. Strategies that reduce their particularity and increase their universality include avoiding a feminist label, seeking alliances with men and having a diverse group of members.