Tracing Gender Equality Cultures: Elite Perceptions of Gender Equality in Norway and Sweden

Abstract

Cultural explanations are frequent in social science research. In gender studies, they are especially common in cross-country comparative research that attempts to explain variations in everyday life situations for women and men. A noticeable example is found in the book Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Around the World, by Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris (2003). Inglehart and Norris construct a gender-equality scale from measurements on attitudes among citizens regarding women as political leaders, women's professional and educational rights, and women's traditional role as mother. The results show that Finland, Sweden, West Germany, Canada, and Norway are the countries most influenced by egalitarian values. At the other end of the spectrum countries like Nigeria, Morocco, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Jordan are found (p. 33). The authors demonstrate that egalitarian values are systematically related to the actual conditions of women's and men's lives. They conclude that modernization underpins cultural change, that is, attitudinal change from traditional to gender-equal values, and that these cultural changes have major impact on gender-equality processes.

Testing the Impact of Political Generations: The Class of 94 and Pro‐feminist Ideas in the Swedish Riksdag

“…When we suggest that there was a major shift in the issue agenda in Sweden in the early 1990s we use results from a study on gender equality cultures in Norway and Sweden. Teigen and Wängnerud () point to the emergence of a much stronger and more radical ‘third wave feminism’ in Sweden than in Norway. An important starting point for the escalation of a radical feminist debate in Sweden was the publication of the, at that time, much‐noticed Swedish Power Investigation (SOU :44), particularly the analysis of the Swedish gender system by the historian Yvonne Hirdman.…”

Pathways to Gender-equitable Men

“…A note on terminology and local context: we recognize that definitions of what ''gender equality'' and ''equitable'' mean are locally constructed and vary even across settings that appear quite similar (e.g., Teigen and Wangnerud 2009) as well as across individuals and groups of individuals. For this reason, we used the terms ''gender equality'' and ''equality between men and women'' in questions, and we devised multiple questions that sought to assess attitudes on specific dimensions of gender equality (in terms of equal access to employment, to political office, to education, to household decision-making and resource use, and to caregiving or domestic work).…”

Scandinavian Approaches to Gender Equality in Academia: A Comparative Study

“…It is, for instance, reasonable to interpret the Swedish emphasis on the revising existing organisational cultures frame against the background of the country's more vocal feminist tradition and its anchoring in radical feminist ideas (Teigen & Wängnerud, 2009). Similarly, Norway's strong emphasis on legislative and policy-based structural interventions could be understood in light of the country's comprehensive tradition of interventionist approaches to GE, as exemplified by the extensive use of affirmative action and preferential treatment in the furtherance of GE in various areas of Norwegian society since the 1980s (a time period where the rhetoric of difference was at its highest in the country) (Teigen, 2011).…”

“…This has led to a higher degree of impact on public policy development as well as awareness in the public arena (cf. Teigen & Wängnerud, 2009). …”