Archive

Violence is neither a women’s problem nor a men’s problem. According to Professor Tove Ingebjørg Fjell at the University of Bergen, it is a human problem. She conducts research on men who are physically abused by their intimate partners.

According to researchers, gender differences in education and employment is one reason why it is so difficult to achieve the Norwegian Government’s target of 40 percent female business owners by 2013.

According to the science hierarchy, sociology has low status whereas mathematics has high status. Both this hierarchy and the peer-review process have characteristics that structurally downgrade women’s position in academia.

Minorities must be “sufficiently Norwegian” and “understand the Norwegian mindset” if they want to run for local political office. Not least, they need to show that they support gender equality. Are minority women judged differently than minority men? Yes, according to sociologist Beret Bråten.

In the 1800s, Norwegian missionaries had to strike a balance between Christian virtues and the new, modern man’s role. The solution was to be meek before God and mighty before men.

“Women are peace-loving.” “Women are problem-solvers.” “Women are more empathetic than men.” Arguments such as these are often used to advocate for women’s participation in military operations. This is a risky road to go down, according to researcher Kathleen Jennings.

Pupils in a lower secondary school in Norway are doing group work. In one classroom, a group of 14-year-olds sit quietly and concentrate, working earnestly on the assignment. In another classroom, the pupils play and fool around with lots of physical activity and very little focused effort. So you think it’s easy to figure out which group consists of boys? Not when it’s music class.

If we believe criminologist Thomas Ugelvik, Norwegian prisons are filled with freedom. Through relentless entrepreneurship the inmates are able to fool the system and reclaim their manhood.

The Norwegian ban on the purchase of sex was intended to reduce human trafficking and to convince people that prostitution is wrong. But has it worked? Both yes and no - according to researcher Andreas Kotsadam.

The disciplining and control of women and the feminine are intimately related to notions of cultural and racial purity. As a result, racist ideologies are almost always also misogynist and anti-feminist, says British philosopher Jane Clare Jones. She has analysed anti-feminism in the manifesto of Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

Internally displaced women in Colombia are organizing themselves to secure their rights to housing, education and health care. But along with this come threats, violence and dissatisfied husbands. Is it worth it?

Does state support for voluntary organisations curtail creativity and force activists to focus on what the government wants them to?

Gays and lesbians can now marry or register as partners in all the Nordic countries, with the exception of the Faroe Islands. Yet even within the gay movement there has been a long-standing resistance to marriage for same-sex couples.

A dedicated football player, a disciplined martial arts practitioner or a respected weightlifter? According to a recent Norwegian study, young girls are most concerned with their appearance as they become teenagers, but boys must do something to become young men. Their choice of activity is also a choice of masculine identity. 

A book on a shelf at the university bookstore in Lund was the start of a research career for Karin Widerberg, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oslo.

According to doctors during the interwar period, wide hips made women unsuitable for running long distances. In her recent doctoral thesis, Kerstin Bornholdt looks at how researchers reached conclusions like this.

Young Norwegian women today want to be self-confident, cool and relaxed – as well as pretty and well-dressed. This is the female ideal they find in the magazines they read.

A recent Norwegian report looks at young men from highly patriarchal immigrant families who are struggling with their lives and who have a rather complicated relationship to women.

When a black lesbian is passed by at the workplace, is that a case of discrimination against women? Of gay people? Or because of her race? Or a stereotype that the three elements create in combination? Norwegian researchers Mari Teigen and Liza Reisel are looking into whether legislation can tackle compound discrimination of this sort.

Malaysian IT employees are required to work until 5:30 pm every day, while their Norwegian colleagues often work a flexi-time schedule. So why is it the Norwegians who complain about a time crunch?

Why is killing one’s enemies regarded as more important than raising children? This question was posed by the philosopher “Sophia” as early as the 1700s. “Feminist philosophy didn’t emerge in the 1960s. Questions like these have a long-standing tradition in the field,” says philosopher Tove Pettersen of the University of Oslo.

When traditional Norwegian farming is converted to nature-based agritourism, the gender roles on the farm change. Often the women become the general managers, while the men take over in the kitchen.

According to a new book by Professor Aud Talle, most Somalis who live in Norway have changed their attitude towards female circumcision and are now against the practice.

Despite the increasing awareness about multidimensional discrimination, neither the legislators nor the monitoring agencies are sufficiently well equipped to handle this problem, according to professor of political science Hege Skjeie.

Civil society organizations for ethnic Norwegian women and minority women cooperate very little with each other. This is one of the findings from Cecilie Thun’s ongoing doctoral research project.

Domestic workers are not covered by collective agreements and regulations that pertain to Norwegian working life. As a result, they find themselves in an especially vulnerable situation – partly because many of them work under conditions that protect the employer, not the worker. Could establishing a minimum price be a solution?

Notwithstanding the welfare state, employed mothers in Scandinavia experience just as much conflict between work and family life as mothers in Southern Europe, but the Scandinavian mothers are happier.

When the men’s national team loses a match they are called “sissies”, and women who are good at football “play like men”. Both men and women are the losers when gender stereotypes are used in sports journalism, according to Professor Gerd von der Lippe.

By changing the name to the Committee for Gender Balance in Research, the KIF Committee has received a stricter mandate for its work. “This sends a signal that gender equality involves more than equal rights,” says Mari Teigen, Research Director at the Institute for Social Research (ISF).

Is forced marriage an immigration problem or violence against women and children? According to researcher Anja Bredal, the Norwegian authorities have not totally made up their minds.