Gender and history

Articles

Svein Atle Skålevåg:

Sexual crimes. Morality, sexuality and criminal law in Norway, 1880–1930

Michel Foucault has described our society as a sexual society, i.e. a society where sexuality has come to be perceived as an object of governance as well as a privileged source of the truth about the individual. This article explores the relevance of the idea of a sexual society in Norwegian history, focusing on the work of two governmental committees on the reform of criminal law (1885 and 1922), and the debate surrounding the work of these committees. In the moral debate of the 1880s and 90s one might identify a hesitant move from mores and public order to sexuality and the free flow of desire as the object of preoccupation. The Criminal Code of 1902 implemented this shift from sexual acts to sexual desire as the object of governance. In the 1920s, when the code was vigorously debated, it was the sexual offender who was the prime object of preoccupation. This figure triggered a displacement of the issue of sexuality in the criminal law debate, from what Foucault called the "anatomical politics of the human body" to "the biopolitics of the population".

Keywords: Gender history, legal history, history of sexuality, sexual assault, biopower, public defense, criminal law

Kari Melby and Bente Rosenbeck:

Reproduction as a key to understanding the Nordic welfare states: Foucault meets Giddens

In the Nordic countries marriage, abortion, birth control, single mothers, illegitimate children and population growth came into political focus early in the 20th century. This article takes a closer look at the growing political interest in and state control of reproduction in Denmark and Norway in the early 1900s where the Danish social democrat K.K. Steincke and the radicalliberal Johan Castberg initiated a wide range of social reforms. The article is inspired by the theories of Michel Foucault and Anthony Giddens. Foucault’s concepts of bio-politics and docile bodies are supplemented by Anthony Giddens and his ideas about plastic relationship and democratization of the private sphere and the notion of sexual citizenship. The question raised is whether the politics of reproduction and state intervention in private life was an expression of a bio-politics with a focus on regulation of the population and discipline of the body. The article discusses whether this policy also promoted individualization and can be characterized as the first step towards sexual citizenship for women. Even though Giddens’s ideas on democratization of private relationships and the concept of sexual citizenship, including gender and sexuality, have their origin in the 1970s, the authors claim that the changes in the Nordic countries can be traced back to the first decades of the 20th century. The article argues that the boundary between social policy and eugenics is fluid. Population policy turned into social policy and the concept of welfare expanded to include daily life, the body and the private sphere.

Keywords: Reproduction, women, gender, bio-politics, population, eugenics, marriage

Frode Hatlen:

Honor and family killings in Roman antiquity

Why do honor killings occur? The subject is complex, but one way to come closer to an answer is to look at honor killings over a longer time period. This article investigates episodes of family killings in Roman history and Roman law. It is argued that these killings may be interpreted as honor killings because they were committed in order to repair the damage done to family honor because of transgressions. Men and women dishonored their families in different ways. Men’s honor was associated with the political and military sphere, while the honor of women was connected to the household. Roman family structure and marriage customs had similarities with present-day structures in those areas of the world where most honor killings take place: Western Asia and Northern Africa. Marriage made men responsible to their families for their actions. Family alliances and the position of the family in Roman society made women’s sexuality important, and it had therefore to be controlled. Thus, family structure and the importance of marriage can offer one key for understanding why the Romans murdered their sons and daughters.  

Keywords: Roman family, Roman women, honour killings, domestic violence, Roman honour, Roman marriage

Hilde Gunn Slottemo:

Men of responsibility. Norms of masculinity in the post-war industrial society

In the 1950s and 60s, the ideal of gendered division of labour was strong. Married women were expected to be housewives, while men were regarded as the breadwinners of the family. For men, supporting one’s family was considered a definite masculine duty. Moreover, this was seen as an act of consideration towards the family. Through permanent employment, regular working hours and proper working conditions, men were able to meet the experienced cultural expectations. This norm can be summed up by the notion of "responsibility". This notion expresses the social as well as economic elements of the relationship between men and their families, but was also based on / also incorporated a dimension of age and generation, according to which mature masculinity was interpreted as a contrast and in opposition to young boys and youthfulness.

Keywords: Breadwinner, fathers, permanent employment, responsibility, masculinity

Bjørg Seland:

Gender and power – authoritative roles of women in religion

The pious lay movement, which in the later decades of the nineteenth century developed to become a mass movement, firmly maintained a conservative gender regime, and historically speaking relatively little space has been devoted to women’s participation. However, if we look behind the formal structures, a more varied gendered practice becomes visible. In this article an internal narrative tradition is used as source material to trace the stories of women who have acquired informal religious authority in their local communities. Within the early lay movement, some women could hold powerful elite positions by claiming to be visionaries or chosen by God as special mediators and messengers. The point stressed is that the shift to modern organisational forms from around 1840 onwards came to strengthen the concept of the religious assembly as a public arena, thus limiting the conditions for female participation. Modern organisations certainly introduced democratic procedures for decision-making and board elections, but for a long time women lacked franchise and access to formal office. Still some women held powerful positions in their local communities, based on the old charismatic elite roles, though slightly adapted to the organisational frameworks. But this tendency fades and disappears as women achieve fuller membership rights and access to formal offices within their organisations.

Keywords: Pious lay movement, traditional / modern organizational forms, the public sphere, gender roles in chapel culture, informal elite positions