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Troubled and Secure Gender Identities in a Changing Society: Norway at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century

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Gendered Citizenship and the Politics of Representation

Part of the book series: Citizenship, Gender and Diversity ((FEMCIT))

Abstract

At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, Norway changed from a mainly agrarian to a more urban and industrialized society. These changes offered women new possibilities. In 1884 they were admitted to academic studies, and through a complicated process between 1890 and 1913, they gained suffrage rights. Both these events offered women access to worlds that had until then been reserved for men. Consequently, understandings of both masculinity and femininity were questioned. Troubled understandings of gender identities departed from a long period of what in this chapter is called a secure gender identity, accepting hegemonic masculinity and difference femininity as the norm.

Departing from Raywyn Connell’s theory of relations between hegemonic masculinity and fearful masculinity, this chapter analyzes how different masculinities reacted to different femininities, a classical difference femininity as well as a new equal rights femininity.

At the end of the period, expressions of a new form of secure gender identity emerged when some women and men cooperated in achieving equal rights. However, it was not until the 1970s that this understanding of secure gender identity gained importance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    All quotations are translated from Norwegian by the author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bergen, Nordeievegen 38, 5251, Søreidgrend, Norway

    Ida Blom

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  1. Ida Blom
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Uni Research Rokkan Centre, Bergen, Norway

    Hilde Danielsen

  2. Centre for Women’s and Gender Research, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Kari Jegerstedt

  3. Department of Comparative Politics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Ragnhild L. Muriaas

  4. Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Brita Ytre-Arne

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Blom, I. (2016). Troubled and Secure Gender Identities in a Changing Society: Norway at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century. In: Danielsen, H., Jegerstedt, K., Muriaas, R., Ytre-Arne, B. (eds) Gendered Citizenship and the Politics of Representation. Citizenship, Gender and Diversity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51765-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51765-4_3

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51764-7

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