Analyzing the Success Story of Norwegian Women in Politics

In this section I would like to take a closer look at why women in Norway are present in the formal political institutions to the extend that is still quite unusual in the rest of the world. Women as actors in the political power elite in Norway is nowadays a phenomenon that the Norwegians regard as a normal practice and to them, as the Equal Status Council puts it, "a Government Cabinet where much less than half of the members were women would look strange and undemocratic". (Women in...)

How did the Norwegian women integrate to the political system of their country? Usually favorable contextual factors (proportional representation and multi-party competition), political activism and receptive political culture have been stressed when explaining women's position in Norwegian politics. In proportional election system, a woman candidate is not the party's only candidate from a certain electoral district, so chances for women to be nominated as candidates are higher than in majority elections with single-member districts. Proportional system also favors competition of several parties within one electoral district. This can lead to competition system where one party sets an example by promoting the participation of women, and others who do not want to alienate women voters, follow the example. (Skjeie 1992, 67-90)

However, the position Norwegian women today have in politics, is not only the result of these favorable contextual factors, but to a great extent also the accomplishment of a strong new women's movement which emerged in Norway in the late 1960s. It regarded the recruitment of women into politics as an important goal. It also served in revitalizing existing women's organizations and an unusual alliance between the women's factions of the political parties and groups outside the formal political institutions was created. The specific aim of this alliance was to increase the number of women in politics and to achieve this, it launched special campaigns to increase women nominees in the elections. (Skjeie 1992, 85) Due to these campaigns women's representation both at the national and the local levels increased, as we have already earlier noted.

The third important factor in Norwegian politics is that gender has been accepted as politically relevant category. This can be called receptive political culture which has on its part helped women in arguing for representation in the political field. In Norway strong norms of justice, equality and solidarity are widely supported and the principle of 'descriptive representation' has been accepted. In Norway the tradition of social representativeness is strong and parliamentary assemblies reflect to greater extent the composition of the society than the national assemblies on average. Support for the argument that women can only be represented by women has been easier to obtain than in many other western countries. When specific campaigns to increase women's representation in politics were started, also new ways of arguing for the objective emerged. A perspective that emphasized gender-structured interests in politics brought with it the idea of difference. Difference between sexes began to be viewed as relevant and increasingly important feature also in political representation. Women representing women was regarded necessary because of women's complementary resources and conflicting interests compared to those of men's. The success in this approach was that women did not specify which of the women's special experiences or interests would be complementary and which in conflict with the traditional (male) views. Two different ideas of women's difference also gave room for different political ideologies: the left wing parties could identify with conflict arguments and the more conservative right with the complementary resources approach. Establishing the idea of women's difference and common experiences and interests generated legitimacy for women as a group that also needs to be adequately represented. (Skjeie, 1992, 81-97)

Noticeable increase in women's representation came about in the beginning of the 1980s when more parties adopted the quota regulations that had been introduced by the Socialist Left already in 1970s. Gender quotas were at first highly controversial issue, but today they have been widely accepted. Four of the six major parties have adopted gender quota system in electoral nominations and in appointing members to party posts at all levels. After the 1986 government formed by Gro Harlem Brundtland more conservative parties came into the power and formed a coalition government. None of the these governmental parties had officially adopted the quota system, but they all acted as if they had. The gender quota system has increased women's participation in politics in Norway, but now when women are considered politically relevant group that deserves its representation in a democratic society, quotas have become less and less important. (Women in... 8-9)

However, Skjeie (1992, 67) points out, that the explanations given for women's success in politics above are standard explanations which largely overlook the different tendencies and developments within different public arenas. When we look at the integration of women to the corporate channel, the picture is very different. In this sphere where bureaucrats, experts and leaders of organized interest groups meet, the representation of women is much lower than in the electoral channel. This leads Skjeie to ask, why the above mentioned aspects of Norwegian public life have not to same extend influenced the corporate system. Further investigation would be needed in answering this question, but it is obvious that the selection of representatives to this field still relays more on 'merit' that can be defined according to different criteria than representativeness.

Johanna Arola: Emphasizing differences is good in a way, because the goal for equality policies should not be making men and women similar. But emphasizing differences can also be dangerous, and for example gender quotas can create the kind of athmosphere where women are considered so weak and helpless that they need some special arrangements and support to succeed as well as men do. And even though women are a homogenous cathegory, not all women have the same problems and needs: not all of them have children and those who don't do not need day care for children and why should then those women who don't have children be more interested in day care services than men are? Oh yes, I know, every woman is a potential mother but I don't believe in that...