The Presidency of the Nordic Council of Ministers rotates between the five Nordic countries on an annual basis. 2016 is Finland’s year, and the project ”Enough, now! Nordic models to end domestic and intimate partnership violence”´is part of its ambition to put an end to gender-related violence.
‘It’s important to work proactively against the violence and to offer the victims support and whatever help they need,’ says Juha Rehula, Finland’s Minister of Family Affairs and Social Services and in charge of the country’s gender equality policy.
‘We need to look for ways to encourage the perpetrators, whether they are men or women, to stop their destructive behaviour and therefore also the devastating cycle of violence.’
The project will culminate in a report describing, comparing and analysing the models in use across the Nordic region. A conference for knowledge sharing will be held in autumn 2016. Two other conferences on the theme of violence will also be held around the same time: one addressing human trafficking and one at which the work against genital mutilation of girls and women will be discussed.

Gender discrimination in the media

The Nordic gender equality cooperation has for some time emphasised the need to discuss the issue of gender equality in the public space. In 2016, the Finnish Presidency will explore the possibilities of legislating against sexist advertising as well as the current state of gender equality in television, radio and other conventional media.
‘One thing that can be observed is that sexualisation of the public space and gender-based hate speech are limiting the participation of women in particular. Thus, such tendencies must be clamped down on, and a gender equal and pluralistic media landscape must be actively encouraged,’ says Rehula.
The issues of hate speech and how to work against sexism will be raised for example in an expert panel arranged by the Nordic Council of Ministers at the meeting of the UN women’s commission in New York.
‘Both women and men have a right to use the public space and to be recognised and influence the society they live in. By looking at and comparing situations and good practices in the Nordic countries, we can stimulate the public discussion and develop better national and Nordic measures,’ says Rehula.

Health and gender equality

The connection between health and gender equality will also be addressed in several ways during Finland’s Presidency. The issue of health was discussed already in January at a conference titled How Are You Feeling, Nordic Region? held in Turku, Finland. The conference marked the beginning of a 3-year project led by the Finnish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and aimed to support cooperation in relation to the Nordic welfare model.
‘Since gender equality is a central aspect of the Nordic welfare model, it seems both natural and necessary to integrate a gender equality perspective in the project,’ says Rehula. ‘Cooperation with other sectors is also very important in the field of gender equality policy. In this project, we’re joining forces with the social, employment, cultural and educational sectors. The bureaucratic red tape can be a headache, but the work is definitely very important and interesting.’
‘The gender equality ministers will also consider the inquiry report on men and gender equality they ordered this year, and we can start deciding on future cooperation on this theme,’ says Rehula.
How do you feel about the Nordic gender equality cooperation? Can it yield benefits that an individual Nordic country would not be able to achieve alone?
‘As the Nordic countries are very similar, it can be of great benefit to compare their different approaches and policy measures. Since none of them have achieved full gender equality, they all have something to learn. The Nordic countries also have a lot to offer in the European and international gender equality discussion. For example, the final report of the project ”Enough, now!” is published in English to make it accessible to people and organisations in other countries.’

Men have a shorter life expectancy than women. They also fall ill more often and are more likely to die from their illnesses. This pattern is a result of a less healthy lifestyle and an unwillingness to seek medical care – which also explains why men are more likely to became hospitalised and require costly specialist care. Society would save a lot of money if men could acknowledge their aches and pains and go see the doctor.
‘Men die like flies, but when you ask them they will tell you they are just fine,’ says Svend Aage Madsen, chief psychologist at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen.

Low levels of education particularly detrimental to men

Compared with men, women are more likely to say they are not well. They also have higher sick leave rates and seek primary health care more frequently. Madsen and fellow researcher Solveig Osborg Ose have looked closer at the apparent gender differences in health and health care, and they shared their knowledge at the Nordic Council of Ministers’ conference How Are You Feeling, Nordic Region? held in Turku, Finland, 27–28 January.

Madsen said that the differences in life expectancy between men and women tend to decrease when the gender equality in society increases. When it comes to men’s life expectancy, Iceland ‘wins’ in a European comparison, while Finland and Denmark ‘almost don’t deserve to be included in the Nordic region’. Level of education is another major determinant of life expectancy and health. Interestingly, however, this relationship is much stronger among men than women.

Paternal leave good for men’s health

Madsen pointed out two trends of great importance to men’s health: For the first time in history, men are falling behind women in terms of level of education, which can have a serious impact on their health. At the same time, men are showing an increasing and historically strong interest in paternal leave, which has turned out to affect their health positively.
‘The more men take on the daddy role, the higher their sick leave rates, which is a good thing. Parental leave makes them better at taking care of their own health. Men have suffered from not paying enough attention to how they are doing,’ says Madsen.
Madsen’s conclusion is that there is a need for special health policy targeting men.

Outreach care

‘The health care sector needs to learn how to communicate with men with low levels of education. It might even be a good idea to reach out to men and offer them health care services at their work.’

Osborg Ose, senior researcher at SINTEF, which is a Norwegian foundation for scientific and industrial research, concludes that while men need to stop putting off their doctor visits, women need to become better at describing problems related to their work environment.

Women have higher sick leave rates than men in all occupational groups and age cohorts, and the Norwegian females top the Nordic list. Women are less likely to be diagnosed with an illness when seeking medical attention for their problems, like their joint pains and muscle aches.

Health care providers tend to perceive their symptoms as diffuse and subjective. Osborg Ose has led a large literature study on the reasons Norwegian women go on sick leave. She begins by concluding that Norway’s welfare model has resulted in an extremely gender-segregated labour market. And since the research on work environment issues has mainly focused on the industrial sector, little is known about what causes women to go on sick leave.

Dual roles

‘The research does not give much attention to the inherent challenges in occupations dominated by women. What are the consequences of the close relationships that women often develop with patients, and of the violence they may face in dementia care?’

One hypothesis is a woman’s dual roles, as both wage earner and the person in charge of her household, can explain the high incidence of burnout and sick leave among women.
Osborg Ose says that the hypothesis needs to be tested separately for each social group. The women with the lowest incomes have less opportunity to reduce their workload by working part time.

She also points out that women have strong incentives to transfer to male-dominated occupations, whereas men do not have any incentives at all to switch to fields typically dominated by women. Osborg Ose warns that importing cheap labour in care-related sectors may reduce the status of these jobs even further and increase the social inequalities among Nordic women.

The Nordic countries have had gender equality in academia on their to-do lists since the 1970s. But it has not turned out to be a quick fix. According to the Nordic Council of Ministers’ report The Nordic Region – a Step Closer to Gender Balance in Research? (2013), nearly 80 per cent of all professors in the Nordic countries are men. The greatest imbalances can be found in the natural sciences and technology.

‘The report suggests that the reasons for this should be explored. That’s the background to the new research programme,’ says Lotta Strandberg, senior adviser at NordForsk.
The new research programme, Gender in the Nordic Research and Innovation Area, is a collaboration between NordForsk, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The purpose is to find out why the area of research and innovation has not followed the trend towards a gender-equal society and identify the measures needed to solve this problem.

Nordic researchers collaborate

‘There’s a focus on finding solutions. How can we make the academic world more gender equal? A more diversified research community will generate more diversified perspectives, more ways to look at things, so it’s important to have both women and men in leading positions,’ says Strandberg.
The idea is to encourage Nordic cooperation around these issues. Consequently, the research projects must consist of researchers from at least three Nordic countries. Only researchers from the countries funding the programme – Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – are eligible to apply, but researchers from other countries are also welcome to participate in the projects. The application deadline is 27 April 2016 and the maximum grant amount is NOK 25 million.

Disko Bay on Greenland’s west coast is littered with thousands of icebergs. We are about 250 km north of the Arctic Circle in Ilulissat, a town of about 4 500 people. A retired sailor, Karl Lindeman, is sitting on a bench in the sun. He has worked at sea for most of his life and was the first Greenlander to reach the South Pole. For a while, he was married to a woman from Finland. Today he lives alone.
‘I like to go fishing in my boat, or hunt Canada geese somewhere. IIulissat is a great place,’ says Lindeman.
He is sorry so many women are leaving Greenland.
‘We’re not that many people here, so it’s sad to see the young women move away. I wish they would stay. Everything is so expensive in Greenland since the population is so small.’
Qannaquaq Jakobsen, 19, and his father, Carl Jakobsen, also live in Ilulissat. They went seal hunting this morning. Qannaquaq spends a lot of time out on the water with his dad. He has no concrete plans for the future, but says he wants to keep fishing.
‘I’m going to stay here. Right now I’m single, but I don’t think it will be too hard to find a girl.’

Migration patterns linked to gender

Greenland became a Danish colony in the 18th century and was integrated into the so-called Danish Realm in the 1950s. The labour immigration from Denmark took off around this time, when large numbers of primarily men moved to the island to develop and modernise it. Those who returned to Denmark were often accompanied by a Greenlandic woman, and this migration pattern remains to this day. The smaller Greenlandic communities are very much centred around traditionally male-oriented occupations such as hunting and fishing. Vast distances and lack of infrastructure make it difficult to offer all citizens the services they may want. Those who dream of a different life move away. And when people move away to get an education, women in particular tend to never return. Researchers at the Centre for Equality, Diversity and Gender (EDGE) at Aalborg University in Denmark have written a cross-Nordic report on the theme of Nordic sparsely populated areas at the request of the Nordic Council of Ministers.
‘There’s clearly a gender factor in this type of migration. Women and men face different expectations when it comes to education and migration patterns,’ says Stine Thindemann Faber, gender researcher.
According to EDGE’s report, young men generally have a stronger connection to their home region and appreciate the activities offered there. In contrast, women tend to think there are more opportunities for them in the cities.

Expensive and difficult to find housing

Camilla Lennert Kleeman is 28 years old and a student at the university in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. She thinks there are several reasons why woman are leaving Greenland and never return. One is the limited opportunities to get an education.
‘Another reason is that it’s so difficult and expensive to find housing here, and there are long waiting lists for childcare. These are things that make it difficult to return to Greenland with a family.’
She says that it is often easier for people from other countries to find housing and childcare. Students also get special treatment, since the government wants to encourage higher education.
Niviaq Korneliussen, author from Greenland, mentions additional reasons why women move away: everything is expensive and there is a lack of qualified jobs. She says that Greenland must become more attractive to educated women.
‘We need to reduce the costs and create more opportunities for cultural workers. Right now it’s too difficult to find something to do if you have a special interest. For example, I’m having problems finding book readings and events for writers.’

Politicians want to attract mining companies

Martha Lund Olsen, Greenland’s gender equality minister, points out that women have higher levels of education than men in today’s Greenland. An increasing number of women hold leading positions in society. Yet many highly educated women move away due to a lack of qualified jobs.
‘We’re trying to create new job opportunities in Greenland by attracting mining and oil companies, as they could be a good match for our well-educated women.’
She says that foreign investors and new job opportunities also would add important revenue to the state finances, which currently are in deficit. The money is needed for the construction of new homes. Greenland does not have any private real estate developers. Instead, this has been the responsibility of the government over the last 60 years. Building is expensive, not least because building materials like wood products have to be imported. Normal people just don’t have enough money.
‘There is a bad housing shortage for people who would like to move here. Many Greenlanders are on long waiting lists for a place to rent.’

A more tolerant Greenland

Research shows that the women often perceive the gender roles to be more modern in the cities than in the more rural areas. It has not been determined whether this is a reason Greenlandic women are choosing to leave the island. But urban life tends to offers better opportunities to escape the traditional gender norms, which historically have been strongly rooted in Greenlandic society. Men have been hunters and women have been homemakers. The social control has been very strong, and so has the heteronorm. However, this has started to change in recent years. Pride festivals have drawn thousands of people into the streets. In May this year, Greenland’s parliament unanimously passed a gender-neutral marriage law. Nuka Bisgaard, Greenland’s only official transgender person, has arranged several pride festivals in Nuuk. She attributes the popularity of the events to people’s curiosity.

‘I think people in Greenland want to live modern lives and make room for new things.’
Bisgaard has also toured Greenland’s coastline as a drag queen, to help create a more tolerant Greenland. A documentary about Bisgaard’s life premiered last spring. Many people in Greenland have reacted to the film and Bisgaard’s drag show. Especially men seem eager to share their views.
‘It seems like I have opened some kind of door. My show has shown that people can be different, and that triggers many thoughts,’ says Bisgaard.
Also Nuuk’s mayor, Asii Chemnitz Narup, is engaged in LGBT issues. According to Chemnitz Narup, the LGBT movement is about creating a society where everybody has a place regardless of gender and sexual orientation.
‘We’re right now transitioning from being a fishing community to being a modern society. Those who study abroad and return home have a more global outlook on things. I want Greenlandic society to be tolerant, a place where we can all live together,’ says Chemnitz Narup.

In March 2016, NIKK will once again invite interested organisations to apply for funding for Nordic cooperation in the area of gender equality. A total of DDK 2.7 million will be distributed to approved projects.

The funding scheme was initiated by the Nordic gender equality ministers to stimulate Nordic cooperation within the framework of their cooperation programme and the priorities therein.

As in previous years, at least three Nordic countries must be involved in each application. The funding can be used to arrange for example conferences, meetings, knowledge projects and networks. The activities must begin in autumn 2016 and be completed before the end of 2017.

Applications are to be sent in by a webform which will be accessed online during this period.

In 2012, the Nordic Council of Ministers commissioned Nordic Information on Gender to coordinate a project called Part-Time Work in the Nordic Region. The ambition has been to contribute with analyses and develop new knowledge about part-time work.
To date, the project has yielded two reports and two follow-up conferences. However, the published reports have not covered the Nordic autonomous regions. Thus, a third report focusing on the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland is now underway. Dr Hayfield, assistant professor in social sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands, is leading the efforts.
Tell me about the work. What are you up to?
‘We’re taking a close look at part-time work in these areas. We spend most of the time collecting information, mapping data and compiling previous research. We’re also conducting our own smaller study, with three focus groups comprising Faroese women who have been interviewed about why they have chosen to work part time.’
How common is part-time work in the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland?
‘More than 50 per cent of Faroese women work part time. One likely reason, among others, for this is that many men leave home for extended periods to work in the fishing and offshore oil industries. They may for example be gone for two weeks at a time to work in Norway. In the meantime, the women have to manage their homes and children alone. We still don’t know what the situation looks like in Greenland and Åland, but the labour markets clearly have many differences.’
Which aspects of part-time work are you studying?
‘We’re approaching the issue from a structural, cultural and individual perspective. To what extent do cultural factors, such as the view of gender roles, affect the part-time work patterns? How are cultural factors interacting with the structures of the welfare systems, such as the design of child-care services? Faroese dads only get two weeks of parental leave, which signals that their government does not actively encourage men to take care of their children.’
What’s the biggest challenge in the project?
‘Very little research has been done on the interaction between cultural and structural factors. Something as simple as finding out how many people work part time in Greenland and Åland turned out to be difficult at first. But now we have received great support from Nordregio. They are giving us some useful data. We’re very pleased with the initiative to the study. Living on islands in the middle of an ocean implies a very unique situation that needs to be studied.’

The elections in Åland, held on 18 October, resulted in a parliament consisting of 20 men and 10 women.
‘It’s a bit better than in the past, but it isn’t good,’ says Mia Hanström, head of Feministparaplyet – a feminist umbrella network.
The Liberals won the most votes in Åland and formed a government with the Social Democrats and the Moderate Coalition. Three of the new ministers are women and four are men.
Hanström’s network pushed the issue of female representation in politics throughout the election campaign. Most parties presented fairly gender-balanced electoral lists. The most male-dominated parties were Ålandic Democracy and the Non-aligned Coalition, both of which belong on the right wing.

Hanström points out that many countries have laws mandating gender-equal electoral lists.
‘I believe such laws should be discussed as a possible solution here as well. That would put pressure on the parties that are still struggling with the gender issue,’ she says.
Gender-balanced electoral lists are an important step but will not solve the whole problem, Hanström continues.
‘We need to make more women visible in politics and change the image of politicians being male by default,’ she says.
Around the same time as Åland held its general elections, Norway held its municipal elections. About 38 per cent of Norway’s newly appointed municipal politicians are women.

Better gender balance in the Faroese cabinet

The female representation in the Faroese cabinet increased dramatically after the general elections held 1 September. Four of the eight appointed ministers are women, whereas the previous cabinet consisted of one woman and seven men.
‘This is a big leap forward for gender equality in the Faroe Islands. This is the first time ever that 50 per cent of the cabinet members are women,’ says Erika Hayfield, assistant professor in social sciences at the University of the Faroe Islands.

The Social Democratic Party was the big winner of the election, which means that the political power moved to left on the scale. The new government coalition also includes two other parties: Republic and Progress.
‘The coalition’s gender balance looks very good in the parliament, too, as nine of its 17 representatives are women,’ says Hayfield. ‘Overall, however, the parliament remains heavily male dominated – 22 of the 33 members are men.’

Male dominance in Norwegian municipal councils

Norway’s municipal elections were held 13–14 September. Men are in the majority also at this level. The Norwegian state broadcasting company NRK has looked at the gender distribution among politicians in 100 Norwegian municipalities. Their review shows that the share of women in the municipal councils is on average 38 per cent – the same as after the elections in 2007 and 2011.
‘The development has stalled in the last 15 years,’ says Ingrid Guldvik, professor of political science at Lillehammer University College.
The male dominance in Norwegian municipality councils is particularly noticeable at the higher levels. Over 70 per cent of all heads of municipal governments are men, writes the weekly magazine Kommunal rapport. Ingrid Guldvik believes that the political parties have an important responsibility to break the pattern.
‘If they want change by the next elections, they need to start now. They need to promote and support women in their organisations. Women and men should have the same opportunities to form and influence society, and that’s not the case in Norway today,’ she says.

Non-issue in Norge

According to Guldvik, there is a notion that women and men already have equal political power in the Nordic countries, and this makes people and organisations less interested in the issue.
‘The debate never really heats up in Norway. I think we need more discussion,’ she says.
The same is true for Åland, says Mia Hanström. During the election campaign, Åland’s feminist umbrella network tried to bring attention to the need for both more women and more feminism in politics. They for example asked all feminist politicians to answer a survey that later was published on the organisation’s website. More women in political power positions does not automatically lead to more feminist policymaking, but the lived experience is important, according to Hanström.
‘We need more women in politics in the same way as we need politicians from both urban and rural areas.’

Once a year, Nordic Information on Gender allocates money to Nordic gender equality projects on behalf of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The so-called Nordic funding scheme was initiated by the Nordic gender equality ministers with an aim to stimulate Nordic cooperation in the area.
A wide range of projects were granted funding this year. The project Nordic Gender Equality Policy in a Europeanisation Perspective, coordinated by the Norwegian Centre for Gender and Equality at the University of Agder, will explore to what extent the Nordic countries have served as exporters of gender equality policy since the 1990s, as well as how much they have had to adapt to international decisions in the same period.
Project Ad Watch is an initiative against sexist advertising launched by the Swedish Women’s Lobby in 2013. The plan is to introduce the campaign also in the other Nordic countries, and to carry out a review of Nordic legislation against sexist advertising. The aim is to present suggestions for improvements of regulations and implementations to Nordic ministers.
The Nordic expert conference on violence among young couples is another project that has been granted funding. The conference will be arranged in Oslo in April by Reform – Resource Centre for Men in Norway in cooperation with partner organisations in Finland, Denmark and Sweden. The aim with the conference is to develop recommendations, guidelines and other material that can be used by organisations and authorities across the Nordic region.

‘Everybody knows that Pippi, Albert Åberg, Gummi-Tarzan and the Moomintroll like to challenge traditional gender norms. Far fewer people are aware of subsequent writers and illustrators who have followed in the equality-pioneering footsteps,’ says Ole B. Nordfjell, senior adviser at Reform – Resource Centre for Men.
The new website genustest.no is aiming to change that.
Reform has developed the website at the request of the Nordic Council of Ministers, and the goal is for all preschool workers in the Nordic region to use it. The website provides tools for analysing whether picture books are reinforcing or challenging traditional gender norms. It also provides tools for evaluating the level of diversity in preschool bookshelves.
‘Students and preschool workers should actively consider the values regarding gender and diversity that literature, language and stories contribute to. The website offers concrete advice and we would like for people to use it as part of an active approach to literature in the preschool setting,’ says Nordfjell.
‘The hope is that new generations of kids will find that picture books are both good literature and good in an equality perspective,’ he adds.

Who is cleaning? Who is talking?

Nordfjell has written the texts with the support of literature and gender researcher Mia Österlund from Åbo Akademi University in Finland.
‘To be able to analyse the picture books you need to be visually literate, you must be able to read images,’ explains Österlund.
‘Children are often good at that. They look at the pictures while adults read the texts. But adults should also be able to read the pictures in a book and see how kids and adults are portrayed.’
Österlund says that pictures can tell a lot about the interaction between women and men, girls and boys.
‘Who does what? Who is cleaning? Who is allowed to do something? Who is not allowed? Who is talking? Who is silent? This has to do with power relations,’ says Österlund.
It is well known that picture books can create quite a stir, in particular when they portray something that violates a norm.
‘We have for example seen that picture books showing boys dressed in skirts can spark a lot of debate,’ says Österlund.
She points out that being critical of norms does not mean that one must violate all norms. The idea is to have a conscious and critical approach to the norms presented in the books.

Six analytical strategies

All content of genustest.no is based on research – gender research, picture book research and literature research.
‘Our aim is to spread knowledge about how to read picture books and how they express and communicate gender,’ Österlund explains.
The website presents six analytical strategies that together can give teachers an idea of whether a certain picture book contributes to increased equality or has the opposite effect.

The first strategy – the Teller – asks the question: What gender does the main character and the subordinate characters have?
The next strategy is called the Norm Critic. Here the focus is on gender patterns displayed in the book. Although the analysis is centred around gender, the norm critical analysis includes an intersectional perspective. This means that it also considers factors such as ethnicity, class, age, disability, sexuality, gender and looks at how they interact.
The Picture Reader explores how images contribute to the book’s expression of gender and asks for example what colours are used in the book. Pink? Light blue? Black? Is the protagonist depicted with an expressive face? Do the images suggest that the book targets primarily boys or girls?
The strategy called the Queering Researcher focuses on whether there is anything unusual about gender, love and family life presented in the book and asks what these mismatches and ambiguities mean.
The Child Researcher asks the children what they think. By reading to them and talking about the book, the Child Researcher examines how children understand gender patterns. What impressions does the book give of what it means to be a boy or girl?
The last strategy, the Fortune Teller, looks at how gender patterns in the family and society are evolving and approaches the picture book in a broader context. Does the book say anything about what it is like to grow up as a boy or girl in today’s society?

Adults too can learn from children’s books

Österlund points out that although we are talking about picture books designed for children, the books can also be of interest to adults.
‘Picture books can offer interesting commentary on the adult world. Actually, you can find some of the most valuable commentary on parenthood in these books, as the interaction between children and adults is a frequent theme.’

Now anybody can go to www.norden.org/and find statistics on how money and power, paid and unpaid work, suicide and smoking are distributed between women and men in the five Nordic countries and the three autonomous provinces Åland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

The statistics show for example that men are overrepresented in the labour force in all included countries and provinces, with only one exception: Åland. They also reveal that Iceland has the highest proportion of female managers, that Finnish children spend the least amount of time in day care and that Swedish men spend more time performing unpaid household labour than other Nordic males.

Gender equality data to serve Nordic policy makers

Commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Nordic national statistics offices have worked together for over a year to be able to present a large number of comparative statistics. The purpose of the initiative is partly to give Nordic policy makers access to the best possible gender equality data and partly to disseminate information about Nordic gender equality to other countries.

‘The Nordic countries are forerunners in the area of gender equality. But we’re still not where we want to be. Important differences remain between the countries and there is plenty of room for improvement in all areas covered by the statistics. It is therefore important that this information is made accessible. The Nordic countries need to compare themselves with each other in order to learn where and how further progress can be made,’ says Dagfinn Höybråten, secretary general of the Nordic Council of Ministers.

The Nordic countries compared to EU

The subject headings include demographics, health, education, income and power.

Compared with other international gender equality databases, the Nordic one boasts more recent data and more comparative indicators.

Some of the indicators compare the Nordic countries with an EU average. For example, the numbers show that the income gap between male and female retirees is larger in the Nordic countries than in the rest of the EU. The reason for this is that Nordic women are more likely to live alone.