The Scandinavian Welfare States- Towards Sexual Equality or a New Kind of Male Domination?

Abstract

This paper studies the debate about the Scandinavian welfare states from a leminist perspective, focusing on the differences between a feminist per spective and the dominant liberal and critical Marxist understanding of the welfare state In particular it focuses on the argument that the Scandinavian welfare state, are the most advanced in relation to women and discusses both the potentialities and dangers in the Scandinavian welfare states in relation to women. Feminists have pointed out that the concept of gender has been disregarded from a theoretical and methodological paint of view in both liberal and Marxist analyses of the welfare state The fundamental concepts have been other the individual or the class, and the determining force, of the development of the welfare state have been found in the political sphere or in the economy or in the Interrelation between the two spheres The paper points to the need to integrate gender relations in the theoretical model for an analysis of the welfare state and emphasizes the need to explore the relationship between the family and the state (and the family and the economy) in the different welfare states The paper emphasizes that the qualitative differences in the organization of care work are important for understanding the institutional differences between the welfare states, and especially the Scandinavian welfare states, where mother hood and care work has today become a part of sucial citizenship The author argues that even though women have in important ways become empowered in the Scandinavian welfare states as mothers, workers and citizens, the) have at the same time become subsumed under a new kind of male domination in the public sphere A further exploration of this new kind of male dommatton must transcend the theoretical framework of both Marxism and liberalism and must begin to rethink such central concepts as citizenship. power and interests.