the women's movement: a theoretical discussion

The Women's Movement: A Theoretical DiscussionAuthor(s): Helena StreijffertSource: Acta Sociologica, Vol. 17, No. 4 (1974), pp. 344-366Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4194028 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 03:39

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Sage Publications, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ActaSociologica.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.78.108.199 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 03:39:04 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sageltd

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4194028?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT - A THEORETICAL DISCUSSION

Helena Strei;ffert

University of Gothenburg

This paper is an attempt to describe in general terms the pattern of development of women's movements. One of the main problems concems the mobilization of women to participate in such a movement. In solving this problem I find it recessary to defme women first as members of a society and then as participants in a movement. I shall discuss women as a social category, as a coliectivity, and as a goup. Moreover I shall identify the women's movement as a collective actor and discuss two aspects of its mobilization potential: the mobilization of women in relation to each other, ie. by their membership of a group, and in relation to the women's movement as a reference individuaL

The empirical data cited in the discussion should be regarded as illustrations and not, of course, as proofs. The model presented is the result of a theoretical exercise, and should be assessed on the basis of its potential value for a future empirical study of women's movements in Sweden.

I. Introduction

This paper is part of a larger study of the development of women's movements in Sweden. The feminism which came to life during the latter half of the 1960's is one of its points of departure. The conditions and problems faced by women have become a subject of general discussion and - a fact which I find interesting - a reason for women in different groups and organizations to join forces in demanding change. Moreover women's joint endeavours on their own behalf is by no means a new phenomenon in our society. The industrial revolution focused attention on the problems of women, and by the turn of the century various feminist organizations were demanding certain concessions.

A feminist movement comes into existence because, as at the turn of the century, the contemporary society does not give its women a fair deal. But a male society is obviously not a sufficient cause for such protest; in such a case the feminist movement would be continuallyon the rampage. So there is reason to reformulate the basic problem and ask: What prevents women from joining forces to demand their fair share of social benefits?

This paper is an attempt to answer this question. I shall consider the rise of the women's movement as a social process whereby women join forces in a collective effort to influence and alter the social terms by which they live. The following section contains a theoretical discussion of the development of such a process.

344



Il:1. Class and Minority Movements

The women's movement can be placed in the same category as the workers' movement, the Black movement in the USA etc. . ., i.e. social movements based on a special category of citizens. In all these cases the social category has inferior status, and the movement is formed to protest in the name of its members against their disadvantages.

Yet the similarity between the women's and the other movements may end here. The worker's movement, for example, is concerned with solidarity and struggle from behind a class barrier. In other words it represents an organized group of citizens, characterized by their position in a historically determined production system: they are alike in their relationship to the means of production, their status in industry and in the social and political life. - Women, on the other hand are, and have always been, a social category in all societies and through all ages. Naturally the implications of being a woman have varied according to the epoch and the society. Here, however, I wish only to emphasize an essential difference between the women's and the workers' movements, as regards their social bases - namely the far higher degree of homogeneity among the workers as compared with the women.

Moreover women are not an oppressed minority, as are the Black people of the USA - or the Jews during the greater part of the history of modem Europe, or the Laplanders of Sweden. Before a social category can be identified as a minority, it must as a rule be numerically inferior. The Laplanders in our society meet such a requirement but the women, of course, do not. On the other hand, they are in the minority if we elect to consider only sections of society, such as parts of - or indeed the whole of - the labour market. The statistics on the changes in the labour force show that women are a numerically small but increasing minority. "The number of women on the labour market rose slowly until 1930, stagnated until 1950, and has since then rapidly increased. In 1970 there were almost 1.6 million women workers, or 40% of the labour force". (G. Qvist 1974, p. 47) - Minority status also tends to be related to participation in political activities; in this sense it is perhaps easiest to regard women as a minority. If we scrutinize the composition of organs under the Swedish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), we see that women are seriously underrepresented, notwithstanding that in certain trades they have in the past formed women's unions, i.e. unions with a membership predominantly of women (G. Qvist 1974 p. 47). The underrepresentation of women is also striking in political organizations at both national and local level, despite the electoral reforms (S.U. Palme 1969).

Nevertheless the most difficult fact to establish - a fact which I regard as fundamental in the minority analysis - is that women constitute an ethnic minority, i.e. a minority in the sense that they have a common origin, that they are a special "people", a separate "tribe" in anthropological terminology (M. Banton 1972 pp.1 1 -1 3). While the Laplanders, by

345



reason of their "ethnic community", have their own history, their own language and culture, and even their own territory, which is now in hazard simply because of their minority status, it is difficult to follow a similar reasoning concerning the situation of women. Women, like the Laplanders, constitute a subordinate category in our society but their ethnic affiliation, their cultural characteristics and heritage are not the cause of their inferiority, nor are they threatened. Women have never existed "separately", independent of others, as have the Laplanders.

We must bear in mind that the social basis of the women's movement is neither a class nor an (ethnic) minority. This is the more important as their social situation has been analysed on the assumption that they are an inferior class, a minority. Simone de Beauvoir (1972 p. 18) discusses and refutes the parallell drawn by Bebel between women and the proletariat. The criticism which she levels against Bebel may assuredly be applied to later advocates of the women/class analogy, such as Margaret Benston's formulation ".... in fact women as a group have a specific relation to the means of production, and it differs from that of men" (M. Benston, 1973, p. 77). Simone de Beauvoir would certainly contradict this assumption and argue that women do not have - have never had -

an occupational solidarity and fellowship of interests similar to that of the proletariat, since their situation tends to impose a loyalty to men -

as fathers and husbands - rather than to their fellow women. She would perhaps agree with Margaret Benston that the relationship between women and the means of production differs from that of men but would argue that this is not characteristic of women as a class - as is the case with the proletariat.

The class analysis may well be of use for the study of the growth of certain women's movements, such as the Women's Association of the Social Democratic Party: yet it may only serve as a complement, although a valuable one, when for instance this movement is compared with the Fredrika Bremer Society, which had been founded a few years before. The former movement drew on a special category - "Women of the Proletariat" - while the latter, although this was not intended, came to represent the upper class. "The organizers and leading lights of the Fredrika Bremer Society tended to be 'Society women' rather than members of the middle class, and the self-supporting, single women were few in number" (J. Rossel 1950 p. 52).

The socialist women's movement however did not regard their

problems as exclusively related to class but also as a consequence of their sex. The minutes from its first meeting (in 1892) describe speeches asserting that men tend to regard women as their inferiors, and that this is manifested in the fact that lower wages are paid to women, even if they do the same jobs as men. Further, demands made by women in the socialist movement are rejected on the grounds that the women's

question does not exist and that there is only a social problem, common to both men and women. Nevertheless, as one speaker, Miss Rathou,

346



pointed out, in practice women are at a disadvantage: "Men built this society and it is by no means perfect: we should start thinking, and join clubs to educate ourselves; when we are strong enough we should go to our lords and masters, M.P.'s and cabinet ministers, and ask them, 'Will you grant us any rights, will you give us the vote?' " (H. Flood 1960,

P.9). Indeed as these women did not consider their problem as purely a

question of class, I think that we can adopt their attitude when we seek to study their activities. Their movement was not primarily aimed at the working class, it sought rather to unite women, although mainly working women. ("The public part of the meeting was declared at an end once the discussion was over. 'The Sons of Labour' sang and then the men had to leave, while the women stayed for a private meeting at which they decided to form a women's club, called the Stockholm Public Women's Club", ibid.).

The minority analogy which is well expressed in recent American research on sexual roles (A. Russel Hochschild 1973) may prove to be of value - although again primarily as a complement - for instance for the analysis of the problems faced by midwives in 1886. The minutes from one meeting say: "In order to focus the more sharply on their attempts to increase their proficiency and their reputation, the corps of midwives have decided to publish their own magazine" (C. Smitt, 1887, p.68). The social bases of the Swedish Midwives' Association is a special category of women, whose common denominator lies not in a tribe or a people but in an occupational group. As an occupational group they also fulfil the minority criteria, "small number", and "political outsiders" (cf. above). One of the problems discussed at the meeting was the fact that they themselves had no influence on the decisions relating to their professional requirements and range of competence - just as the Laplanders were not present when the limits of their pastures were decided. The midwives alleged that their profession was both "oppressed and misunderstood" (ibid.).

Nevertheless further study of the minutes suggests that the midwives saw their problem not merely as related to their profession but as the concern of women in general. "Do we midwives have a particular obligation, beyond that of all other women, to combine our efforts to work for the achievement of an adequate midwifery service?" (ibid). The midwives held that it is in the interest of all women to work toward this end. The minutes clearly show that they considered that their problem was all women's problem, and its solution called for the efforts of all women. Indeed the existence of problems such as theirs means that the midwives must "diligently work for the best interests not only of their profession but of all women, and thus try to bring other women into the struggle" (ibid. p. 70, my italics). Professional solidarity is not the only ground of the midwives' identification but also - and perhaps mainly -

their gender.

347



Thus the women's movement is not a class or a minority movement, since women cannot be said to be either a class or a minority. Indeed it can be said to resemble such movements since it invariably constitutes a process whereby a social category unites in a collective effort to influence and change the conditions under which they live. Nevertheless the mobilization for participation - i.e. the heart of such a process -

must depend on those who are being mobilized. Moreover, from such a perspective it is essential to define women as members of society, - and as participants in a movement. The assertion that they are neither a class nor a minority does not suffice.

In the following section I shall try to arrive at such a definition by indentifying and describing women as a social category, using gender as a social attribute, and then as a collectivity in the society side by side with the other, the male collectivity.

II:2. Men and Women as Social Categories

Men and women constitute two - the two - fundamental categories of the human race. The relationship between them has been described as being between two different biological units, whose primary function is the continuation of the species: that the biological difference is an indispensable and natural basis for an equally natural difference between men and women as regards behaviour, interests, jobs etc. Such reasoning is based on a more or less explicit assumption that an individual's behaviour is influenced - indeed determined - by his/her biological sex. Nevertheless as sociologists we know, that the relationship between men and women is based on the interaction between them in their capacity as members of their respective categories, and that this membership is the result of our classification of each other according to this division whenever we meet. Our relations are then of two kinds: the one is between similars ("we women" or "we men"), the other between dissimilars ("you men" or "you women"). When we meet, we meet (at least) as possessors of a social attribute, as belonging to one of the sexual categories for a definition of category see R. Merton 1966, pp. 299- 300).

In a society in which women are inferior to men, this means that in certain social situations women are ascribed roles which are less advantageous or attractive than those attributed to men. The sociology - and the debate - on sex roles provides evidence of the differences of function and of expected behaviour which are inherent in this division. In other words the woman's traditional role differs from that of a man, not only in quality but also in quantity: it is in fact smaller. For the woman the traditional role division involves a specialisation in "functions within the family", and provides no guidance for activity outside this sphere (Rita Liljestrom 1973, Chap. 4). Woman's position in society as "home-maker" is not solely due to her physical attributes but results

348



from social training for a role starting in the individual's (the child's) gender. Gender is a role sign.

The social labelling of individuals as men or women respectively is not only expressed in the division of functions; social roles are not merely a set of rights and duties associated with a specific position in a social structure - such as specialisation as husband and wife in the family - but with a social identity in a more or less general sense. Membership of a category confers an identity and an identity-value.

The categories "female" and "male" are associated not only with concepts and expectations as to behaviour, but also with an evaluation: "man"P represents a higher value than "woman". The mere fact of being born a boy is an advantage, compared with being born a girl. The desirable and typical qualities of female identity are such as are appropriate for a woman's traditional role, in terms of her special position in the family. They are different from - and inferior to - those which are regarded as desirable and typical of male identity, i.e. those which are valued as personal attributes in social life. Some of the problems of the so-called career women derive from her divergence from our expectations in that she is not a man. We could say with Goffman that she has a stigma ( 1971, pp. 14f).

Persons with a stigma, says Goffman, are exposed to discrimination of various kinds, whereby their possibilities in life are, although uninten- tionally, curtailed; in the case of women to a career as "mother, nurse, wife, housekeeper" (Rita Liljestrom, 1973). - Purely by definition, persons who posses a stigma are not wholly human, - a stigma theory is constructed around them, an ideology to explain their inferiority. Indeed, the female category, as its more perceptive representatives have so often pointed out, is surrounded by myths, which have in fact been challenged as myths and not factual statements. The main purpose of the various myths is to support the belief that women are out of place in most contexts outside their traditional domain; that they are suited for this and no other role, thanks to their particular sex-related qualities, often mysterious and supernatural in character, such as "female intuition", "true mother love" etc.

A further consequence of the stigma theory surrounding women is that the very designation of the category, including its synonyms "girls, females, birds, chicks," in colloquial speech carry associations which permit of their use in other contexts to denote other creatures than women. "Feminine" and "girlish" may be used in a negative sense of behaviour and actions performed by men as well as women.

The negative connotations of the label "female" are manifest in women's own submissiveness, in that they usually/very frequently yield at the least mention of their gender. Not only do they accept their inferiority, in agreement with the stigma theory surrounding them, but they accept it as justified. Indeed they too, as much as men, protect it. We need only recall the moral of so-called "women's magazines" (cf.

349



Hanne Moller et al. 1972). And how damning is the designation "unfeminine" (as is "unmanly" of men), a fearful epithet used by men and by women. - The "feminine" label may also serve as a cloak to hide disappointments and failures, or the ruins of plans or ambitions. It is also to some extent a source of secondary gains: for example, "helplessness" may be used by the enterprising, and for some, although few, beauty has proved a way to success. Under certain circumstances the denigration of a husband for lack of consideration for "a mere woman" may be effective.

Thus to be a woman is, in the final analysis, to belong to an inferior social category. It means one is assumed to possess specific, and usually less desirable, attributes. It confers a social identity in which gender is the main determinant. A multitude of expected qualities are associated with this central component of the bearer's social identity: a woman is expected to be warm, soft, spontaneous, lacking in professional ambition etc. (Cf. Becker's, 1966, discussion of "master status" and "auxiliary status", pp. 32-34). Insofar as a woman does not possess these "congenital" attributes she is regarded as an oddity, and exposed to highly embarrassing situations in her dealings eith others, situations which may well lead to identity conflicts.

The struggle by the early women's movement for, as they put it, "the improvement of womans's moral and intellectual, as well as social and economic status" (from the minutes of the first meeting of the Fredrika Bremer Society in 1884), or as Morgonbns, the magazine of the Social Democratic Women's Association, said in a debate with Ny Tid in 1909:

"one could wish that they (working class women) could state their opinions without provoking a contemptous jeer. They are not permitted to speak up as workers on questions which concern them, not as mothers on questions which consern them as mothers: indeed our male colleagues should realise that we have the right to express an opinion both on party issues and other problems which closely affect us". (H. Flood 1960, p. 31). This provides a good illustration of the conflict situation which many

women must have experienced when they tried to function outside the sphere of competence assigned to them by the expectations related to their social identity.

Yet more interesting than establishing the social inferiority of women is the question of why women accept the social identity which accompanies gender. The categories "male" and "female" not only exist in, but are also created by, the society in which men and women live and work. Why do women - apart from those concerned with the feminist movement - accept involvement in the creation and maintenance of a category definition which is so deprecatory of their sex. Indeed do they take part in this process at all?

In order to penetrate this essential and fascinating problem we must direct our interest to men and women as collectivities rather than as

350



categories: society is not a creation of individuals but a collective product. In other words we must consider men and women as two collectivities of individuals, which not only resemble each other in possessing a social and multidimensional attribute, gender, but also a sense of solidarity by virtue of their common values, "man" and "woman"v, and who live up to the role expectations inherent in these values. (For a definition of collectivity see R. Merton 1966, p. 299). Since this fellowship of values assesses women differently from men, we may assume that they are (or were) to differing degrees involved in its construction. It is such an assumption that shall direct me in the following.

n.3. Men and Women - Social Coliectivities

The fellowship of values between men and women, for which I argued in the preceding section, calls for further comment. This fellowship refers primarily to a common understanding or "intelligibility" - a prerequisite for communication - between the members of a society. In other words there is general agreement concerning the social definition of "man" and "swoman"l, at least insofar as it is possble without misunderstandings and consequent disturbances to interact with each other. Common, shared understanding is usually contained within the concept of culture in sociological and anthropological literature. Robert Redfield expresses an anthropologist's view of culture as follows:

"In speaking of 'culture' we have reference to the conventional understandings, manifest in act and artefact, that characterize societies. The 'understandings' are the meanings attached to acts and objects. The meanings are conventional in so far as they have become typical for the members of that society by reason of inter-communication among the members. A culture is then, an abstraction: it is the type toward which the meanings that the same act or object has for the different members of the society tend to conform. The meanings are expressed in action, from which we infer them; so we may as well identify 'culture' with the extent to which the conventionalized behavior of members of the society is for all the same". (Robert Redfield: The Folk Culture of Yucatan. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press 1941, p. 132. Quoted by Becker 1966, p. 80).

Redfield refers to culture as the shared understanding of the society's members and - which should not be forgotten - says that this equality of comprehension is created by/in the intercommunication of those practicing it. Marvin Olsen also defines culture as a product of a shared social life:

"The . . . concept of culture refers only to the bodies of ideas that are shared by a number of people. . . . cultural ideas are an integral aspect of the total process of social organization, along with patterns of social order within the process of social organization". (M. Olsen 1968, p. 55).

As a part of the social reality, the subject matter of sociology, culture is a part of the process of social organization, as interpreted by Olsen.

351



The process of social organization has begun as soon as social actors interact in repeated social relations in order to create social order, which is in its tum permeated by cultural ideas. (ibid. p. 62).

For both these authors, interaction between the members of a society is a condition for shared values, standards and concepts. The society's definition of male and female is part of the whole of which they are a part - as actors interacting with each other and with the opposite sex. In this section we are concerned with societal actors men and women as two collectivities. Which are the central social relations within the respective collectivities? What are the relations between the collectivities? - The shared and common calues "woman" and "man" and the accompanying division of sex roles must reasonably be reflected in the interaction between the actors in the pattern of social relations.

The modern society consists of a series, or a set of, organizations, organised collectivities, the number of which is increasing rather than declining. Social change has been studied as a process of structural differentiation in the sense of development from a multifunctional role structure to several, specialised structures. Take, for instance, N.J. Smelser's "illustrative example": "During a society's transition from domestic to factory industry, the division of labor increases, and the economic activities previously lodged in the family move to the firm". (Smelser 1968, p. 129). In other words the process of structural differentiation creates new, specialised social units which are structurally separate from each other; units, or as we called them above, organized collectivities, to which individuals are linked or bound together in some form of fellowship of work or interests. Participation in the society, either as regards production, politics or recreation, involves membership of many such forms of fellowship. A modern member of society, as compared with his historical predecessor, is a "multimember", i.e. one who divides his time among many collective activities. Isolation is the absence of such memberships.

Nevertheless women are primarily "unimembers", by virtue of their position and role in the family structure. The woman's role, as documented by numerous studies of sex role sociology, is wholly adapted to a career in the family. The traditional division of roles not only defines woman's sphere as "mother, nurse, wife and housekeeper" (Rita Liljestrom 1973) but also her position in the authority structure, which consists in the relationship between the members of the family. Until 1921 the Swedish married woman was formally and legally subject to her husband. "Companionship marriage" at that time became a concept and vision of the reformed alliance of a man and woman as equals. With our present advantage of hindsight and the possibility of temporal comparisons, we can see that the vision was not realised after the legal reform. The traditional division of roles and status between husband and wife is still a reality.

Nowadays, however, the wife's possible inferiority to the husband in

352



the family structure is not really the modem woman's problem. The issue is rather that her social identity is that of the wife. Women as a category are primarily members of a family, notwithstanding that all women are not, always or even ever, wives, and that throughout the 20th century they have been gainfully employed, if not to the same extent as men. The result of this social identity and the concomitant role specialisation is that, while men are members of a number of collective groups, as following a trade, as citizens, as sportsmen or athletes (Rita Liljestrom 1973, p. 82), women have but one central reality: the family. Here they are expected to concentrate their energies. Moreover women are conspicuous by their absence in other collective contexts: in the more important levels of industry and public life.

The fact that the family is women's traditional and actual arena has an effect on their participation in social life, in the process of social organization of which sex role expectations are a part. The essential consequence for the female collectivity is that women have their most significant relationships with men, with husbands. Let me quote Alice Rossi (writing at the beginning of the 1960's) when she tries to account for the absence of a women's movement in the U.S.:

"There is an interesting and simple explanation to this: unlike any other type of social inequality, whether of race, class, religion or nationality, sex is the only instance in which representatives of the unequal groups live in more intimate association with each other than with members of their own group. A woman is more intimately associated with a man than she is with any woman". (Alice Rossi 1964).

So when we assert that women are alike in terms of interest orientation and solidarity by virtue of shared values, the values 'man' and 'woman" and that they live up to the role expectations concomitant upon the consensus, this likeness is primarily based on their relations to men and not to other women. Women do not live in communities of sisters separate from men - they live isolated not only from public life and industry but from each other; an isolation which has tended to increase as society developed.

Modern household technology, for instance, may well be regarded as a factor contributing to the isolation of the housekeepers from each other; the communal wash-houses, the co-operative laundries which became popular throughout the country during the first half of the 20th century have given way to the private washing machine: the deep freezers change the housewives' buying routine from daily trips to the shops, giving opportunities of regular contact with other women, to major shopping expeditions once or twice a month. It has even been argued that in fact household mashines have not set the housewife free from her duties:

"An analysis of the benefits of these miracles of technology reveals that machines do not take over the duties which women must perform: no washing machine can look after children; neither a TV set nor a mixmaster can attend to a sick grandmother or scrub the floors" (B. As, undated).

353



These machines were not invented or constructed by women to set them free from household chores. They are part of the material environment which women accept as the background to the performance of their roles. - Their nature as "background" becomes apparent if we compare them with the technological devices which The Swedish Countrywomen's Association struggled to acquire. Marta Leijon, one of the more active organizers and agitators, worked for the improvement of rural housing. Her contribution should be considered in terms of the wretched and inhuman working conditions endured by farmers' wives:

"It is not enough to point out that the lot of the farmer's wife is hard. She has the longest working hours, and generally lacks all the conveniences which other women regard as their right. There are homes without a cellar or a larder. There are many small houses where the housewife does not even have a sink but must do her washing up at the stove.

What is more, I wonder how much time Sweden's farmers' wives spend in fetching and carrying water. . . . The water bucket is always empty and the slop-bucket always full. Many farmers' wives with large families spend at least 700 hours a year carrying buckets for washing and cleaning. I wonder how many hours it would take to instal plumbing and a simple hand pump?

Countrywomen! You, 400 000 women in the farmhouses of Sweden who have the power in your hands, don't forget that it is up to you.

Can it be other than hard and difficult for those who will not lend a hand: We are not living in the days of our grandparents but in our own time and our children's. We find no excuses, with our forefathers or with our posterity." (Quoted by May Larsson 1973, p. 49).

The women of the countryside are here exhorted to awareness of, and opposition to, their inhuman working conditions. Household technology is here a source of change in their material circumstances, allowing of tolerable working conditions. They are fighting for this change for their own benefit, to gain control over the household chores.

I use this example of women's efforts to acquire household appliances to emphasize the difference between these technological gains and the machinery of the modern house in terms of the users' relationship to such devices. In the case of the countrywomen the desire for machines was based on the women's own definition of their work situation and, which is significant, they felt they could express and satisfy their needs in relation to other women and not to their, surely also hard-working, husbands.

Nevertheless a woman's typical relation is that with her husband, and she shares her main fellowship of interests with him. Given the central importance of the family, the female collectivity is a gathering of "outsiders" in all other social associations. The family constitutes a structural obstacle to their participation therein. - This structural foundation is accompanied by a female consciousness which is not based

354



on the woman's experiences of other women, her similars, but with men, who are her dissimilars, primarily, of course, with her husband within the family structure but also, insofar as she is gainfully employed, with her male superior. This is not a self-consciousness derived from experiences such as "how alike we are, she and I", but "how different we are, he and I". And there is a great difference between having one's identity confirmed by virtue of its dissimalarity, instead of its similarity.

The male collectivity has an entirely different basis of self consciousness, in that men take part in many associations apart from their relationships with their wives. They are continually made aware of their personal identity by relationships with similars, among fellow workers, club members, team-mates etc., not to mention the armed forces of which they all form a part.

Moreover men and women experience and define each other on different terms. Apart from the image of each other which is created in the family, men, helped by their similars, have many opportunities of arriving at a concept of women without the latter's co-operation.

The high frequency of contacts in the male collectivity as compared with the female is also a different condition for collective solidarity, i.e. solidarity with one's own sex. Interaction with others creates a "we feeling" and fellowship of interests, which is of significance for further intercourse with them and with outsiders. The solidarity of the work-group, the loyalty to fellow members of a political party, the companionship with other sportsmen are all attatchments which compete with family-feeling. The family is given its share of a man's time after adjustment to his other concerns. The family claims all a woman's time, since she has no other equally important commitments. Her time belongs to the family first and foremost, and last of all to others. A woman is designated "a bad mother" if she shows an interest in other matters: or it is said "No wonder he tired of her, she was never at home". The interesting - or horrifying - point is that these judgements are not passed only by men but also, and perhaps mainly, by other women.

The lack of solidarity among women is not due to their lack of objective grounds for such an emotion: indeed they are alike in their isolation and dependence on their-husbands. It results from women's want of experience of fellowship of interests. Such a fellowship does not arise since women "never" meet and share each other's company. The fundamental lack of solidarity among women was realised by the early feminist movement, which tried to remedy it. At the first general meeting of the Social Democratic Women's Association in 1892 Ms Igelback stated:

"I am convinced that if women were aware of the real situation they would join in the struggle for emancipation. It is no good saying that it serves no purpose, and referring to defeats such as the Norberg strike: indeed if there had been a women's club at Norberg the situation would have been different. Then perhaps there would not have been so many devious persons, women as well as men, like the woman who stood

4 355



laughing as we were evicted, and said, especially to me, 'Serves you right' ". (H. Flood 1960, p. 10).

The male and female collectivities naturally differ in terms of organization - not that all men are part of an organized collectivity but that the important organizations are run by men; or that the society may be described as an aggregate of collective actors of male sex. Indeed a logical consequence of our definition of the female collectivity is that it lacks the capacity for organization - mainly because of the low frequency of mutual contact. Their collective similarity as bearers of the female sex role is based on their relationship to men, not to each other, just as their collective identity derives from their dissimilarity to others rather than similarity to one another.

Dissimilarity, i.e. similarity in "being the other" as Simone de Beauvoir would surely say, is an unfavourable basis for collective organization. It is no good as a basis for a "we feeling". To quote de Beauvoir:

"Proletarians say 'We': Negroes also. Regarding themselves as subjects they transform the bourgeois, the whites, into 'others'. But women do not say 'We' except at some congress of feminists or similar formal demonstration: men say 'women', and women use the same word in referring to themselves. They do not authentically assume a subjective attitude". (Simone de Beauvoir 1972, p. 19).

A scrutiny of women's organizations certainly indicates that they are few in number and of minor importance to society and indeed to women's situation. Only in exceptional cases do women's organizations take action on issues outside their generally recognized field of competence. Women are involved in social work and nursing, in agreement with their role as mother, nurse and home-maker, i.e. in organizations active within the limits and needs established by the male organizations. The women's volontary armed forces (Lottakdren) of Sweden are a typical example - they originated by the way in the Stockholm Women's Home Guard, founded in 1924. A further example of women's organizational behavior is to be found in the positions they hold if they are present at all in the more important organizations: they may be subscribers but they do not serve as (paid) board members and officials, but as secretaries or assistants to the chairman; they join the political parties but they rarely sit in parliament or the cabinet, or on the town council; they are members and consumers in co-operatives but they are not the managing director.

Finally let me mention yet another typical association run by women: the benevolent society, which with women's voluntary labour arranges bazaars and lotteries in the interests of other groups, not their own. This type of organization was appositely described by Berit As:

"The collections of bottles and rags on which many women's organizations rely for their work among children and old people bear the mark of poverty. It is often well-educated women with comparatively

356



wealthy husbands who choose to work for hours or days on these projects, although they are well aware that a day or two of paid employment, plus the donation of the fee, would help the organization far more. This one observation prompts the thought that the more humanitarian, poor, and lacking in influence the organization, the more likely it is that its members are women". (B. As, Undated).

The activities of the women's associations - organizations of the female collectivity - differ from those of men. They differ precisely as women differ from men, as their collective consciousness, their solidarity, is unlike men's.

The difference originates not only in the divergent assessments of ',man"? and "women" but in their unequal opportunities of contributing to this value consensus. A woman's inferiority consists in her more limited possibilities of active participation in social life, in collective activities whereby the society is created and changed, wherein the rules are laid down. Her possibilities of asserting herself and promoting her interests have tended to decline with the development of society - and the process of structural differentiation mentioned in the above. At the same time as the society's essential activities, such as production and politics, have moved outside the fellowship of the household group -

and the household group has become a family (on the difference between these two entities see Rita Liljestrom 1973, pp. 53-56) - the distance between the society and its women has increased. This distance is expressed in the "separation", each to her own husband, mentioned above - and the absence of significant relationships with other people, women as well as men. - The traditional female role in the modem society involves, in other words, a position of weakness for women, since it places strong structural barriers on her way to participation and thus to her chance of power-sharing.

The structural basis of the female collectivity consists in the obstacles which must be surmounted if women are to be mobilized to participate in contexts other than the family. - These very obstacles must be faced and overcome by the women's movement. Structural barriers such as these must be destroyed before women can join forces in a collective effort to influence and change the conditions under which they live. This is the process I shall specify in the following section.

II A. The Women's Movement - A Collective Actor

In the previous section I tried to characterize women's problem as their "$non-participation". I pointed out that the societal situation of the female collectivity is confinement to the family, based on a woman's complementary - and close - relationship to her man (role specialisation). This structural basis results in her absence from other collective associations - from the important social contexts in which the society is created and changed, in which interests meet and conflicts occur. The

357



structural explanation of women's inferior status, her situation as bearer of a stigma, which I have discussed, is also relevant to the problem of why she accepts her lot, and takes part in a game in which she is invariably the loser.

I discussed above the want of solidarity among women, seeing its prime cause in their lack of mutual contact and experience. We can also add their complementary relations to men. Thus women feel their chief loyalty to their union with the husband. Their material and social assets depend on their husbands' success and good fortune. They develop their essential - and only - fellowship of interests with men. Even today the man's social status determines that of the family; it is not the title 'wife', but 'wife of which places a woman on the social ladder. Remember titles such as "Doctoress" and other feminine forms of a husbands title which have only now begun to be forgotten. The association with (titled) men is not only expressed by the wife's use of her husband's title, but also by the fact that she helps him in duties such as representation, i.e. giving and attending parties which the man's position "demands".

Marriage has, with some justification, been described as the career for women, even in recent decades, notwithstanding that almost all forms of education, and possibilities of social success, are in theory open to both sexes. - Cf. the modern "women's novel" in which the heroine is, for example, a nurse but her happiness is ascribed not to her realising herself as a nurse but to her becoming a doctor's wife...

Even today the union with the husband is of overwhelming importance for the majority of Sweden's women (R. Liljestrom 1968, pp. 64-65). Ms Liljestr6m regards women's social dependence as one of the functions of marriage: ". . . marriage apparently compensates for the lack of social equality as regards differences in income and prestige between men and women" (p. 65). Without contradicting such an assertion I would regard women's social (and economic) dependence on men as a contributary cause of their lack of collective solidarity. In other words, notwithstanding that they are alike in their dependence on men, this similarity also differentiates them: it distinguishes the colonel's wife from the worker's wife and the working woman, the doctor's wife from the nurse.

The female collectivity, which operates on the periphery of the society, "non-participant", with its internal dispersion and lack of solidarity, its dependence on men, is then the material from which a women's movement will be built. This is the population in which common interests will be found, organizations formed and a will to change created.

The women's movement is an organization founded on a collectivity's shared experience of inferiority, and the resulting discontent with its social conditions. It represents the protest of a united collectivity against "limits imposed from outside" and as such it is a participant whose arena is the power game of society.

358



Women take part in the movement, but not only by virtue of their gender, nor as one of the society's two sexual collectivities. Indeed our discussion above led up to the conclusion that the female collectivity is extremely well adjusted to the male society, since it consists of an aggregate of submissive individuals, close to their men (masters) and remote from their fellow women. - The members of the women's movement participate as a group: as individuals interacting with each other, possessing a shared experience of themselves as women, as sisters, based on mutual interaction. In other words, the lack of a women's movement is a lack of women's groups, of a community in which a collective identity and solidarity with each other can be created. The inferior status of women is possible because of various structural barriers to contact and fellowship between them - reinforced by their close alliance with men.

Before 1 go on to characterize the collective actor, the women's movement and its members, let me summarize my conclusions so far, with the help of the following table:

Women may Similarities of women regarded as

The social Orientation of interests created in characteristic sex Interaction with Interaction with

men women

Social category x Social collec-

tivity x x Group x x x

The woman are mobilized on the basis of fellowship of interests. The collectivity has a similarity of interests, founded on their relation to men. Common interests, on the other hand, call for an orientation of interests based on the relation to those whose situation is similar: the women.

Robert Merton distinguishes between a group, a collectivity and a social category:

"Distinct from both groups and collectivities are the social categories. As we have identified them in the preciding chapter social categories are aggregates of social statuses, the occupants of which are not in social interaction. These have like social characteristics - of sex, age, marital condition, income and so on - but are not necessarily oriented toward a distinctive and common body of norms. Having like statuses, and consequently similar interests and values social categories can be mobilized into collectivities or groups. When operating as a group, members of the same social category can be thought of as peer groups or companies of equals (although the usage has developed of conferring the term peer group to groups whose members are of equal age)." (R. Merton, collaborating in this chapter with Alice Rossi 1966, pp. 299-300.)

Or, which is relevant for my study, "peer group" as a group whose

359



members possess the same social attribute, i.e. women. Women are

mobilized not on the basis of their category or collectivity (alone) but as

group members. The women's movement is a group of women which acts

collectively to change "limits imposed from outside". The women's movement then is a collective actor - in the societal

arena - and, as such, mobilizes the women in the society. First in the sense that women are members of its organization, as subscribers, as

board members, as officials and as agitators. . . In other words, mobilization of original and new members. Cf. a memorial publication to the Fredrika Bremer Society:

"One or two groups were then added each year, and by 1938 their number reached 44. In that year Dr Hanna Ryd, the energetic, newly elected chairman, began her journeys over the length and breadth of Sweden. She visited groups of long standing and formed new ones. Her activities left their mark as far north as Haparanda. The Society was gradually growing from a so-called elite into a popular movement. In spring 1944 the groups numbered 80 and the total membership of the Society was 10 250. The years 1905, 1921 and 1938 were landmarks in the history of the groups. The effects of the expansion to come still remain to be experienced". ("I Fredrika Bremers spAr" (In Swedish), 1944, p. 76). On the Social Democratic Women's Movement:

"The Stockholm Public Women's Club, as will be shown in what follows, was the instigator of the co-operation between those of Sweden's women who are organized in the workers' movement....

The Stockholm Public Women's Club was a great attraction from the beginning. At its early meetings the number of new members was recorded in the minutes. Indeed at the meeting on July 26th in the year of its inception no less than 14 new members were noted.

The question of feminist agitation was raised at every party congress, and in 1905 the Stockholm Public Women's Club proposed the appointment of an agitator paid by the party, preferably a woman, who would be exclusively concerned with agitation among women". (H. Flood 1960, pp. 13, 24 & 26).

Nevertheless the women's movement as a collective actor may also be said to mobilize in yet another sense: as an actor on the societal stage it

constitutes a reference group for women, including the non-members. It

is an entity with which other women than those, who are actually members, can identify, and feel affinity. In its capacity as a collective actor the women's movement can seive as "a reference individual" for

many women scattered in all walks of society. Robert Merton distinguishes between reference groups and reference

individuals, arguing that the latter should also be taken into consideration: "Research and theory focus on reference groups to the relative

negelect of reference individuals." (Merton 1966, p. 302). Merton certainly discusses persons as reference individuals - the heroes of

history, for example, and the celebrities of today - whose behaviour and

360



values we may well wish to adopt. Yet I can see no wrong in applying his reasoning in the case when the actor is not a person but an organization. In other words, the women's movement may be an "interaction partner", if not in direct person-to-person interplay then a partner indirectly to many scattered and isolated women. Once it appears as a collective actor it has the capacity to touch and arouse many women, if not the majority. It can offer women an alternative role-model, give them a new awareness of their situation1 .

It seems important to bear in mind these two aspects of the mobilization potential of the women's movement, in order to understand its growth. The first calls for contact, for group structure between the women who are mobilized. (Cf. the table above). The midwives, for example, already existed as an occupational group when they formulated their feministic demands in 1887. The National Union of Women Teachers, founded in 1906, after a break away from the mixed National Union of Teachers is another example (Rossell 1950, p. 65).

In theory, the second offers possibilities of mobilization, in terms of awareness of, and desire to tear down, the restraints of the male society among women who otherwise are "strangers" to each other and to the feminist cause. The feminist front which the National Association for Female Suffrage succeeded in creating during the early 20th century campaign for votes for women is an example of this (L. Wahlstrom 1933, R. Hamrin-Thorell et el. 1969).

Thus the women's movement grows, given my reasoning above, as a social process by which women are mobilized on the basis of contact with, and experience of, each other as members in a group - or as individuals in relation to the movement as an established collective actor, which then serves as their "reference individual".

Nevertheless this is not an exhaustive description of the process. Group solidarity and organizations among women are not a sufficient cause for the emergence of a women's movement. Indeed consider the "typical" women's organizations mentioned above: benevolent societies, women's volontary armed services, wives' clubs, etc are not instances of women's collective protest against, and efforts to change, their conditions. They work rather to preserve the status quo, e.g. the preservation of their husbands' privileged positions as professors, officers, business- men, diplomats etc. Insofar as they do work for change, their ambition is modest: to contribute, by way of rags and bottles collections, to the well being of children and/or elderly people, a water pump in India, a medical station in some other remote part of the world and other humanitarian aims.

Group solidarity, however, seems to be a necessary factor, since the collective ambition "to surmount limits imposed from outside" must be created on a basis of similarity, i.e. in social interaction between women. Moreover in their capacity as a group, women may constitute a collective actor which can interact with other actors, and by this interplay arrive at

361

I We shall also note possible reverse effects of the women's movement as an indirect interaction partner. Merton distinguishes between positive and negative reference groups (-individuals): ". . . the negative type involves motivated rejection, i.e. not merely non-acceptance of norms, but the formation of counter-norms". (p. 302). Thus the women's movement can mobilize a number of women to strong awareness of their traditional fellowship with men and to organize round goals which are in accord with the traditional division between the sexes - which also offers opportunities of "secondary gains", as mentioned above. Merton's discussion of negative reference groups may perhaps provide food for thought if we are to understand why the women's volontary armed forces, Stock- holm's Women's Home Guard, came into existence in 1924. Many Swedish women were working for peace and disarmament at that time. (See R. Hamrin- Thorell 1968). Tidevarvs- gruppen" . . ."the very individuals who held the most demanding posts in the National Association of Liberal Women... then endeavoured to create a liberal way of thought: indeed they took as their slogan "Against dictatorship, against violence, against class consciousness and racism, for democracy, for pacifism, for a just society". (See R. Kell- gren, ed., 1971). We are perhaps justified in suggesting that the existence of this type of women's movement contributed to the emergence of the first wcwm- en's armed services.



an awareness of themselves, of their collective characteristics - not only their attributes as individuals, which are constantly manifested in their

relationships with men. It is in this kind of interaction, in which women

participate as a collective actor, that their protest can be created as a

social phenomenon. As parts of the whole, namely the collective actor, they take its interests as their own. When the collective actor suffers

injury, women as a group are afflicted. The experience of such

interaction creates the movement. Under such circumstances, i.e. women's participation in the society at

the organization level, the structure of values and norms necessary for

the movement comes into being. - A world of concepts which is based

not solely on women's similarity as a social collectivity but on their

shared experience of their sufferings as a group, as a collective actor in

the interaction with other groups or individuals. A world of concepts which is critical of the antagonist in relation to whom the injury was

suffered. "Feminism" then designates the world of concepts or ideology,

in terms of which the experience is interpreted and the protest

articulated. Sociologically we can identify it as a women's culture, if we

accept the definition of culture given by Robert Redfield and Marvin

Olsen (above). In other words, women's common, shared understanding, derived from their "inter-communication", from their interaction with each other.

Not all women's groups undergo the same experience, - cf. the

reasoning above concerning the "typical" women's organizations, but obviously some do. The school teachers, for instance, were confronted in

their salary negotiations in 1906 by a special, and lower, scale compared with that of their male colleagues. The graduate women were allowed at

the tum of century to study side by side with men but were denied the

academic posts for which they were formally qualified. In the 1880's

women were not permitted to join the Social Democratic Society formed in Gothenburg (G.H. Nordstrom 1938, pp. 448f). The congresses of the

Scandinavian Labour parties in Kristiania in 1890 and Malmo in 1892

declared that there was no need for any special organizations to protect women's trade union, or other, interests. Male and female members of

the party should co-operate. Contemporary with these declarations on

co-operation between the men and women of the working class, its

women urged their sisters to form an organization of their own. In 1890

500 women marched in a "Universal Suffrage" demonstration in

Norrkoping, as representatives of the local association of working women. The Stockholm Public Women's Club was founded in 1892, only

two or three years after the Social Democratic Association in the capital

rejected a proposal concerning the formation of a women's club. The

minutes of the northern and central districts' board meeting in autumn

1892 read as follows:

"Palm, however, was again in opposition, and declared his inability to believe that much would be gained by the organization of the women. He

362



was not alone in this opinion. Axel Danielsson, evidently influenced by Strindberg's view of women, declared in the spirit of the programme that it was the duty of the party to organize and educate the working woman, so that she would be fit to exercise the civil rights which must one day be granted to her. But as women had not yet reached this point of maturity he questioned the wisdom of her active participation in, for example, the national election of 1893, a comment which caused Danielsson consider- able embarrassment at the southern district congress in Lund in 1893". (G.H. Nordstrom 1938, p. 452).

At first the Social Democratic Women's Association, represented by the Stockholm Public Women's Club, fought for the feminist cause within the workers' movement. Indeed the question of political agitation among women, and the appointment of a, preferably female, agitator, were raised at congress after congress. Amanda Horney, who represented the Women's Club at the congress in 1905, concluded her address as follows: "Perhaps we women will have to strike to get an agitator" (H. Flood 1960, p. 27).

III. Concluding Remarks

The title of these concluding remarks should perhaps have been "Society and the Women's Movement". My line of reasoning has - I hope - led up to a theoretical description of the social process whereby women join forces in a collective effort to influence and change the social conditions under which they live. My arguments have also indicated the difficulty of rousing the female collectivity. In other words, women tend to be isolated and bound up with their men. The participation of women in a feminist movement calls for a tearing down of various structural barriers to the establishment of essential contact and solidarity among them.

So while I have tended to concentrate on why women do not protest as a group, and on the form taken by a possible protest, I am still faced with the problem of what provokes women to protest. Which conditions in a society favour their collective protest? Which circumstances allow of the emergence of this process?

My paper includes a number of glimpses from the material which I intend to work with in my study to come. I have touched on several -

mainly the historical - women's movements, including the fact that they are numerous. Upper and middleclass women began to join forces in the 1880's - the turn of the working class women came in the following decade. Different categories experience the conditions as favourable for collective mobilization at different times. Indeed it is obvious that women must see their situation differently, since they are different. If not by their own virtues then in their capacity as wives (or daughters), women belong to different social classes. The first feminist organization, for example, The Society of the Married Woman's Property Rights can hardly have been concerned with the vital interests of most Swedish women. The purpose of the Fredrika Bremer Society, as expressed in

363



1884, to work for the improvement of the moral, intellectual, social and economic status of women would scarcely attract the women of the working class, but a fair number of "the society women", as defined by J. Rossell ( 1950).

It would seem reasonable to say that the mobilization of women in their own cause calls for a certain emancipation - emancipation from traditional duties and authorities, in order to join forces in questioning them. Banks and Banks' (1969) study of the 19th century feminist movement in England discusses the upper-class woman's favourable situation for such involvement. The improvement in the living standards of the English middle class (the new upper class) during this period brought its women a new ideal, "the perfect lady" instead of "the perfect housewife": in other words an emancipation from housework to intercourse with each other, and in some cases to "subversive" feminist activities. Ellen Key ( 1909) discusses the positive/subversive influence of "bible study" ("Lasariet" was a religious movement in the late 19th century.) on Swedish women. Bible reading was a first spiritual liberation for daughters and wives: "Insofar as the readers took seriously the biblical teaching to set aside the authority of the family for the sake

of Jesus, homes gradually became accustomed to the idea that a female member would go her own way" (p. 84). Naturally the message which liberated these women did not derive from the Bible, but from the power of the religious movement to involve them in activities outside their traditional domain. The social movements in existence at the turn of the century, and perhaps before it, may very well have contributed to the awakening of women on their own behalf. Among the active feminists was Agda Ostlund, one of the leading lights of the early workers' movement, whose involvement in the temperance movement seems to have promoted her development as a feminist. (H. Flood 1954). Some observers have also correlated the contemporary "women's lib" with other social movements (e.g. J. Mitchell 1972).

Thus without further analysis the question of the women's movement and its societal background - indeed this is one of the main themes in my later discussion of the material - I conclude with the assertion that society has the women's movement it permits rather than the one it deserves.

References

Banks, J.A. & Banks, Olive: Feminism and Family-Planning in Victorian England, London 1969

Banton, M.: Racial Minorities. London 1972 Becker, H.: Outsiders. New York 1966

364



Benstone, M.: Kvinnofrigbrelsens politiska ekonomi. In Matthis & Vestbro: Kvinnokamp./"The struggle of women". Gidlund, Finland 1973

de Beauvoir, Simone: The Second Sex. Penguin Books 1972 Flood, Hulda: Agda Ostlund. Pionjar i genombrottstid./ "Agda 6stlund.

Pioneer at a time of breaking through". Stockholm, 1954 Flood, Hulda: Den socialdemokratiska kvinnor6relsen i Sverige./ "The

Social Democratic Women's movement in Sweden". Stockholm 1960 Goffman, Erving: Stigma. Halmstad 1971 Hamrin-Thorell, Ruth, et alt.: Kvinnans r6st och rdtt/"The vote and the

rights of wo men". Stockholm 1969 1 Fredrika Bremers Spar. Frednka Bremer Forbundet 1884-1944./"In

the foot steps of Fredrika Bremer. The Fredrika Bremer Association 1884-1944". Stockholm 1944

Kellgren, Ragna (editor): Kvinnan i politiken. Ur den radikala politiska veckotidningen Tidevarvet (1923-1936)/"The woman in politics. From the radical political magazine the Tidevarvet (1923-1936)". Tema, Halmstad 1971

Key, Ellen: Kvinnororelsen/ "The Women's Movement". Stockholm 1909

Larsson, Mai: Kvinnor i tidsspegeln. En bok om Centerns kvinnofor- bund./"Women in the mirror of time. A book about the women's association of the Center Party ". Kristianstad 1973

Liljestr6m, Rita: Jamstalldhetens villkor. Man och kvinnor i dagens varld./"Conditions of equality. Men and women in today's world". Uddevalla 1968

Liljestr6m, Rita: Uppvaxtvillkor. Samspelet mellan vuxna och barn i ett foranderligt samhalle./ "Conditions of growing up. The interplay between grown ups and children in a changing society". Uddevalla 1973

Merton, Robert: Social Theory and Social Structure. New York 1966 Mitchell, Juliet: Den nya kvinnor6relsen./"The New Women's Move-

ment". Stockholm 1972 Moller, Hanne et. alt.: Udsigten fra det kvindelige univers./"The View

from the Female Univers". R0de Hane Forlag 1972 Nordstrom, Hilding: Sveriges Socialdemokratiska arbetareparti under

genombrottsAren./ "The Social Democratic Labor-Party during its years of breaking through". Stockholm 1938

Olsen, Marvin: The Process of Social Organization. New York 1968 Palme, S. U.: Vid valurnorna och i riksdagen under femtio ir.!"At the

election urns and in parliament during fifty years". In Hamrin-Thorell, et. alt. 1969

Qvist, Gunnar: Statistik och politik. Landsorganisationen och kvinnorna pa arbetsmarknaden./"Statistics and politics. The Associated Swedish Labor Unions and the women in the labor market". Stockholm 1974

Rossi, Alice: Equality between the sexes: An immodest proposal. Daedalus vol. 93, no. 2, 1964

365



Russell-Hochschild, Arlie: A Review of Sex Role Research. American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, no. 4 1973

Rosell, James: Kvinnorna och kvinnororelsen i Sverige 1850-1950./ "The women and the women's movement in Sweden 1850-1950". Stockholm 1950

Smelser, Neil. J.: Essays in Sociological Explanation. New York 1968 Smitt, Clara: Kvinnans stallning i samhallet. N&gra inlagg i nutidens

sociala sporsmil./ "The woman's position in society. A contribution to the social questions of today". Stockholm 1887

Wahistrom, Lydia: Den svenska kvinnor6relsen. Historisk 6versikt./"The women's movement in Sweden. Historical overview". Stockholm 1933

As, Berit: Om kvinnekultur./"About the culture of women". Mimeo, undated

366



the women's movement: a theoretical discussion

Documents