Introduction

For young Scandinavian women, certain central elements in the Scandinavian welfare states have been part of their upbringing – for example, equal opportunity policy and the role of public provision in day-care institutions – and they therefore expect equal citizenship rights for men and women. Gender and equality have been hotly debated topics throughout the lifetime of young Scandinavian women.

Although the young generation did not live through the female political mobilisation that followed the second wave of feminism from the 1960s through the 1980s, feminism has had an effect on young women's gender-identity formation. Most of their mothers belong to the generation of women who were the driving force in the New Women's Movement, and although the mothers may not have participated actively in the movement, they were influenced by the increased female political radicalisation and mobilisation and by the equality debates and changes that followed in the wake of the movement. In Denmark, the label ‘the daughters of the Redstocking Movement’ symbolises the position young women are expected to have in relation to the new feminist movement (Sværke, 2005). Obviously, not all mothers are feminists, but it is still a fair assumption that parents as well as young people have felt the impact of the radical changes in gender relations brought about by the New Women's Movement and later institutionalised to varying degrees in the Scandinavian welfare states. These changes and influences constitute a dynamic interplay between general structural changes and new conditions and frameworks for individual subjectivity and (gender) identity work.

But what do contemporary young women think about feminism and equality? What are their dreams and visions for the future? How do they see themselves in relation to their future work life, perhaps combined with family and children? These are some of the questions that will be discussed in this chapter. The purpose is to identify young women's subject positions and their creation of gender identities by analysing (1) their attitudes towards feminism, and (2) their attitudes towards some key issues associated with gender equality in the Scandinavian welfare states. First of all, however, I want to introduce my approach, some key issues and the empirical data on which the analysis is based.