Creating a voice - acquiring rights. Women in the Norwegian Mission Society and the process towards formal organizational rights in 1904*

Abstract

In 1904 women in the Lutheran Norwegian Mission Society (NMS) went from having no organizational rights to gaining full rights to vote and partial eligibility to organizational boards. The process towards formal rights for women took place in the NMS parallel with a general development in women's rights in the Norwegian society. The NMS was part of this women's awareness-movement, indirectly and directly furthering it through its work, being the largest women's organization in Norway at the time. Contrary to the myth of the passive and submissive Christian woman, women in the NMS worked both indirectly and directly to acquire the right to formal influence. This case further shows how some women in the mission developed emancipatorical and women-conscious interests and views through their mission engagement. Some women used their mission engagement as an emancipatorical force. For them, women's emancipation had a theological inspiration and legitimation.