The historical roots of differing rural gender orders in Norway and Sweden

Abstract

Offering a systematic comparison of the history of the differing rural gender orders that have developed in Norway and Sweden since 1750, this article considers the complex interconnections between gender and capitalist relations. It begins by highlighting the contrasts between these two Scandinavian countries’ settlement patterns, agricultural structures and rural gender orders, in spite of the similarities in their environments, social-democratic policies and commitments to gender equality. Within a theoretical framework focused on the persistence of simple commodity production by farming families within capitalist economies, it considers the gender division of labour, commodity systems, and laws of succession and inheritance as they bear upon the positions of farm women in Norway and Sweden. Tracing the development of stratification in the countryside and the history of farmers’ political activism at the national level illuminates the salient differences between these two countries’ histories from the early 19th through the late 20th centuries. This comparison demonstrates that gender as well as the mobilization of rural citizens shaped the transition to capitalism and that, in turn, agricultural and settlement policies reshaped rural gender relations.