All of a sudden there was no escape: Publicly listed companies in Norway had to comply with the law requiring a 40 % female quota for board members. And indeed: It quickly worked. What happened?

In 1959, the Norwegian Parliament ended the practice of establishing lower wage scales for women than for men.
“The Norwegian Employers’ Association used deliberate, cynical means to ensure that female-dominated jobs remained low paying. The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) failed the cause of equal pay by accepting this,” says Professor Inger Bjørnhaug.

Does state support for voluntary organisations curtail creativity and force activists to focus on what the government wants them to?

Can a woman be a genuine martyr? Is it a compliment to say to a woman that she is “equal to a thousand men”? Feminist activists in Iran are waging an ideological war on Facebook.

Both voters and political parties use the opportunities they have to give extra votes to female politicians of ethnic minority background.

In Norway condoms are distributed to prostitutes, while in Sweden this runs counter to its zero-tolerance policy. The idea of a common Nordic model for dealing with prostitution is not reflected in practice.

The way in which women are represented in the media is getting worse every day, according to professor of Communication and Media Studies Liesbet van Zoonen. However, the representation of the Norwegian female politicians Siv Jensen and Erna Solberg, may be the exception from the general rule.