North South. Gendered Views from Norway

Global gender history – a new research area?
Constructing nations and nation states is also about creating concepts of gender-linked behaviour. The duties and rights individuals have within the nations’ framework are related to the cultural formation of a gendered national symbolism. Clothing such as national costumes are symbols that express a nation’s character. Based on an analysis of Norway and Iceland, Ida Blom discusses how the meaning of gender and class are contained in national symbolism.

Globalisation, Place and Gender
In studies of globalisation, the point of view is generally "global" as well, meaning that one searches for a global overview, or outlook, which is situated at no specific place. The present paper requests a shift of focus arguing that to understand what is global you have to start with the local. The experiences of the global take place in particular local places, and to study such processes of change we need to situate our study in such a way that we can study the relationships between the local and the global.

Women in Christian Mission:Protestant Encounters from the 19th and 20th century
In 1904 a Muganda Chief described the lack of a Christian boarding school for girls as ‘the Muganda’s broken arm’, since boy’s education was already established. As a response, the Ladies’ Conference of the Church Missionary Society recommended that such a school should be built at Gayaza, (today a 30-minute drive from Kampala). The school opened in 1905 and the first Headmistress Miss Alfreda Allen wrote, 'My conviction is that we ought to give these people, who are so eager and enthusiastic to learn, the best we can.' [1] By then Bishop Tucker had opened the school hall with the following message to the audience that included the Katikiro and many chiefs: ‘There must be noble women in order to have noble men.’ The first aim of Gayaza was to train Christian wives and mothers and to bridge the intellectual gap between husbands and wives. And when the time came for His Highness the Kabaka to marry, it was to Gayaza that His Highness looked for a bride.

Missionary Women and Feminism in Norway, 1906-1910
This article presents evidence of direct links between the women’s missionary movement and the feminist movement in early twentieth-century Norway. Contemporary scholars disagree on whether women in the missionary movement were supporting and promoting feminist ideas at the time (Nyhagen Predelli 2000a). That the effects of the women’s missionary movement included the expansion of women’s spheres of action, and the changing of cultural assumptions about what women can accomplish, is not so much disputed. More controversial is the question of whether missionary women had feminist views and thereby represented a specific type of feminism. The debate on missionary women’s links to feminism must be informed by careful case-studies of the mission organizations that women were involved in. This article is a contribution to that effort.

Religion Confronting Women’s Human Rights: The Case of Roman Catholicism
This article is based on the author's research, undertaken since 1961, concerning formative Christian anthropology. Conflicts between normative religion and women’s rights are already well analysed concerning Islam, but rather unexplored concerning traditional Christianity. The author explores conflicts between traditional Christianity and women's rights, notably the refusal of women's rights to reproductive autonomy and women's cultic capability. The article demonstrates how the collapse of androcentrism, or 'the epistemological revolution of feminism' shakes the core of Catholic and Orthodox doctrinal symbolism.

Human Rights and Gender Relations in Postcolonial Africa: Options and Limits for the Subjects of Legal Pluralism
To comply with international human rights standards, many African governments are gradually replacing their gender-specific and family-based customary and religious laws with new legislation molded on an individualistic, equal-status ideal. Judicial reforms and legal outreach programs that set out to make the new law accessible to local communities have been launched.

Risk factors for cervical cancer in Mozambican women
Cervical cancer is the most prevalent cancer and the leading cause of death from cancers among women in sub-Saharan Africa.Berit Rostad, Berit Schei and F. da Costa identify in their article the risk factors for the development of cervical cancer in women in Mozambique. They show us that cancer of the cervix is more prevalent in lower socioeconomic groups, and emphasize the significance of women's sexual activity. Multiple sexual partners leads to an elevated risk of contracting an infectious agent, playing a causal role for the development of cervical neoplasia.