Shelters in Denmark For Battered Women - European Commission

1 st phase: The Traditional Structure – up until the 1960’s
Historically, domestic violence has to a large extent been socially accepted as a way of the
husband’s emphasising his position as head of the family. The issue was not even taken up
as a subject in what the political scientist Drude Dahlerup in her studies calls the first two
waves in the history of the Women’s Movement in Denmark (Dahlerup, 1998). Dahlerup
identifies the first wave taking off in 1871, when Dansk Kvindesamfund (Eng.: Danish
Women’s Society) was founded, being the first organisation fighting for women’s rights
and for a general improvement of women’s living conditions. The main topic at that time
was women’s right to acknowledgment as citizens, e.g. having rights such as access to education,
work and spiritual stimulation, as well as legal rights to dispose of income from
work even when married.
The second wave took place from 1905 to the 1920’s around the fight for women’s right to
vote (Dahlerup 1998). Building up the broadest alliances of women organisation in history,
the movement was able to organise a demonstration to the Parliament gathering 10,000-
12,000 women. Their claim was fulfilled in 1915, when women got the right to vote and to
run for elections. During this period, the legal and formal position of women was improving.
In the family sphere, the married mother obtained the right to custody of her children,
and domestic work was equalised with paid work in so far as the marriage legislation introduced
equal division of property at divorce or death.
In spite of a significant proportion of the female population being on the traditional labour
market (Borshost & Siim, 1984) mainly in farming and house work, often assisting their
husbands, women were not seen as providers, but on the contrary as responsible for the
house keeping. Labour division between the sexes referred women to economic dependency
on her husband. Traditionally, women’s labour position followed her marital status, hence
being on the labour market before marriage, and then becoming a housewife after being
married.
From the 1930’s with the upcoming of the Danish Welfare State, women moved into the
modern sector, mainly in the public area. Also women from the middleclass began entering
the labour force, hereby facing what working class women had already faced for a long
time, i.e. double work when still being in charge also of the domestic chores. The gender
roles were though beginning to be challenged.
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