Women in decision-making: The Norwegian Paradox

Concluding remark
Finally, I will reflect upon how the Norwegian gender equality discourse handles the paradox
of an extreme male dominance in formal positions of power and influence combined with a
strong commitment to equality values. The dominant discourse on elite levels of society
portrays equality as a kind of nationally encapsulated and largely harmonious common
“journey”. The equality rhetoric claims that problems of gendered power are “almost solved”,
that only “a few problems remains” before gender equality is actually “achieved”.
Consequently the public debate is seldom concerned with issues of discrimination or other
unpleasant matters. Gender equality is seen as a linear process where we all, together,
continuously take new steps towards the goal. The goal can be “far ahead”, but still securely
within reach; we just have to travel for long and far enough. Gender equality is pasted into a
language of concerted action that creates continued illusions of a change in “the right
direction” happening all the time.
The travel metaphor adds to the construction of a seeming consensus on gender
equality. Problems of individual and structural discrimination and misrecognition are simply
bypassed. Gender equality is given a yielding duty - as they conceal informal power structures
and hide the fact that equality often is a matter of concrete clashes of interests and rights. The
public debate then becomes featured by what we have called the problem of benevolent noncommittal.
Principles of gender equality often have to yield “a little”, and become politics that
lack systematic priority. Rather the public debate is characterized by ad hoc interventions and
measures, not general, systematic efforts to achieve gender equality. Adopted measures
appear as delimited interventions. Thus, many of us will, with great excitement, follow the
impact corporate board quotas, will have, both in relation to implementations and sanctions,
and not the least if and how this may affect gender hierarchies of power and positions within
business life, but also more broadly in relation to our understandings of gender, capital and
power in society.
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