ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is on contemporary feminism in action, and the settings are three outstanding modern deviations from the gender rule; the Green party in West Germany, the Norwegian political system and the Icelandic Kwennalistinn. These are exceptions which in many respects recall, but in others certainly surpass those witnessed in the past. For one thing, women’s recruitment has reached much higher levels than before; some Norwegian feminists have even wondered if they have achieved the ‘critical mass’ they need to integrate pro-woman programmes. The settings and strategies involved are also slightly more diverse. In Scandinavia, women have advanced within the framework of traditional mixed parties and an integrationist strategy, but in cooperation with a separate, women’s movement. In West Germany, women’s exceptional progress came about through the medium of a mixed-sex party but one which is derived from radical ‘new’ social movements and is ostensibly ‘anti-system’ in spite of its conventional success. Iceland, however, is something altogether new, with the meteoric rise of a separate, unequivocally feminist women’s list to what may be a pivotal role in the Icelandic parliament.
