ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the historical role of women in organizational society (the voluntary sector) and with the ongoing transformation of this role resulting from far-reaching changes in organized social life and the decline of the complementary conception of the role. We shall take a closer look at the processes which alter the position of women in organizational society and thus in civil society. The transformation of women’s role has implications for the state of democracy at the most fundamental level (Selle and Øymyr 1995:295). Thus, even though this chapter is on ‘women’, it is at the same time about profound changes in Norwegian civil society in which women are a main example.
